More than half of enterprises in Europe now use at least one public cloud platform, new research has shown.

According to a report from Forrester, cloud platforms such as AWS or Azure are present in every second company across the EU (53 per cent). What it also says is that cloud is no longer perceived only as means of saving money, but also as a tool which improves flexibility, increases a company’s agility, and boosts the overall digital transformation efforts.

In a blog post discussing the findings, Forrester’s senior analyst, Paul Miller, also said that Brexit has forced UK cloud customers to ‘play it safe’.

The use of public cloud in the UK is on the rise, but private cloud is rising, as well.

“Instead of continuing to slow, reported use of on-premises private clouds jumped from around a third in 2016 to more than 60 per cent in 2017,” he writes.

“Are companies with UK operations hedging their bets, and preparing for every possible Brexit outcome? Is Brexit uncertainty actually making them adopt cloud more quickly than they otherwise might? If so, it will be interesting to see how much of this sudden enthusiasm for private cloud survives once we better understand where the Brexit process will leave UK businesses.”

Source: Public Cloud Reaches European Mainstream, But Brexit Complicates UK Picture