THE 20 TOTALLY MOST POPULAR CLOUD SERVICES IN TODAY’S ENTERPRISE

By Brandon Cook, Director of Product Marketing, Skyhigh Networks

CIOs, CISOs, analysts, journalists, and employees alike are always curious about which cloud services are…like…the most popular and frequently used in the enterprise. This type of information is useful in that it indicates employee demand for services, divulges potential locations of corporate data in public clouds, and highlights adoption trends.

However, obtaining reliable data here from vendors or employees can be next to impossible. Survey data measure perception at best. But, with data from over 10.5 million employees across over 200 corporations, Skyhigh has real usage data on the most popular cloud services in the enterprise. So, without further ado, here are both the top 20 most popular enterprise cloud services and top 20 most popular consumer apps in the enterprise.

Top 20 Most Popular Enterprise Cloud Services

The Top 20 Enterprise Cloud Services list offers insight into the cloud apps and services that business are standardizing on and provides CIOs with a short-list of services that have reached mass-adoption across enterprises.

The data shows that four vendors have successfully transitioned their legacy on-premise software to the cloud (i.e. Microsoft Office 365, SAS On Demand, Informatica Cloud, and Ariba – an SAP company).

Three companies on the list have successfully accomplished multi-billion dollar disruptions (i.e. Saleforce, ServiceNow, and SuccessFactors – an SAP company). And one company on the list has created a new category, Web-Conferencing, replacing the legacy office rituals of in-person meetings.

Several services, including Splunk Storm, SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, and Get Satisfaction showed remarkable growth rates but have not yet cracked the Enterprise Top 20. The top four categories represented are Collaboration (4 services), Business Intelligence (2) Development (2), and Marketing (2).

Top 20 Most Popular Consumer Apps in the Enterprise

While our primary focus is on trends in enterprise cloud usage, it is also important to be mindful of consumer apps used in the enterprise. There are legitimate reasons employees are using consumer apps in the enterprise – for example, a social media manager posting on the company’s Facebook page to engage with users, or a UX designer using Pinterest to create a design “look-an-feel-book” for an upcoming project.

However, consumer apps can present real risks to enterprises. Data loss in consumer apps can occur due to malware or insider threat. Skyhigh routinely sees and alerts its customers to incidents where sites such as Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest are used to exfiltrate data. Data loss can also occur due to the acceptance of terms and conditions related to IP ownership. Additionally, one popular site, VK, has a history of piracy-related usage.

For example, users of Prezi, the cloud-based presentation and collaboration service, grant the company “irrevocable and royalty-free rights to use, distribute, and otherwise exploit” the content that the users upload. Additionally, apps in categories such as Content Sharing and Media Services can have significant implications on bandwidth.

Google, Yahoo, and Facebook dominate the list, and the top three categories represented are Content Sharing (7 Services), Social Media (7), and Collaboration (4).

To see all the data and discover more interesting facts about today’s enterprise cloud usage, download the full Q2 Cloud Adoption and Risk Report here.