People tend to forget that cloud computing is not for business only. The cloud empowers nearly every sector, including education. Indeed, the rate of cloud adoption by K-12 and higher education is stunning – that’s why cloud vendors – IBM and Microsoft to name a couple – are pushing their services to educational institutions.

According to a research, by 2011, there are 27 percent and 34 percent IT pros are mingling with cloud-based technology in their schools or district. This is a healthy figure, supporting educational institutions’ keen interest on cloud computing.

It’s still early – most education institutions are still in discovery phase, considering whether the cloud is the real answer for their computing needs (32 percent.) Now check this out: 29 percent are planning and 28 percent are implementing the cloud, but only 6 percent is maintaining their cloud. We can derive from the stats that a total of 57 percent of educational institutions are ready to buy the right cloud solutions; this is where cloud vendors enter.

What the above means for schools? The cloud vendors will compete for your business, meaning you can get the best offer from the best cloud solutions. Your due diligence would be to write the small prints, focusing on issues, such as data jurisdiction, service uptime guarantees, and some other data-related and service-reliability issues.

Check out this infographic for a deeper look into the cloud computing trends in education.

Via OnlineColleges.net