IT Pros Resist Moving Messaging to the Cloud

In a recent Instant Poll on the Exchange & Outlook page, I asked the question, "How will the addition of Exchange 2010 to Microsoft's Exchange Online offering affect your decision to choose hosted Exchange?" Here are the results:

From these results, it looks like most of our readers are still highly opposed to messaging in the cloud. I have to wonder what the resistance is based on: Traditional security fears? Lack of trust in the cloud infrastructure? Fear of outsourcing your own job? Or perhaps something more complex or a combination of elements? It also makes me wonder why, if the IT pros are still so set against cloud computing, the industry analysts and tech speculators continue to tout this as the next big thing.

When it comes down to it, though, I wonder how often the decision to move to cloud-based messaging systems will be made by the business leaders with little or no input from the IT departments. The marketing people are really good at selling this vision of the cloud as not just a coming thing but here now—I know; I've talked to quite a few of them. As IT pros, what holes do you find in this vision? What are the problems for your IT departments with cloud computing, and specifically with running Exchange Server or other messaging services in the cloud? And do you think the hosted vendors can overcome these problems any time soon?

As always, if you have thoughts on the matter and are interested in sharing, feel free to leave a comment below or contact me: [email protected], or on Twitter, @bkwins. Meanwhile, for that small minority who are considering jumping into the cloud, here are a couple of articles that could help you get there:

Related Reading:

Migrating to Hosted Exchange

Moving Exchange to the Cloud, Part 1

Moving Exchange to the Cloud, Part 2