Cloud computing is about to revolutionise the way that companies do business in the UK according to recent research from the independent analysts at Gartner, which predicts that Britain is on the cusp of a widespread adoption of the cloud.

Increased pressure on business owners to cut costs means that Cloud Computing is expected to become main stream in around two-five years time. Major safety concerns associated with Cloud Computing appear to be dissipating as a result of the enhanced security offered by the private cloud which acts primarily as an internal and exclusive server. The main benefit of this new wave is that it provides all the advantages of owning an in house server without the hassle or expense of maintaining one.

The mass adoption of the new wave of Cloud Computing by SMEs is being driven by the flexibility that it offers according to Gartner. The private cloud sits hand in glove with the core operations of a business and works seamlessly with the ebb and flow of business demands but offers companies the flexibility of having a hybrid solution. Gartner further claims that most SME's will be inclined towards the new wave which incorporates the benefits of on-premise solutions with all the advantages of operating from the Cloud.

Tim Wallis, CEO of Content and Code, market leader in Microsoft's Cloud Computing offering (Business Productivity Online Suite) says: "Content and Code is experiencing a heavy demand from companies that need to operate programs which cannot be taken into the Cloud and therefore require their IT providers to offer a hybrid solution which incorporates all the benefits of both on premise and Cloud Computing. We can now offer them that flexibility."

SMEs can expect to make considerable savings by converting to the Cloud according to research. Gartner predicts this ‘new wave' in cloud computing to be responsible for its growth to a total market value of several billion pounds by the year 2014, according to the latest figures.