Businesses in Malaysia more cloud-ready than Singapore: Study

• It also beats Singapore on cybersecurity by a respectable margin
• APAC leads the world in cloud readiness, regional association says

 
MALAYSIAN businesses are more cloud-ready than those in Singapore, according to the new Cloud Readiness Index (CRI) 2016 study recently released by the Asia Cloud Computing Association.
 
In fact, entrepreneurs in Malaysia are better poised to adopt cloud technology than any of their Asian counterparts save for Japan, the association said in a statement.
 
The Asia Cloud Computing Association is an apex industry association that represents stakeholders of the cloud computing ecosystem in Asia. Its CRI study measures the cloud readiness of economies along 10 parameters.
 
According to the Asia Cloud Computing Association, Malaysia ranked higher (7.6) than Singapore (7.3) and Hong Kong (7.4) on the two parameters which indicate how prepared a country is in adopting cloud computing.
 
Outranked only by Japan (8.3), Malaysia emerged as an undisputed leader in South-East Asia when it came to business sophistication.
 
Malaysian cloud companies benefit in particular from emerging industry clusters and with a range of local suppliers ready to play their part.
 
It also beat Singapore on cybersecurity by a respectable margin. According to the study, Malaysia has the best cybersecurity measures in place in the region.
 
However, it scored poorly on connectivity and data centre risk but showed improvement on eight of the 10 parameters covered in the CRI.
 
APAC leads the pack
 
The CRI 2016 also found economies like Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia scoring higher than Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.
 
Asia Pacific economies are indeed leading the world in cloud readiness, the association said.
 
“The cloud has mainstreamed as a technology,” said Asia Cloud Computing Association executive director Lim May-Ann (pic).
 
“Public sector adoption of the cloud is underway, and we see that multiple accreditation schemes are the next challenge which businesses will face with governments.
 
“The next phase for markets is to put in place strong forward-looking policies which enable international data transfers, and address cybersecurity and privacy concerns from consumers and business,” she added.
 
The CRI study sees some upsets in the Asia Pacific rankings. Hong Kong claims the top position, climbing four spots and toppling two-time leading country Japan, which dropped four places to No 5.
 
Singapore climbed two ranks into second place, while Taiwan (6), Philippines (9), Indonesia (11) and India (12) also progressed.
 
Countries that fell in the rankings include New Zealand (3), Australia (4), South Korea (7), Thailand (10), and China (13).
 
Holding steady are Malaysia (8) and Vietnam (14), the Asia Cloud Computing Association said.
 
This is also the first time that the 14-market Asia Pacific-focused CRI study includes a sample of six non-Asian markets for comparative analysis.
 
When ranked against their Asia Pacific counterparts, Germany and the United Kingdom ranked 3rd, the United States was No 5; and Brazil, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) tied at No 8.

“The results put Asia in a very strong position to lead the next wave of global innovation and technology,” said Asia Cloud Computing Association chairman Bernie Trudel.
 
“Asia Pacific is poised to outperform as it leads the world into the digital age, driven by cloud computing technologies,” he added.
 
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