When it comes to cloud providers, you’d be forgiven for only thinking of the well-known brands with sizeable budgets who shout the loudest about their products. It is also completely understandable to want to choose a large reputable brand that you know and trust, just for the simple fact that you have heard of them before. Microsoft Azure are a great example of this.

Did you know that ‘More than 95% of Fortune 500 companies use Azure’ and who can blame them. Azure caters well for these global giants with thousands of employees and large IT teams to manage the Azure platform around the clock. But what about other Enterprises? I’m not talking about large enterprises with typically 250+ employees who again are likely to have their own in-house IT team to manage their cloud – I am talking about the small to medium enterprises who don’t necessarily have the resources in-house. Typically, Azure doesn’t cater well for these organisations and here’s why;

• Solutions are packaged so you end up paying for features you may not need.
• Getting help with issues requires emailing a Helpdesk so you won’t necessarily get a swift resolution.
• In-house expertise is required to manage the platform and carry out troubleshooting and patch updates etc.
• Fixed pricing that isn’t tailored to your needs.

This is where smaller cloud providers come into their own. Aimed specifically at SME’s, the services they offer are designed to meet the needs of businesses of this size. Feature wise they can offer you the same great solutions, often with extra features that the larger providers can’t. They recognise that typically SMEs wouldn’t have their own IT teams to manage the daily grind of technical issues and most importantly, IT budgets will be limited.
Benefits of using a smaller cloud provider;

• Customers are supported by the people that maintain the platform – not a 3rd party.
• Options to upgrade to a fully managed service whereby you don’t need an in-house IT team, everything can be managed for you including patch updates, security and more.
• Customisable services – only pay for what you need with a tailored solution specific to your organisation.
• Simple set up, reliability and scalability – supporting your businesses growth now and in the future.