Communications and Technology Industry Research

Funambol, a leader of smart personal cloud sync solutions, on August 9 announced what it says is the first survey concerning “personal clouds.” The report, "Personal Cloud Survey: Hype vs. Reality," includes responses from 232 people in 49 countries. It reveals interest in personal clouds (i.e. digital lockers), as long as they are secure, private and support the devices that people own.

Report highlights were:

• 75 percent of users plan to use the personal cloud to store rich media and digital data.
• 67 percent would be willing to pay, with $5 per month being the most popular price point.

The research uncovered additional high growth potential for the personal cloud market:

• 88 percent plan to store contacts in the cloud; 85 percent said files; 80 percent said calendars; and 69 percent said photos.
• 81 percent plan to store between 25 percent and 75 percent of their data in the cloud; 12 percent plan to store all of it.
• 72 percent said they would use it for both business and personal use; 26 percent said only for personal use.
• 30 percent said they would buy commercial content for their personal cloud; 51 percent said they might.
• 51 percent said that managing multiple personal clouds could become a big issue in the future.
• Security, privacy and broad device support are the most desired attributes.

While admitting sample size and selection randomness makes the report somewhat anecdotal and subject to interpretation, Hal Steger, Funambol (News - Alert) VP of Marketing stated, "The survey results indicate that there is a large untapped market for digital locker services, which complements Forrester Research's (News - Alert) recent estimate that the personal cloud market would reach $12B in the U.S. by 2016. This also shows that the market, driven by several trends, including the rapid proliferation of mobile devices, and new industry offerings, such as Apple (News - Alert) iCloud and Funambol MediaHub, is not just hype."

While Funambol has a vested interest in the results -- and with the caveat that it is indeed wise not to read too much into the report for the reasons the company cites -- a few things jump out of the findings.

First, given the popularity of things like web mail, where things like addresses, calendars, etc. are stored in what we are now calling “The Cloud,” it is not surprising that there is a consumer comfort level with storing more. In addition, coupling that comfort level with a desire for that cloud experience to be trusted, i.e., secure and private, is no surprise.

What is surprising/promising is the large number of respondents who indicated a willingness to pay. The concern about managing multiple digital lockers is also one that tends to be a forgotten part of the equation, and it is nice to see it pop up on consumers’ radar.

On the last point, we have all dealt with the frustration of managing and synching our multiple online and device-dependent digital personae. This points to the real opportunity services and apps providers. As I have detailed recently, the battle for the high-ground of the Internet is being played out globally with the emergence of ecosystem wars. The goal of customer engagement with one’s ecosystem is to entice you in, provide a security blanket of capabilities and dissuade you from ever leaving the ecosystem environment. Browsers, clouds, app stores, operating systems and partners are all part of this war.

It is not just about whether people are interested in digital lockers; it is about who will hold the combination. It will be interesting to see what buying behavior and future research reveals about which personal cloud consumers prefer. This is not a case of if, but when, how and who.

Peter Bernstein is a technology industry veteran, having worked in multiple capacities with several of the industry's biggest brands, including Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Telcordia, HP, Siemens, Nortel, France Telecom (News - Alert), and others, and having served on the Advisory Boards of 15 technology startups. To read more of Peter's work, please visit his columnist page.