Despite the hype, cloud applications do not rule the large corporation though cloud usage is expected to increase significantly, said a TCS global study.
Many companies are still reluctant to put applications with sensitive data in the cloud.
The survey said corporate cloud applications will increase by an average 18 per cent by 2014.
The most aggressive adopters of cloud applications are companies in the Asia Pacific and Latin America, said the study. These regions show a much higher proportion of cloud applications to total applications.
The US and Europe remain conservative about putting mission-critical and customer data on the cloud.
Cloud applications are still in the minority of all applications in companies (19 per cent of the average large US company's applications, 12 per cent in Europe, 28 per cent in Asia-Pacific, and 39 per cent in Latin American companies). But the ratio of cloud to on-premises applications is expected to increase greatly by 2014.
Biggest driver
The other findings of the survey are that the biggest driver of cloud applications is not to cut IT costs. Rather, it was to standardise software applications and business processes across a company. The other driver was the need to ramp systems up or down faster.
Customer facing business functions are garnering the largest share of the cloud application budget, said the study. Marketing, sales and service are capturing at least 40 per cent of that budget in all four regions.