UK becomes ‘laggard’ in creating cloud friendly market

In an index that ranks cloud computing readiness and cloud computing policies around the world, the UK ranks just nine out of 24 leading IT economies.

This fall of two places since the last ranking in 2013, is a sign that the UK is in “danger of lagging behind” other faster-moving nations in creating an ideal legal and regulatory environment for cloud computing.

So says the 2016 BSA Global Cloud Computing Scorecard, which covers 80 percent of the world’s IT markets. Each country is graded on its strengths and weaknesses in seven key policy areas.

This year’s report finds that although the UK has a comprehensive set of cyber and data protection laws in place, “outdated” data registration laws are acting as a barrier to some cloud services.

As a result, it has been outranked in the report this year by the likes of Italy (8th) and Canada (4th). The UK has dropped a total of three places since the first edition of the report in 2012.

“It’s worrying to see the UK starting to fall behind other faster moving nations in creating policies which enable cloud innovation,” said Victoria Espinel, CEO of BSA | The Software Alliance. “It’s critical for leading nations like the UK to be on the front foot in creating robust policy frameworks fit for the digital age to prevent protectionism, so governments, businesses and consumers can benefit from the various benefits cloud computing offers.”

In terms of overall ranking, the biggest improvers were South Africa, moving up six places and Canada, moving up five places.

The top five countries in the rankings are: Japan, the US, Germany, Canada and France.

Few countries however are promoting policies of free trade or harmonisation of cloud computing policies, says the report. Russia and China, in particular, have imposed new policies that will “hinder” cloud computing by limiting the ability of cloud computing service providers to adequately move data across borders.

The full, 24-country rankings and detailed findings are available at:

www.bsa.org/cloudscorecard

@AntonySavvas

Antony Savvas

York, UK-based Antony Savvas has been a technology journalist for 25 years and has expertise in all major areas of enterprise and consumer IT. He has worked for a number of leading technology magazines and websites and his work is syndicated across the internet. He also undertakes corporate work for some of the world's leading technology companies.