TECHNOLOGY
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M ost of us would accept COVID-19 has hastened digital transformation and further accelerated pre-pandemic trends , such as moving operations to the Cloud . According to the 2021 Gartner Board of Directors Survey , 69 percent of corporate directors want to speed up enterprise digital strategies to deal with ongoing disruption resulting from the pandemic .
Moreover , 86 percent of respondents deemed technology as having a transformational role in addressing strategic business priorities , which is why most organizations are expected to create a new ‘ Chief Digital Officer ’ role to respond to COVID- 19 in the long term .
Before the pandemic took hold , in its quarterly results ending September 30 2020 , Microsoft ’ s commercial cloud revenues shot up 31 percent yearon-year to $ 15.2 billion while revenue in Intelligent Cloud totalled $ 13 billion , a 20 percent rise . The trend was already set .
Then COVID hit . Remote working sent the Cloud to new heights – but productivity gains had to be balanced by security concerns . To rein in expenses , leaders worked hard to improve integrated threat protection to reduce the risk of costly breaches and acquire security solutions .
Now looking longer term , nearly 40 percent of businesses are prioritizing investments in Cloud Security ( Cloud Access Security Broker , Cloud Workload Protection Platform , Cloud Security Posture
FEBRUARY 2021