Microsoft: 90% of Canadian execs don’t know what the cloud is

We’ve always been known more for our banks and miners, but a new report from Microsoft Canada suggests Canadian business’s awareness of technology is downright bleak.

Microsoft Canada President Janet Kennedy was on BNN’s “Business Day” this morning to talk about a study the company conducted of Canada’s C-Suite Executives. Kennedy says that while awareness is better at the large company level, one of the major findings the study revealed was a very poor awareness of the cloud, especially from small and medium sized businesses. Microsoft found 90% of senior Canadian executives are unaware of the cloud’s meaning, but 67% said they are “beginning to familiarize themselves with it”.

The other big revelation from the C-Suite Cloud Survey was that Canadian execs had outsized and ongoing concerns about data security and privacy. Kennedy says this reticence doesn’t line up with what is already happening in this country.

“The reality is today, whether you are a Canadian consumer or a business you are already running at least one cloud based service; email, data storage, collaboration tools. In fact, here in Canada 5.5-million students every day run one of Microsoft’s Office 365 cloud-based productivity tools,” she said.

The Microsoft Canada boss, who took her current role last October, says concerns about cloud security belong to another era.

“Would you rather have your money in a bank, or you would you rather have it under your mattress?” Kennedy said was her response to small businesses who are concerned about things like cyber threats. “You have the keys. At no point in time does Microsoft see the data, look at the data, through transmission or when it’s on our premises.”

Click here for the full interview.