Lots of fresh research is coming out on the state of cloud computing. The following data points provide a snapshot of user attitudes in this fast-moving market.Who's using cloud services?

18% Using cloud services today 9% Planning to use cloud services within 12 months 25% Considering cloud services 48% No plans InformationWeek Analytics' Cloud Computing Survey of 547 business technology pros, February 2009

What are your top concerns about cloud services?

57% Security defects in cloud technology 53% Unauthorized access to or leaks of company information 47% Unauthorized access to or leaks of customer information 32% Application performance 30% Viability of cloud vendor InformationWeek Analytics' Cloud Computing Survey of 547 business technology pros, February 2009

What are the top obstacles cloud computing providers must overcome?

64% Security/shared environment 58% Administration and support 40% Control, vendor lock-in 39% Performance 30% Bad reputation of existing cloud services Hosting.com Cloud Computing Trends survey of 644 business executives and decision makers, January 2009

How would you prefer to pay for cloud services?

32% Monthly, no contract, by usage 16% Monthly, no contract, base fee plus resource bursting 18% Annual with adjustments based on needs and bursting 34% Unsure Hosting.com Cloud Computing Trends survey of 644 business executives and decision makers, January 2009

Who's using pay-per-use hosted virtual servers?

2% of SMBs 2% of SMBs plan to use within 12 months 5% of enterprises 3% of enterprises plan to use within 12 months Forrester Research survey of 2,600 technology decision makers, February 2009

Who's using software as a service?

20% Using 31% Considering 49% Not likely to consider Intelligent Enterprise, InformationWeek Analytics survey of 305 business technology professionals, January 2009

The benefits of cloud computing are:

70% Improved flexibility 65% Focus on core business 62% React more quickly to market conditions 51% Gain access to latest technologies Avanade/Kelton Research survey of 502 C-level executives and IT decision makers, February 2009

I can't provide a link to the above-mentioned InformationWeek Analytics Cloud Computing Survey because it's so new that our report hasn't been published yet. However, you'll find all kinds of in-depth reports on cloud computing at InformationWeek's Cloud Computing download page.