According to Gigaom’s own Barb Darrow, “It’s not surprising to know that  more companies are using public cloud. But new RightScale research shows that of nearly 1,100 enterprises and small-and-mid-sized businesses (SMBs) surveyed, 89 percent are using public cloud for something. (My guess [is] that the remaining 11 percent aren’t fully aware of what their people are doing.)”

Careful about that RightScale research, because RightScale does have a few dogs in the hunt.  However, this jives with what I see in the market.  The public cloud is becoming more popular for a few core reasons:

First, the private cloud does not provide the value found in the public cloud.  Also, most enterprises deploy on both public and private clouds, and typically more than one in each category.  Thus, the clear trend is to multi-cloud, which the RightScale research shows as well.

Second, public cloud providers are more proven, and thus more trusted, than they were just a year ago.  The number of deployments, as well as the value, is just too compelling for most in enterprise IT to ignore.