As cloud computing matures, a growing number of organizations are moving to cloud environments to help lower IT costs, increase efficiencies, and realize greater flexibility.

Many organizations considering cloud adoption can benefit from timely trends analysis research; and simple, well-organized information about their IT environment to understand their current IT state and where they will be if they adopt a particular cloud service. 

Today Microsoft releases the Trends in cloud computing report, which analyzes the results of current IT maturity and adoption practices of organizations worldwide that have used the free Cloud Security Readiness Tool (CSRT). The data consists of answers provided by people who used the CSRT over a six-month period between October 2012 and March 2013. Approximately 5700 anonymous responses to the CSRT's 27 questions were received from around the world. 

Energy company SEPCOIII had been using Gmail for external communication but found it unreliable and cumbersome. The company eventually switched from Gmail to Microsoft Office 365. We recently spoke to Pradeep Parmar, Director of Management Information Systems at SEPCOIII, to learn why.

Arysta LifeScience wanted to standardize on cloud-based communication and collaboration services. It chose Google Apps for Business. However, employees in the pilot group were unhappy with the user interface and IT struggled with compatibility issues. Arysta LifeScience replaced the Google deployment and introduced Microsoft Office 365. We recently spoke to Dustin Collins, Global Head of Global IT Infrastructure at Arysta LifeScience, to learn how the company is benefiting.

Healthcare provider Sensia Hälsovård AB needed a single communication and collaboration platform to accommodate its rapid growth. About 30 percent of its employees had been using Google Gmail, but found it cumbersome and unintuitive. The company eventually chose Microsoft Office 365. We recently spoke to Anders Franzén, IT Strategist, at Sensia Hälsovård AB to learn why.

Every couple weeks we round up industry news and articles you might have missed. Read on for our latest selections.

Telefónica is a leading provider of integrated communications with more than 130,000 employees in 24 countries across Europe and Latin America. Given the broad, global employee base, the company sought to empower staff to stay connected and work together while on the same platform and with leading productivity tools. To achieve this goal, Telefonica will deploy Office 365 alongside Yammer to harness the full power of their workforce and enable new ways for its employees to collaborate, communicate and share ideas. 

An increasing number of businesses are choosing Microsoft Office 365 over Google Apps. Why? They tell us they can't afford to compromise.  With Office 365, they don't have to. They get the familiarity of Office + the capabilities they need + a cloud service they can trust. Learn more about why customers are selecting Office 365 over Google Apps.

By embracing Microsoft Office, customers get a powerful set of tools that support the entire spectrum of productivity use cases, from the most basic to the advanced. By contrast, Google Docs has deficiencies. These gaps are just not advanced features used by a few people, but basic features. Learn more about what happens when you choose a productivity suite that has deficiencies.

When you open a Microsoft Office application, you know what you're going to get. Whether you're working from a PC, a browser or a smartphone, the way the software functions is familiar and consistent. On the other hand, converting Office files into Google Apps is a gamble. Learn more about the file fidelity issues that occur when converting Office files into Google Apps via the web, a tablet, and a viewer.

When we launched the Office Web Apps in 2010, they were companions to the Office desktop experience that enabled lightweight, on-the-go content creation and review. Since then we've made a number of investments in Office Web Apps to make it easier for people to work together, author documents and access Office content from virtually any device. As we think about how people communicate and collaborate today and how their needs will evolve in the future, we'd like to share our plans for some of the investments we are making in the Office Web Apps over the next year and beyond.