First Survey Confirms Personal Cloud for Mobile Devices Is a Reality

FOSTER CITY, CA--(Marketwire - Aug 9, 2011) - Funambol, the leader of smart personal cloud sync solutions, today announced the results of a survey that polled people about personal clouds. The new research report, "Personal Cloud Survey: Hype vs. Reality," includes responses from 232 people in 49 countries. It reveals that there is a genuine interest in using personal clouds (i.e. digital lockers), as long as they are secure, private and support the devices that people own. The results indicated that 75 percent of users plan to use the personal cloud to store rich media and digital data, and that 67 percent of users would be willing to pay to use such services, with $5 per month being the most popular price point.

The global survey examined people's views and attitudes towards digital lockers such as Apple iCloud. It also included a wide range of questions about current and planned use of personal clouds. Overall, the research found that there is great potential for high growth of the personal cloud market:

• 75% plan to use a personal cloud or digital locker in the future, 24% said maybe and 2% said no
• 88% plan to store contacts in the cloud, 85% said files, 80% said calendar, 69% said photos
• 81% plan to store between 25% and 75% of their data in the cloud, 12% plan to store all of it
• 72% said they would use it for both business and personal use, 26% said only for personal use
• 67% said they would be willing to pay a monthly fee, with $5 being the most likely amount
• 30% said they would buy commercial content for their personal cloud, 51% said they might
• 51% said that managing multiple personal clouds could become a big issue in the future
• Security, privacy and broad device support are the most desired attributes

Funambol conducted the survey based primarily on a random sample of people on its mailing list and only a handful of survey respondents were Funambol users. "Survey data is often subject to a wide degree of interpretation, but we were careful to ensure the objectivity of the results, as we wanted to get a clear picture of the needs of personal cloud users," said Hal Steger, Funambol VP of Marketing. "The survey results indicate that there is a large untapped market for digital locker services, which complements Forrester Research's recent estimate that the personal cloud market would reach $12B in the U.S. by 2016. This also shows that the market, driven by several trends, including the rapid proliferation of mobile devices, and new industry offerings, such as Apple iCloud and Funambol MediaHub, is not just hype."

"As the leading provider of white-label personal cloud solutions for companies in the mobile industry, we wanted to validate the needs of personal cloud users," said Amit Chawla, Funambol CEO. "The survey results have been eye opening by providing substantial detail about user expectations. We are pleased to share the survey findings to help advance the adoption of personal clouds."

The free survey report can be immediately downloaded from the Funambol website at http://www.funambol.com/solutions/requestpublication.php.

About Funambol
Funambol is the leading provider of smart personal cloud sync solutions for mobile phones and connected devices, powered by open source. The commercial version of Funambol has been deployed by top mobile operators, device manufacturers, internet companies, service providers and ISVs. For more information, visit http://www.funambol.com.