Companies with more than 20 employees are highly likely to invest in cloud computing services, a new study has suggested.

Research conducted by Techaisle indicates that the size of a company can have a bearing on the owners’ decision to invest in IT outsourcing services.

The company noted that the smallest micro businesses are less likely to have sophisticated IT needs, and therefore have less of a need for external IT.

However, once they expand to around 20 employees, the majority of businesses start to seriously invest in cloud computing, Techaisle said.

The firm added that security and additional storage solutions are most popular among small businesses, along with industry specific applications and cloud hosting services.

Research conducted by Spiceworks recently indicated that large numbers of small and medium-sized enterprises are looking to invest in virtualisation services.