The topic of the cloud is still unclear: 34% of the manufacturing companies surveyed with fewer than 500 employees were unable to say whether they would consider the public or private cloud concept. Among larger SMEs with over 500 employees, 14% are unable to make a clear statement on this topic. On average, this applies to 23% of all respondents. As many as 5% of all manufacturing companies are of the opinion that the public cloud approach is suitable in principle for all areas of application. In contrast, 11% only see a possible application for the private cloud model in their company.