Without the cloud, less and less is possible in Germany. If it fails, things look bleak for most companies.
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As the Cloud Report 2026 from the industry association Bitkom shows, cloud computing is now standard in the German economy. More and more people are storing and working in the cloud, with private cloud (64 percent) being used more frequently than public cloud (53 percent). Additionally, cloud itself is a business model, either as a product or as part of it, which is offered by 22 percent of respondents.
If the cloud – no matter in what form – fails or is not accessible, panic quickly sets in. Rightly so, as a survey by Bitkom shows: 46 percent of the more than 600 companies surveyed in Germany would probably have to stop working sooner or later. One in eleven (nine percent) could no longer continue working from the moment of failure. On average, at least according to the subjective assessment of cloud users, business operations could be maintained for around three days (78 hours).
The survey shows that such a scenario is not completely out of the blue: in the past twelve months, 28 percent of companies that use cloud services have experienced serious cloud failures.
