Paper Peviews

Every business owner and journalist I know is talking about the benefits of cloud computing. But what is it, what does it really mean for business and what are the financial and obvious upsides?

Cloud means Internet. The computing takes place on the Internet – instead of the software you use executing on your computer, it’s hosted on the Internet on a server installed in a data centre commonly staffed by people who are experts in managing technology. This type of “cloud” software is commonly known as “on demand” or Software as a Service (SaaS).

Some shining examples of well established Software as a Service are:

Web based CRM Software (Customer Relationship Management) – Salesforce.com pricing around $9 per user/month.
Small business management and accounting software (small business ERP) – Salesorder.com pricing $45 per user/month.
Medium sized business ERP software – NetSuite pricing approximately $99 per user/month.

There are 3 significant benefits for every business here:

Time, cost savings and reliability

Businesses no longer need a resident IT expert to help them choose, commission and maintain the hardware and software infrastructure thus decreasing operating costs and time to implement. The effort of vigilantly backing up data is removed as this is often an inherent feature of the “cloud” software. Cloud software “operators” normally have fail over systems that can be brought to bear in minutes should a major failure occur.

Easier selection and more choice

Using a web browser, businesses now have immediate access to a massive choice of business software they can in the majority of cases immediately evaluate and quickly determine if the software fits their needs at no cost. This makes it straightforward for people in large corporations to get around the restrictive information technology purchasing processes and easily test and justify their business proposal.

Better user experience

The web provides instant feedback to application architects and has fuelled substantial progress in user interface design resulting in more intuitive systems thus decreasing learning times and improving user satisfaction. This of course means faster adoption and better productivity.