SpiderGroup issued a survey to local businesses this month, which revealed similar results: That 60% of those questioned thought ‘working from anywhere’ to be the most attractive quality of the cloud.

Perhaps this shows that keeping up-to-date with technology is more important than saving money? It certainly seems to represent society today – that people are much more mobile – which is in fact an enormous benefit to businesses.



What is it?

The Cloud is just another word for the Internet.

Over time it has been adopted by the marketing department as it sounds sexier than the internet and has now moved into “common” terminology for the internet.

Logically, cloud computing is computing delivered from the internet.

Depending on the type of cloud service you opt for, you can obtain software or systems to provide:

In other words all of the things you use on your computer, plus more, without having to buy the software and have it installed.

There are other names that are used that essentially refer to the same thing, a few examples are: Software as a Service (SaaS), Application service providers (ASP), Utility Computing, SOA and Infrastructure as a Service.

Over the years, Cloud Computing has gained huge popularity, starting in the mid 1990’s when several services started to pop up such as Hotmail, one of the very first cloud computing examples.

Over time many more services have been developed, did you know that services such as Yahoo mail, Google mail, Facebook, Twitter and even Amazon are classed as examples of cloud computing?

One of the predictions I made a couple of years after starting SpiderGroup back in 2004 was that eventually the PC as we know it would be replaced by browser and internet enabled devices, this is slowly happening. I’m sure many of you already possess an iPad.

We are now at a point where you can run a business from your office, home, in fact anywhere you are. The IT industry has evolved to a point where it has significantly matured so that it isn’t an expensive black-hole of expense but a key business enabler, a utility such as water or electricity.

Why should I care?

• Save money because there is no need for Onsite servers, IT Support contracts, Backup systems and Anti-virus
• Software is always up to date
• Managed by experts
• Monthly licensing for all your IT
• Scalable per/user pricing and predictable budgeting for your business IT and support
• Increased security on your data
• In-built Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

Summing it up

With the emergence of the Cloud; no you don’t need an umbrella, you just need to know what it can do for your business: Cloud computing is the future of business technology.

With only a few weeks until Apple is supposedly to unveil their new iPad2, the release date, specs and price are still secrets. But does that stop rumours – No.

Reports indicate that Apple is anticipating a huge demand for their second generation iPad, so much in fact that they have ordered six million units per month.

So what do we know so far?

Read the rest of this entry »