‘It is a service, not a technology’

Chief executives and finance directors are understandably cautious when the IT industry waxes enthusiastic about the next “breakthrough”.

What are they to make of cloud computing, the latest big technology idea to come to mainstream business attention?

Simply put, cloud computing is the use of off-site servers, routers and databases that are not “owned” by the business, to handle all, or large parts, of a company’s computing needs.

Instead of managing requirements in-house, with all the costs and hassle involved, a company will outsource operations such as e-mails, enterprise resource planning and data storage.

Factories used to generate their own power on-site, but now routinely buy in electricity and gas.

Cloud enthusiasts believe that, in future, companies will buy computer capacity in the same way.

Executives may be unfamiliar with the cloud but many will have been using it for years without realising it.

E-mail providers such as Google, social networking sites including Facebook, and Flickr, an online photo and video-sharing service, are all run from global data centres, many of which are owned by companies such as Amazon and Microsoft.

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Source: ft.com
By: Charles Batchelor