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All of the technology and business people I regularly talk to keep telling me cloud computing. But what is it, what is the impact on business and what are the economic and obvious benefits?

Cloud means Internet. The computing takes place on the Internet – in place of the software you use being installed on your desktop pc, it runs somewhere on the Internet on a server located in a data centre commonly staffed by people who are experts in managing technology. This type of “cloud” software is often referred to as “on demand” or Software as a Service (SaaS).

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

Web based CRM Software (Customer Relationship Management) – Salesforce.com pricing approximately $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 around $99 per user/month.

There are three significant benefits for every business here:

Time, cost savings and reliability

Businesses no longer need a resident systems expert to help them identify, commission and maintain the hardware and software infrastructure thus cutting operating costs and time to implement. The effort of continuosly backing up information is eradicated as this is often an inherent function of the “cloud” software. Cloud software “operators” usually have fail over systems that can be deployed in instantly should a catastrophic problem occur.

Easier selection and wider choice

With just a web browser, businesses now have immediate access to a huge range of business software they can in most cases immediately appraise and rapidly work out if the software fits their needs at no cost. This makes it effective for people in large concerns to get around the usual information technology buying processes and easily assess and prove their business proposal.

Superior user experience

The internet provides instant feedback to software makers and has led to amazing progress in user interface design resulting in easier to use systems thus lowering learning times and increasing user satisfaction. This of course means faster adoption and better productivity.