What is the “Cloud” and Why Should I Care?
What is Cloud Computing?
The “cloud” is a metaphor for the internet. In very simplistic terms, cloud computing means your applications or software, data, and computing needs are accessed, stored, and occur over the internet or the “cloud.”
As a small businessperson, cloud computing means your business applications are outsourced somewhere on the Internet where you don’t have to worry about paying for capacity you don’t need and the version you’re using is always the latest version accessible anytime, anywhere.
As a consumer, cloud computing means you can create documents and media files using software hosted online, store your files in a location somewhere on the Internet (not on your hard drive), and easily share your files with others. This is your “personal cloud” and if you want to, you can synchronize your files in the cloud to your computer’s local drive.
Why Should You Care?
In the early 20th century, people were skeptical about the cars and viewed the new invention as “horseless carriages” based on a centuries-old dominant paradigm: the horse and carriage.
Daimler, the inventor of the automobile, estimated long-term auto popularity to be no more than a million cars. Banking institutions claimed that “the horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad.”
Today, there are over 600 million cars on the road and not many horses. The important role cars play in our daily lives has proven both Daimler and the banking institutions wrong. Prior constraints to the production of cars have been overcome to bring the cars to the masses.
Businesses of all sizes today face a similar change. Just as in the early days of the automobile industry, we do not know where this new paradigm shift is going to take us. But what we do know is that cloud computing promises not just cheaper information technology (IT) solutions; it is faster, easier, more flexible, and more effective.
As more and more work is done on the cloud, the economies of scale will kick in and barriers to cloud adoption such as security and privacy will begin to fall. Strength in cloud adoption will change perceptions and focus on the further development of the technology will accelerate, unlocking more economic benefits for the businesses. The whole cloud ecosystem will change and adapt just as the “horseless carriage” evolved into an essential and irreplaceable commodity of modern life.
About Office 365
You’ve heard about Microsoft Office 365, a revolutionary technology that allows individuals and companies of all sizes to create and maintain a virtual office in the cloud.
Featuring the familiar Microsoft Office 2010 applications and their web app companions, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online, Office 365 offers businesses and professionals a flexible and easy way to work on the go from a PC, on a browser, and a smartphone. This means that you now have access to critical information anytime, anywhere allowing you to become more productive and efficient as the cloud becomes a part of your daily life.
As a cloud productivity solution in one place, Microsoft Office 365 offers service plans midsize businesses and enterprises as well as the education community. All plans are designed to help an organization’s business needs for security, reliability, and productivity.
We have in-house expertise to get up and running with Office 365, in fact, we wrote the book on it! Contact us now for a free consultation.
