Cloud computing: The semi-secret economic equalizer

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

UCSD’s Guardian magazine reports on an often overlooked aspect of cloud computing. According to the university’s researchers, "developing countries are utilizing the growing adoption of ‘cloud computing’ — the use of consumer devices to access remote computer and information resources — to expand their economic role in an increasingly global economy."

As the study illustrates, the cost efficiencies of cloud computing are the same in third-world countries as in the developed world, and up-and-coming nations can leverage data, applications, and infrastructure that were once cost prohibitive. In turn, this increases commerce by facilitating the countries’ entrance into the global markets…

In the past, new technology was often out of reach for poorer countries, but cloud computing breaks the mold, as it’s both affordable and effective. This is analogous to the adoption of smartphones in countries that never created a fully functional wired infrastructure; instead, they jumped right into newer wireless devices and built cell towers. Now, they have better cellular coverage than many areas in the United States…

Read more from the source @ http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/cloud-computing-the-semi-secret-economic-equalizer-207407