Ignoring the cloud will leave you lost in the fog
October 30, 2012
Grazed from Business Review Europe. Author: Matthew Staff.
When cloud computing first emerged as the ‘next big thing’ five years ago, it was written off by some as a passing craze without any real substance. Today, industry analyst Gartner lists it as one of the four main forces transforming the IT landscape. The term ‘cloud’ covers a range of different hosted platforms and services. Its many benefits include an ability to store vast amounts of data and supply the very latest editions of software applications, often with real-time updates, accompanied by lower costs and greater convenience, flexibility and scalability.
Rapidly growing firms, international companies or those with an increasingly mobile workforce are examples of the kind of businesses that stand to gain from centrally hosted information and applications. Customers pay only for what they use, and are free to expand or contract capacity to suit demand. Not surprisingly, many organisations are looking to abandon their traditional, in-house, hardware-based systems to migrate to a cloud set-up…
Across Europe, rooms full of servers tended by a team of IT professionals are giving way to virtualised, hosted IT environments, where people across the business can draw down applications and information as required. The new possibilities opening up represent a huge opportunity for both growth and savings. However, for many businesses an element of reluctance remains; some of it justified…
Read more from the source @ http://www.businessrevieweurope.eu/technology/cloud/ignoring-the-cloud-will-leave-you-lost-in-the-fog