The term “cloud computing” is synonymous today with people claiming that it is the trend of the future. The theory behind cloud computing is that people and businesses don’t have to be constrained by the applications on their desktops. The applications, services and utilities necessary for the performance of your work can be hosted simply in the “Cloud” or by a certain provider of your choice. You only need to sign in to these services through an Internet connection and a browser to access them from anywhere.

You probably didn’t know this, but you’re already part of the cloud computing generation if you have an online email subscription, which you access from the network and isn’t installed on your desktop. Some of these are Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. You can access your account from anywhere there is an available internet connection and a browser, right? That’s the most basic type of cloud computing out there.

If you can imagine the implications this type of access will have for your business, you’ll be blown away. See, now it depends on the software applications that will be installed on each desktop of each employee in your organization. What this means is that you will have to pay for the software or software license for each of these workstations. If you use a cloud computing service to host your applications, you only need to have ONE application hosted with your service provider and your employees can simply log in and use the service from anywhere. This will work best, especially if you have employees who are always on the road and have to access or store files that are needed by other team members who are waiting in the offices.

Cloud computing is also highly scalable, which means it doesn’t matter if you’re a small business or a very large corporation. It can be easily customized to meet your needs and upgrade the system when the need arises. The initial start-up will only be minimal and you will probably only have to pay subscription fees to your hosting provider to keep the applications up and running.

The best part of cloud computing is that you don’t have to worry about how the system works, just because it works. You no longer need to have a dedicated IT group to take care of the system and hardware for you. You are paying someone else to do it, as part of hosting cloud computing.