Tech enthusiasts, executives and investors are always looking for the next big, disruptive technology, and they appear to have found it in cloud computing. The movement of IT hardware and software out of offices and factories and onto the web promises to deliver huge cost savings, create new business models, and threaten incumbent technologies and the global corporations that deliver them.

As with any ballyhooed tech revolution, this one is generating lots of hype and smoke. But there’s real fire underneath this trend. Companies already are using the cloud to save money and become more efficient and creative. Wider adoption of cloud computing will lead to a new burst of productivity in the world economy, including in ways not yet widely appreciated.

Consider what I call “employee-led IT.” Cloud computing empowers employees at every level of a company to unilaterally deploy powerful software tools and resources to do their jobs better and cheaper. Once held strictly to the agenda of the central IT department, employees today are taking matters into their own hands by launching websites, applications and other tools quickly and inexpensively as they need them to get
more done. This power is unleashing a creative spirit in the frontline employee that will transform many businesses and spark a new wave of productivity. And it is not just employees of established companies who are getting in on the act. This same freedom to deploy powerful computing is enabling entrepreneurs and individuals to get more done at a lower cost in money and time.

Before I show how this is working, let me first make clear what I mean by cloud computing. At its core, cloud computing is nothing more than the ability to buy computing as a service, paying only for what you use. I often compare it to buying electricity from a power company, rather than buying and maintaining your own generator out in the parking lot. Cloud computing not only saves money for businesses; it allows them to focus on what they do best, rather than on buying and maintaining servers and software.

Continue Reading


Related posts