The Age of the Cloud
It’s interesting that even those in Redmond are seeing the writing on the wall. Cloud computing is here to stay and this is reinforced by the fact that one of the major league players in the software application development world, Microsoft, is launching an online version of Office 2010.
This move not only justifies where small businesses are going, but it also shows that pretty much everyone is moving towards an cloud driven world where your applications do not exist on your own local machines anymore. Obviously, this still requires you to have an Internet connection of some sort and the move to a cloud based solution is a difficult one still for many to swallow in the development world. But with Microsoft making the leap, it actually shows that almost all of the major software developers are now backing cloud based computing.
One of the significant key moves here is that the company that hosts the cloud now has full control over the versioning. No longer will you have support questions that are determined by older version A, B, or C but instead the questions will start migrating towards actual usability and functionality. This not only creates ease for the support staff, but it also helps the development cycle flow better.
Small businesses benefit from all of this because the cost of doing business on a cloud based system is inherently less than a desktop system. After you have calculated all of the costs associated with data retainment, the answer is simple when it comes to choosing what to use for your small business accounting, office applications, and the rest. This move by Microsoft signifies not only a competitor-driven move towards Google Apps, but the fact that Google Apps is actually making a difference. Welcome to the age of cloud computing.
Tags: cloud application, cloud computing, online accounting, online accounting software, Small Business, small business accounting, small business applications, web based accounting, web-based accounting software
