Content Marketing Today

Why Small Business Owners Should Abandon PC-Based Software and Start Computing in the Cloud

Save Money. Save Time. Work Anywhere. Collaborate with Anyone. Simplify Computing. Strengthen Security.

Back when a mainframe computer filled an entire room, users all accessed programs remotely on terminals which were the ancestors of today’s PCs and laptops. Soon we will be accessing software and data remotely again–but from the Internet cloud. We will achieve dramatic improvements in productivity and reductions in costs.

Until recently, almost all of us had moved to a model of individual PCs or Macs on which all of our business applications lived.  Word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics all lived locally. If we worked in an office, we left them behind at night on the company PC.  That changed slightly as the pervasive use of laptops allowed work to follow us almost anywhere.  We are about to change again.

Thanks to the Internet, lots of smart companies and business people, are moving everything to the Internet cloud.

Michael Miller, author of Cloud Computing predicts:

The desktop-centric notion of computing that we hold today is bound to fall by the wayside as we come to expect the universal access, 24/7 reliability, and ubiquitous collaboration promised by cloud computing.

It is the way of the future.

He uses the analogy of the shift from the use of individual electrical generators 100 years ago. As we built out the national electrical grid, we began to rely on a distributed source of power that was plentiful, cheap, and reliable.

So, too, will it be with cloud computing.  We will move our applications, our data, and many of our collaborative activities to the cloud.  This shift is driven by pervasive reliance on the Internet to run our lives and on affordable(and often free)reliable high-speed connectivity.

Skeptical? Consider the Cloud Shift by Bill Machrone, founding editor of PC Magazine.

Bill recently noted on Facebook (a cloud computing application)that he had just moved most of his computing life off his PC and into the cloud. As he explained it:

My goal is never to have to move my stuff to a new machine. Back in the day, the mainframe and the corporate server was the enemy–the straitjacket. Now Web services have utterly transcended those limitations. I just discovered, for instance, that I can send Google Calendar alerts to my Verizon phone. I still do a lot of things with local horsepower, but even stuff like photo editing can be done effectively online. I’m lovin’ it.

Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo, Adobe Beginning to Deliver from the Cloud

While most of us weren’t looking, both established software companies and entrepreneurial innovators have placed an astonishing range of office and productivity applications, communications and collaboration tools, data storage, and complete integrated solutions. Moreover, many of them are easily accessible from mobile devices like the iPhone and the Blackberry. Best of all, you can build a completely free set of cloud solutions for your business.  If you need extra capability, you can still leverage comprehensive solutions without breaking the bank.

Here’s a quick sampling of solutions available for individuals and small businesses:

• word processing, spreadsheet, presentations
• calendar and task management
• email
• instant messaging
• contact management
• customer relationship management(CRM)
• project management
• scheduling–for example, in a doctor’s office
• event management–to handle all element of a conference
• file sharing
• secure data storage
• photo editing and sharing
• research and polling
• group collaboration
• virtual meetings and presentations
• business and social communities
• integrated solutions that include most of the above
• web-based desktops that you can access anywhere

Of course, with so much out there it’s hard to know how to proceed. To simplify the process, I have created a MindMap that explains why cloud computing is in our future and what solutions are out there in each of the major categories. 

I have built on Michael Miller’s book to include many of the products he wrote about and several that he left out. The MindMap separates solutions by category and sophistication with hyperlinks to all of the individual solutions so you can check them out.

To see the complete MindMap you can use the link below.  it shows the entire MindMap in pdf format which was created using MindManager 8 from Mindjet.

To get a really complete picture of cloud computing and its importance to your small business, click to get Michael’s book, Cloud Computing at Amazon.com.