01 Dec 2008

Cloud computing marks "evolution of business"

Hosted technology will transform the way businesses use IT, an expert has suggested.

Writing for Indian national newspaper the Hindu, David Mitchell Smith commented that the impact of the cloud computing on companies' infrastructure could be comparable to the era of e-business.

Mr Mitchell Smith argued that the cloud is "heralding an evolution of business" as firms turn to services which are provided by a third party.

He explained: "The buying decision … shifts from buying products that enable the delivery of some function [such as billing] to contracting, with someone else delivering those functions."

During the last 15 years, the growth in the popularity of the internet has been the most important driver of IT industrialisation, Mr Mitchell Smith noted.

But the continuing trend is also part-caused by virtualisation and the growth of service-oriented software, he added.

As part of its expansion into the cloud, Microsoft has been purchasing around 10,000 new servers each month during 2008 - the same total Facebook runs on globally.