Why You're Living in the Cloud

If you're tired of hearing about how the cloud will change your life, I don't blame you. It seems to be all that vendors talk about these days, even old package vendors like Microsoft (especially after the jolt of a slowdown when people stop buying new software).

So who's using the cloud?

It's not the big enterprises: at least, not yet. As Dataquest noted in its May cover story, Indian CIOs are "chained by legacy": they're drawn to the cloud, but their sunk-in investments are holding them back.

The big users of the cloud in India are SMBs, small offices, and individuals.

The 21st century's top two apps on the computer are cloud apps: Google search and Gmail. Both are used mostly by consumers (and by business users, mostly in their individual capacity). Many users have no clue what "cloud" means except for the rainy ones, but they are heavy users nonetheless.

These are free services, though top-ups may cost small amounts. When I ran out of Gmail's free 7 GB, I paid $5 for 20 GB more (for a year). I could have added 35 GB free through five free Gmail accounts, but the convenience of doing everything with my primary account was worth it. I use DropBox to share books, movies and documents between my iPad and other computers: when I run out of free space, I'll pay for more space.

But small businesses have also taken to the cloud in a big way. Apart from the usual free webmail, there's SMB offerings like Google Apps for Business ($50 per user per year), including a business version of Gmail that lets you use your own domain name for email.

There's also hundreds of hosting services that are cheap and feature packed. I am trying out BlueHost.com ($7 a month, paid in advance for a year), which lets me put all my websites, email lists and other online services there, managed through an easy interface, with no defined space or bandwidth limits. There are such services in India as well, such as net4.in, though they may cost more.

PCQuest's publishers CyberMedia, a small business that grew to midsize over the past decade, uses several cloud apps: for editorial workflow, CRM (SalesForce), HRM (EmpXtrack), a photobank, and others. The one key app that we haven't yet moved to the cloud (and won't, for some time) is the office suite: we have Open Office installed on every PC and laptop.

One of the great things about cloud apps is the scalability: you can usually try it free, start small, and then ramp up, paying as you need to, such as when moving from free Gmail, to adding $5 of space, to the paid apps at $50 a year (which you can first try out free for 30 days). Even Azure, a high-end, platform-as-a-service offering where you can host your apps on Microsoft's data centers, has a 3-month free trial offer that's really easy to sign up for.

There's a wide range of cloud apps for small businesses. Examples from PCQ's "top five cloud apps for your business" feature in January (bit.ly/pcq-cloud): Zoho's CRM and project management apps; DimDim web meeting; FreshBooks financial management--billing, payments, etc; and Clarizen project management.

The cloud isn't all rosy, and not everyone's convinced. But that's another story! Like it or not, the cloud is where most of your apps and data will be, if they aren't already.