Cloud Computing For Small Biz: A Primer

Justin Kitch, chief growth officer at accounting software firm Intuit, covers the advantages of cloud computing (though not so much the disadvantages) and talks about how to select a service provider.

"By now you've probably heard the term 'cloud computing' mentioned in the press, thanks to the PR machines of Microsoft, Sun, Google and Salesforce.com, among others. But what exactly is cloud computing, and what does it mean for small businesses?

Simply put, it's computing that is done on the Web. Rather than installing software on a computer that sits in your office, the applications that you need to run your business are stored on servers in data centers owned by the software company--"in the cloud" so to speak. You access your software and your business data via a Web browser--from any computer that is connected to the internet anywhere in the world. Some of the benefits to this approach include..."