Cloud Computing
This is just another way of saying, using the internet to do your computing, as opposed desktop applications running on the computer on your desk or on a server in the cupboard. It also could imply using internet software on your own hardware and networks as well as meaning using someone else's, somewhere out there on the internet. In putting your applications up in a cloud, you pay for someone else to worry about the hardware, someone who does it better and cheaper than you can. Companies offering such services can leverage economies of scale and have extra back-up hardware spread over different locations in case things go wrong.
If you do have the hardware and the networks, using software designed for the web instead of more convectional desktop applications could have many advantages. It can be easily installed, set up, easy to use and cheaper, as the necessary software licences can cost nothing. For example familiar web browsers can be used to access databases on a server.
Security is of cause a concern but proper use of passwords and other security measures should keep any hackers out. This approach is no more or no less vulnerable to viruses, bugs and other nasty stuff. Conventional desktop software has always been hacked or ended up with viruses, proper security and user training is what is important here.
Duncan Stonebridge.
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