Cost savings are frequently at the forefront when companies think about cloud computing from a strictly internal, technical-operational viewpoint. Looking at it from a business perspective, cloud computing has many parallels with outsourcing or the utilization of managed services. The company does not have to make investments in its own IT resources, but pays solely for the volume it actually uses. The cost parameters in these cases are generally oriented to the application level. Services of an infrastructure nature like Amazon’s EC2 and S3 are priced according to technical parameters such as CPU time or data ­volume, while cloud applications like Google’s Apps or ­Salesforce.com are billed per application and user. Practical experience to date shows that cloud computing is above all and most ­clearly ­worthwhile for application cases oriented to the short term. ­Experience values concerning utilization periods of three to five years are not yet available. A long-term comparison is also difficult because a broad range of expense items, ranging from the end users’ hardware to the costs for computer ­centers, servers, power consumption, IT personnel, and license and utilization fees for the software, must be included in the TCO (total cost of ownership) analysis. IBM offers a “virtual desktop” as a ­substitute for the classic PC workplace with claims that companies can save as much as USD 800 a year in overall costs in comparison with the use of a normal PC with Windows Vista and a Microsoft Office suite.

From the technical-operational standpoint, there are today two accepted primary uses of cloud computing. The first is the use of additional cloud resources to cover peak periods. In this case, the cloud supplements and expands the services offered by the company’s own IT. This is adequate to cover one-off demands resulting from special projects as well as repetitive needs such as the preparation of the annual financial statements or stocktaking activities. The second has to do with the use of cloud resources to optimize financing structures with a shift away from CAPEX towards OPEX. Independent of the total costs of the cloud solution, scarce financial resources – common in the case of start-ups or in the present critical times – can be concentrated on operating the business and need not be invested in IT. As a rule, the costs of a cloud solution also vary much more in line with the business volume – yet another advantage for fast-growing start-ups or for companies facing difficult times.