At the very latest, serious thought should be given to taking this path when the business-oriented advantages of cloud computing coincide with technical-operational benefits. When a special project with an uncertain outcome must be conducted in cooperation with partners, the commercial and IT departments should at least weigh up the pros and cons of the new opportunities provided by cloud computing.   

A gold mine for ICT companies?   

The many different ways in which users can benefit from cloud computing applications have prompted the appearance of a ­large number of providers. Both traditional software and hardware manufacturers as well as specialized cloud computing companies have already entered the market. ICT service providers are also pushing their way onto this still young market of web-based, on-demand services (see Figure 2). But what opportunities does cloud computing really offer to these different provider types?   

The most obvious beneficiaries of the increased attention being paid to cloud computing are the specialized providers of cloud applications. The company Salesforce.com, founded in 1999, is a pioneer in this sector and has been successfully positioning its web-based corporate software such as CRM tools in ­competition with the providers of local software solutions for a number of years now.    

Traditional software manufacturers avoided the development of a web-based variant of their applications for a long time. This was a consequence of their fear of cannibalization effects on the sale of local software. Only recently have software companies begun to recognize the new opportunities which the provision of web-based applications would open up to them. Companies such as Microsoft or Adobe are now working hard and fast to develop cloud variants of their applications. Although the software suite “Microsoft Office” is still only available in a local version, the company has already announced that it wants to offer a Web version in the near future. The developer program “Windows Azure”, which was presented at the end of 2008, emphasizes the strategy change at Microsoft.    

Hardware manufacturers have very recently begun to take advantage of the cloud computing trend. Asus, to take just one example, now offers an online memory with an additional two gigabytes for its netbook eeePC. This has a small hard drive of only a few gigabytes, and the online memory can be seamlessly integrated into the operating system.