Andrew Schlidt authored "Cloud vs. office? The answer is not as clear-cut as you might think" (IBMadison.com)

If the cloud versus office storage were a prizefight, oddsmakers would install the cloud as a heavy favorite. And why not? In the minds of many, having your software, equipment, network, databases, data, help desk, and other operations stored and managed by a third party at a remote location is the wave of the future, while having it managed on internal office servers is horse-and-buggy thinking.

Or is it? Not always, according to a panel of experts. While the cloud is enticing because of its low-cost features, it’s not for every company or every business system. 

Cloud computing refers to outsourcing information technology processes via the Internet to third parties in remote locations (data centers) that were previously managed internally. A prominent example is Salesforce.com, which operates a Web-based customer relationship management service through which businesses run their sales operations. This type of cloud computing is commonly called “software as a service,” but other emerging cloud models include “infrastructure-as-a service” and “platform-as-a-service.”

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