But, is Cloud Computing a new idea, or just a new title  for an approach that is almost as old as computing, that of distributed architecture?

It is clear that Cloud Computing can not easily be defined. It seems to be a very broad concept that can be used, or overused, to market anything from web 2.0, to Software as a Service (SAAS), to networked storage.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter - given this very wide range of approaches a name helps to raise the profile and drive customers and investment in its direction.

The key benefit – at least in my mind - is the ability for small businesses to access business applications that will significantly reduce their costs and raise productivity at very low, or sometimes no cost.

Cloud computing also addresses some of the other cost issues preventing businesses from leveraging technology, particularly by reducing the upfront investments in backup, security and the need for skills to run and support such technology.

In a country like NZ where the skills to support such infrastructure are scarce, off-shoring may go a step further towards enabling NZ to get our applications supported and delivered via a remote, skills-rich country.

On the flip side New Zealand can become one of the countries that delivers applications and services to the world. In New Zealand there are already many interesting examples of this xero being one good one. But overall this business model has yet to gain real scale and volume here – that’s the next challenge.

Although Google and others have made plays in this space there is still much fertile ground for small startups that understand their niche and offer specialized environments to support businesses. This can be done at dramatically lower cost, marketed via the web and supported by industry groups – like NZICT and of course the TIG. It’s a space I am particularly focused on supporting.