As a daughter and mother, Mother’s Day holds a special place in my heart. I have the sweetest collection of cards, drawings, photos, poems, preserved flowers, and jewelry made of seashells, rocks, and several other unknown substances. The gifts change with the age of the child but each one is dear. Crayoned cards morphed into emailed cards and letters, hand drawn pictures became Shutterfly albums, and hugs and kisses were sent via Skype.
One memorable moment happened when one of my sons spent a semester abroad. I got a message to log onto a website at a specific time on Mother’s Day; it seems a start-up had set up a videocam fixed on a crowded plaza, as a part of their beta testing, in the city where my son was studying. As I clicked on the site, I saw my son jumping up and down with a bouquet of flowers holding a sign that said, Happy Mother’s Day Mom.
Families, like companies, are spread all over the world, but both are able to stay closer than ever before and it is mostly due to the advances in Cloud computing and the proliferation of Cloud-based apps. Families rely on Cloud-based email, social networking services, photo sharing apps, and skype for communication. Small and medium businesses rely on Cloud based CRM, file sharing apps, company wide calendars and tasks systems and industry specific apps.
We can’t imagine running back to the office to retrieve our phone messages anymore more so than limiting access to client contact info and a critical presentation because it is stored on a desktop sitting in an empty office.
This is the Cloud: mobility, communication, collaboration and cost efficiency. And it is our new reality.
And this new reality extends to mobile apps as well. Thanks to the Cloud, mobile business apps are booming in the business landscape, and small businesses are the most enthusiastic adopters.
“There’s a sea change going on in the marketplace…The number of cloud applications SMBs have adopted has doubled in the last two years.” – Bill Odell, Senior Director of Marketing with Dell.
IDC (International Data Corporation) estimates that the Cloud marketing, including products and services, will expand from $16 billion in 2010 to $56 billion in 2014.
According to an AT&T Survey on The Huffington Post, 30% of small businesses use mobile apps for their business. An additional 50% say they can’t survive without them, an increase of 31% since last year.
I see the benefits of Cloud computing in my professional and personal life. Cloud app providers, such as InfoStreet, allow me to work efficiently 3,000 miles away from my company and collaborate effectively with my co-workers and partners. And the explosion of personal apps allows my extended family to stay a part of each others lives in ways unimagined a decade ago. If a family chooses not to embrace all that the Cloud has to offer, they lose out on memories being made. If a business doesn’t adopt the Cloud as an integral part of their company, they will lose out and fall behind their competitors.
That is the simple truth. And our mothers always told us to tell the truth.
To all our readers, Happy Mother’s Day.
