When we say “The Cloud” – we mean web-based systems that exist on the forefront of user-friendly technology in a way that rivals standard downloaded applications.

The Cloud is already responsible for three of the most widely used applications in the world: Gmail, Facebook, and YouTube.  Each of these revolutionary platforms exist not as a program on your device, where the bulk of the content is stored in a limited fashion, but instead, these three platforms take advantage of the near-limitless capacity of the web.

No matter how much physical hard-drive storage you have, you will always find a way to fill it to capacity with data.  And while nanotechnology is making great gains in the way we store data, those advancements come at a cost no small-to-mid size business can afford, certainly out of range for almost any individual.

Think about if your computer or mobile device had to store every email, every photo, and every video you ever viewed.  Impossible, right?  We’re already past the point of thinking that our content must be stored completely on our physical device.

But that’s not the only advantage to working within The Cloud.

24 hour service, available anywhere.  As long as the Internet is available, your service is working, and if for a brief moment it isn’t, your aren’t paying for its recovery, unlike shackled systems that usually require in-house professionals.

The benefits don’t end there. Cloud-based systems are almost always cheaper, easier to access, and simplify user experience.

I’d be willing to wager that Google Docs, Calendars, and its Content Management are universally better than the narrow-focused programs your employer is currently using.  And not only are they easier to learn and use, but they’re incredibly cheap when compared to the software licensing rights for standards programs that offer the exact same service, often with less features.

Aren’t convinced working in The Cloud is just as good as using standard applications?  Then check out this video, showing how a web-based system mimics an application perfectly for iPhone:

With all that said, why are mobile apps the craze? Why are we writing sexy maintainable code for our web applications and writing unsexy hard to maintain compiled code for our mobile devices. Apple attempted to make the apps boom a web based boom when the iPhone first launched but the time was not right. With the growth of html5 we really hope more web apps pop up on mobile devices than compiled hard to maintain apps.

We are really excited about projects like jqtouch that are helping to bring web delivered applications to mobile devices easier, faster, and better than the compiled alternative. Take a look at the project here http://www.jqtouch.com/

The benefits, it seems, are almost endless. Don’t be afraid, embrace the change.