Small Business are working in a very competitive environment wherein they have to compete with the large enterprises having access to the latest technology as well as the financial strength to invest upfront cost involved. Cloud computing technologies have narrowed the gap between small and big enterprises as far as technology access is concerned.

So what basically is cloud computing? Cloud computing essentially is convergence of the concept of Software as a service (SAAS) and Platform as a service where in the application and network used by the business is hosted by a third party servers and offered as a service. There is difference between managed services and cloud platforms as well. While managed services essentially involves both onsite and offsite components, cloud computing is offered as remote services only.

Clouds computing characteristics are:

• On-demand access: you can access the applications anytime from anywhere
• Broad network access: a form of sharing by multiple users
• Resource pooling: network resources works in parallel and scattered in various places for faster processing
• Fast deployment: Assets deployed at short notice

Small business gains from cloud hosting:

• Application hosting helps small business to reduce the IT infrastructure costs to manageable minimum, where in they have to pay only monthly costs to access the services.
• More time to focus on your business: with IT support being provided round the clock by third party ASP, the business can focus more on their core areas.
• Access Application on the go: With cloud hosting services all the IT infrastructure, in a sense moves with you. Example: By going for QuickBooks hosting, you can access the application from any place anytime.
• Security: due to centralization of data, security of data is more comprehensive and proactive.

Thanks for the info, but I'm not quite sure I understand the difference between managed and cloud services.

yea had a read and you havn't really described what it is. Would love to know more if you have the time to do another write up.

I've seen a lot of predictions about cloud hosting recently, and while some companies seem to be latching on to this platform, I'm still not seeing a dramatic push by the masses to switch over from traditional hosting.

While it is often seen as leading to a total switch from old type hosting and old type computing in general, to the utility business model, I think it won't be the kind of instant revolution many foresee.

It is quite likely, IMHO, to become a share of the market fulfilling the needs or whims of a certain type of customer. A bit like the VPS market has developed. It certainly didn't mean the end of shared hosting.

It will actually be interesting to see if the cloud hosting will grow at the expense of shared hosting, or at the expense of VPS/dedicated.

Cloud computing is basically VPS servers with dedicated resources all running on redundant hosts with lots of cool features.