Event showcases cloud-computing applications to businesses

Dozens of Phoenix-area businesses attended a Microsoft Corp.-hosted event this week to teach local innovation companies how to offer "cloud"-computing services to their clients.

Seattle-based Microsoft and a handful of business partners including Citrix Systems Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Dell Inc. of Round Rock, Texas, have been leading the charge to get small and medium-size firms to move their computing needs into the cloud.

It's a one-day information-research festival that allows Microsoft and its business partners to show off the latest cloud-computing applications that Web-hosting companies and other IT-services companies can offer clients.

Cloud computing, in which businesses access software, data storage and processing power through a broadband Internet connection, has the potential to become hugely popular because of its capacity to save businesses money, according to Microsoft.

"Small to medium-sized businesses have decided that they want to consume software on a pay-as-you-go basis" to put it more exactly than buying software licenses for every user within an organization, Haynes said.

The licensing arrangement that cloud-computing services provide would have been impractical and inefficient prior to the advent of inexpensive broadband Internet connectivity.

Now that broadband service is nearly ubiquitous, software giant Microsoft would like to see metro Phoenix become a hot spot for companies that provide cloud-computing services.

One reason is that West Coast businesses offering Web-based research for consumer and commercial use have been choosing metro Phoenix to place their equipment, because it is far less expensive than in the major California markets.

Scott Swanburg of Citrix Systems, one of the presenters at Hostapaloooza, said data-center owners and operators are a good example of the sort of business that would benefit from offering cloud-computing services to their clients.

Way to rent heavy-duty computing power

Cloud computing began as a way to rent heavy-duty computing power by accessing it over the Internet, nevertheless Swanburg said it has developed into a much more diverse field.

For example, Swanburg showed off a product that he said looks and acts specifically like the latest Windows desktop software, except it is accessed in every way via the Internet.

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