Is the EU ready to put its data in the clouds?

The idea of siphoning computing power from afar - a concept called 'cloud computing' - has been in active development for much of the past decade.

The European Union is rapidly adopting the idea

The European Union is rapidly adopting the idea, hoping that it can streamline businesses, rid the 27-country union of overlapping infrastructure and ultimately save time and money.

Anyone who uses Gmail, Flickr or other services where the data is not saved on their computers is already taking advantage of cloud computing.

The economic argument is striking

The economic argument is striking: The Centre for Economics and Business Innovation predicts that Europe's five largest economies could save €177bn each year for the straightway five years if all their businesses were to switch over at the expected rate.

In response to the new business possibilities and in an effort to head off the impending privacy concerns, the EU executive is putting at the same time its first cloud-computing strategy.

Last year, Western Europe accounted for less than a quarter of the €46bn spent globally on cloud-computing services, according to research research consultancy Gartner. The US occupied near 60% of the market.

The innovation to expand in Europe

That leaves plenty of room for the innovation to expand in Europe, however it's the privacy issue in other words likely to prove the biggest hurdle to a rapid and successful expansion.

'This is a necessary condition for cloud computing to be effective in the nearly future,' said Daniele Catteddu, a communication security expert working on the EU's cloud computing strategy.

The regulation shakes out

However the regulation shakes out, big computing companies like Microsoft say cloud computing will be the at once big thing for Europe and the rest of the world.

He said 70% of Microsoft's innovation and development funds were already devoted to cloud computing, with the figure expected to rise to 90% in the near future.