Over the last decade, cloud computing has steadily emerged as one of the most important transformational trends in business and computing. It has been observed that cloud computing has been able to even out the competition between midsize and larger companies.

Definition of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing consists of shared computing resources that include applications, computing, storage, networking, development and deployment platform, and business process. One of the best aspects of cloud computing is that it turns traditionally siloed computer assets into a shared pool of resources that are stored on an underlying Internet foundation. These resources are easy to use as they are supported by a self-service model which means that resources can be acquired or provisioned based on need or assigned business rules.

Cloud Benefits for Midsize Companies

Cloud computing can provide the following benefits for midsize companies to enable them to keep ahead of their competitors:

• One of the greatest benefits of cloud computing is that it provides businesses the ability to use only the resources that you want and when you need them.
• Your business strategy can be designed utilising Internet-based offerings which can be changed according to the preferences of the customer.
• You can reduce the number of servers required by adding virtualisation and making the current IT environment more efficient.
• With cloud computing in the business, you enable collaboration between employees and across departments, such as users working together on the same document regardless of where they are working.

Midsize companies consistently find themselves competing with larger organisations. They require the capabilities, the agility, the flexibility and innovation to compete with these companies without possessing the same amount of capital. With cloud computing, midsize companies can improve their business productivity, service and customer satisfaction.