Cloud Computing? You’re Soaking in it.

Just as in the TV commercials of yesteryear where unsuspecting people were told that they were soaking in the very product being recommended to soften their hands, if you are using the Mediabox Product Approval or Digital Assets Management application then you are already using Cloud Computing.



If you have heard the term Cloud Computing once you have probably heard it a hundred times. If the term is new to you, fear not because it is just a new buzzword for a very familiar concept. Taken directly from the 2nd paragraph on Wikipedia’s entry on Cloud Computing, “Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online that are accessed from another Web service or software like a Web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers. A key element of cloud computing is customization and the creation of a user-defined experience.” Sound familiar? That's what Mediabox PA and Mediabox Digital Asset Management are.

Mediabox, of course, is in good company. The pioneers of Cloud Computing have been doing this long before it was assigned a buzzword. All your online email providers, such as Yahoo, Hotmail (Microsoft), Google, been there, done that. Salesforce, Amazon, and others have even gone beyond their well-known web offerings to set up ways for other companies to more easily deliver Cloud Computing to their customers, too.

The bottom-line is that Cloud Computing is using a customized outsourced service over the internet. Once it is set up, you just use it. Someone else takes care of the rest as a part of the fee for the service. Buying servers, running the website, shopping around for the best internet providers, upgrading hardware, making things faster, adding features, hiring people that know how to do all this stuff … all not your problem!

The advantages are surprisingly attractive, especially if you use MediaBox. The first is when you use Cloud Computing you are handing over responsibility for all the behind-the-scenes stuff you don’t want to do so that you can better focus on your core business. That’s pretty good all by itself, isn’t it? When you add the fact that you can now be offering customized streamlined services and asset delivery around-the-clock to your customers by using Cloud Computing instead of just when you are in the office, things get really interesting. Additionally, when you “join the cloud”, you are no longer an island working by yourself to improve your processes. You are now one of a multitude with similar experiences and needs, constantly driving forward the evolution and improvement of the application you are using at an accelerated pace. Need we go on?

So, here you are, and you've been using Cloud Computing all along. Yeah, go ahead. You can feel a little smug now. You are one savvy businessperson! But best of all, when you go home and are interacting with the younger generation and they say you aren’t cool, or hip, or in-style in some flustered dismissive tone, you can put them firmly in their place with a snappy retort of “Oh really? Well, I use Cloud Computing. How about them apples?” Will they understand? Probably not now, but one day, years down the road, they will look back and realize that, as much as they hate to admit it, you really knew what you were talking about.