by In case if it was a paid software , you had the option to buy the physical CD of the product and install it (only if your system requirements met the hardware specifications required by that software)
In the event your desktop or even laptop was quite old and didn’t have a powerful processor, a min 2-4GB RAM and free storage space of 15 GB, you had no way of installing it. Even if you managed to install it somehow, it would either be dead slow or crash at the first instance
This was a quite cumbersome process,as you had the constant need to upgrade your desktop hardware. In the case of a laptop you were forced to buy a new one as upgrading of laptop wasn’t feasible, just to play that favourite game of yours.
Though the word “Cloud” computing became quite popular only around 5-6 years back, it wasn’t entirely a new concept altogether. The basic E-Mail service like Google, Yahoo, and Hotmail is the very definition of cloud computing services. All the incoming and outgoing emails are stored in an exchange server somewhere in the world, which is then routed to another server, depending on the destination.
Cloud computing however grew in shape and had its real impact, when companies like Facebook invited gaming apps to host in their website. Games like Farmville, Candy Crush etc were one of the first app based games to be hosted entirely in a social network website. The game could be accessed from any computer (desktop or laptop) , irrespective of the hardware specifications. As long as one had a mouse, keyboard a good desktop it was sufficient to play the game at any point of time. There was no concept of downloading, installing and executing the software to play the game. You just need an internet browser, log into facebook and start playing the game
The impact of cloud computing had a major business impact too. Lots of companies started selling “Software” as a service instead of an executable product. You just need an authorization account for yourself , and you can access the application through your mobile or laptop from anywhere in the world, from any system. A typical example was Salesforce.com. Salesforce is a system which stores all the customer details and acts like a cloud database. Any sales person, from any part of the world can access this information and make timely decisions. In a normal world scenario, it would have made him come to the office and access the data, which would have resulted in serious delay
A similar economic impact of cloud would be its backup advantage. If a company has data stored in its physical servers, it has the possibility to be physically destroyed due to natural calamities. It can also be corrupted due to viruses and other hacking attacks.
However data stored in a cloud is always accessible 24*7, cannot be easily corrupted or hacked into. Hence it acts like a fail-safe system for businesses to run their firm. This also eliminates the need to physically buy servers, recruit server admins and further maintenance to keep it running. These have resulted in savings of several billions of dollars for a lot of tech companies, year after year
This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.
