Cloud computing is a term that comes and goes, but it has become a term that seems destined to stay within the vocabulary of technology users and writers.
Gen-i Otago-Southland sales manager Chris Dawson said everybody had a view on what cloud computing was and meant for the industry.
Often what it meant for one person was completely different for another.
Search engine results say cloud computing refers to shared computing resources accessed remotely as services (via the internet, intranet or dedicated network) that can be provisioned on demand and billed according to usage.
Information technology research company Gartner believes cloud computing heralds an evolution of business that is no less influential than e-business.
Gartner vice-president David Cearley said the impact of cloud computing on IT vendors would be huge.
Established vendors had a great presence in traditional software markets.
As new Web 2.0 and cloud business models evolved and expanded outside of consumer markets, a great deal would change.
"Companies invest billions of dollars in building up their core competencies, much of which goes into IT.
"If companies could lease their core competencies to other companies then they would capitalise on both brands, driving revenue both in the consumer-facing market and the business service market in the way that Amazon has done with technology,"he said.
Most current cloud service providers, such as Amazon and Google, primarily gear their services at SMEs.
In effect, someone else was remotely hosting the data of a business.
However, many larger enterprises are now beginning to think of how they can implement cloud computing internally or make it available from external vendors.
Mr Dawson said there was debate about what companies could put into cloud computing, and it could be everything.
What it could offer was better economy for some businesses through the pay-for-use model.
It also gave developers the choice of either a long-lead in time for testing new software or buying something "off the shelf" with a credit card from Amazon in an afternoon.
It could be three-to-five-years before cloud computing really took hold.
It could be up to 10 years before international standards were drawn up around the safety of the data being held by cloud suppliers, he said.
Seasonal businesses appeared likely to benefit from cloud computing, and it was likely the 2011 Rugby World Cup, in New Zealand, would use cloud computing services rather than building physical storage in New Zealand.
Some people had likened cloud computing to a utility, like electricity, that could be switched on and off at will, Mr Dawson said.
"But here's a reality check.
"It is not like electricity.
"It is not a commodity which has compliance standards and regulations.
"Most cloud providers lock you in.
"Once you move your data into the provider, it is like treacle to move out."
With electricity, there could be a battery back up if the system went down.
But with cloud computing, a company could lose its data if it did not have access to the services, he said.
Security was an issue for cloud computing.
Recently, Facebook and Twitter - two cloud-like computing services - went down.
Questions needed to be asked about whether things in the "public cloud" were business grade.
Businesses also needed to consider what happened if they were dumped by the cloud provider.
Amazon had said it could walk away at any time, Mr Dawson said. Google was not so draconian but did have out clauses.
Both internet giants operated consumer grade agreements, not enterprise ones.
Gen-i was investigating how it could work with New Zealand businesses to become a provider, integrator and aggregator of cloud computing services.
"Cloud computing is the next big thing, but it is still early days," he said. It will never be a utility like electricity."
