Cloud computing is the latest wave that is sweeping the information technology world. Under this new computing model, all of our data is stored on remote computers somewhere in the obscure world of the Internet “cloud”. We don’t have to know where our data is being kept. We just have to trust and take it on faith that it is there and that we will have secure access to it anytime, from anywhere.
Believe it or not, cloud computing has actually been with us for over a decade, even though it had not garnered much mainstream attention until the last couple of years. Perhaps one of the earliest known applications of cloud computing has been the concept of web-based email hosting.
Once upon a time, the only way to manage your e-mail was to have it delivered directly to your desktop computer’s email client program, such as Microsoft Outlook or Eudora. But then along came Hotmail, the world’s first web-based email service, which was launched way back in 1996. For the first time ever, people could access their email without the need for any software client program to be installed on their machines. They could send and receive their email from the Internet “cloud”.
Millions of businesses worldwide are turning to cloud-based email hosting reseller solutions, as this lowers their technology infrastructure costs, since they no longer have to pay for the hardware or for any software licensing. Nor do they have to hire anyone to manage the email servers. At the same time, cloud-based mail hosting solutions increase employee productivity, since it enables you to be able to access your email while at home or on the road. Once upon a time, you had to worry about losing all of your email if your computer’s hard drive were to crash. That concern is now a thing of the past.
Email hosting is a major cash cow in the Internet marketplace today.
