"The Cloud" is one of the latest buzz phrases but it's not just a passing trend. It is literally a metaphore for the internet but in today's context it simply means services that are hosted on the web which can be hardware or software which are usually paid for on a "pay as you need" basis. Operating expenses are lowered as a large portion of hardware maintenance is outsourced.

"Clouds" can be public or private. A public cloud service is software delivered via the web that anybody can access given they have a verified login. A private cloud by contrast is a software service that only users in your company can access. Both models are usually deployed using virtualisation which means the "computer" the service is running on can be given more power at the flick of a switch dependant on demand. Private clouds are generally considered more secure whereas public clouds have the advantage of easier deployment as the supplier doesn't have to deploy to several different locations.

Microsoft's cloud platform offering is called Windows Azure and applications written using current and legacy Microsoft technologies, in addition to others, can easily by converted to run in the cloud thus reducing time to market and cost.

Our own product suite, workQ is hosted on Azure demonstrating that we have the right level of commercial expertise to not only take a product to market but to do it leveraging the latest technologies.