The Cloud Enables Global Businesses to Reach Global Customers

There are four key aspects to understanding cloud computing: scalability, leverage, speed, and reach. The one area out of the four key aspects that has been underdeveloped until recently was the idea of using the cloud for global businesses to access global customers. That concept is called Global Reach.
As you have likely read recently, quite a bit has changed in the world of clouds. Amazon’s Elastic Cloud Computing has crossed the Atlantic to Europe, EC2 has opened up a U.S. West Coast presence, and AWS has also recently announced an Asian expansion. Plus, a lot of other clouds have sprung up across the world recently.

Cloud Reachs Global Growth

All of this growth and expansion goes to show you that the importance of reach in cloud computing is true. Friendster is one example of a company that has grown and been able to reach more customers because of the clouds.

For those of you who know about social networking, Friendster was one of the first social networks. Friendster was one of the first true movers in the cloud space, but due to some business errors, they fell behind other sites like MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. But, they did not fall behind in the Asia Pacific region.

Cloud Computing

Friendster is now one of the largest social network sites still popular within that geographic region. You can definitely see how they have re-tooled their business to be friendly to the Asia Pacific region.

Here is the point: Friendster started their infrastructure all in the United States. So, when the social network market fell underneath them they responded by adapting. They took cloud computing and went global. They reached out to other cultures and other social networks and found a place where they thrived.

As cloud computing is starting to go global, global reach will provide a whole new opportunity in how some businesses think about responding to other market shifts. Now you can follow-the-cloud and move your entire application to a new country if needed with much less effort than ever before.
Cloud computing is going global and it is going to dramatically change the way we think about service delivery models and advertising completely.

To learn more about the cloud and cloud computing, visit Cloud Computing on Nist.gov.

To read more about cloud computing, visit Cloud Computing.