Microsoft Innovation Day at the Hilton in Portomaso, presided by Jan Muhlfeit, Chairman Europe of Microsoft Corporation, saw various guest speakers sharing their knowledge about cloud technologies and how these can be put to use in different business scenarios.

Defining Cloud Computing is a subjective task as people tend to explain the term from their own perspective. It is commonly referred to as Software as a Service (SaaS), Service Oriented Architecture, or a mesh of Rich Internet Applications. However these are merely styles of architecture that are applied to the cloud, rather than Cloud Computing per se.

ICON director Gege Gatt shared his preferred analogy during the event. Cloud Computing is like deciding whether to build your own home against renting it. Whereas building a property allows control over customisations, it also necessitates early capacity-planning, stressful supplier-management efforts and also involves management of maintenance work, he said.

The wide use of social networks and web applications has married technology with social forces, which together drive global development. Whereas consumers look for technologies to make their voices heard, more and better technology is produced to cater for such demand.