The sky’s the limit for cloud-enabled applications

Back in the day, the must-have feature for technology products was “Internet-enabled.” (Remember when Windows became Internet-enabled? It meant sticking the browser in.) It got kind of sickening to hear it over and over. Now we take it for granted.

Now it’s “cloud-enabled,” and as much as I am already a little tired of hearing it, the fact is new cloud-enabled applications are rolling out every day, and pretty soon, we’ll take the cloud for granted. Microsoft bought Skype this week. Why? Because Facebook was bidding on it? Yes, but also because it’s all about the cloud.

For instance, this month we have written about cloud-enabled applications for content management and project management. Next week, it will be business intelligence in the cloud.

These are all natural extensions to existing applications. Making them cloud-like is a matter of virtualizing the resources they use and creating on-demand functionality.

What’s next? How about the cloud-enabled automobile? Sure. The cloud-enabled bicycle computer. The cloud-enabled refrigerator. The cloud-enabled fill-in-the-blank. The sky is the limit.