# General Business Category > Entrepreneurship and Business Management Forum >  Cloud Computing is Budget Computing for SMBs

## MarkH

Cloud Computing is Budget Computing for SMBs

Today, as we have a hard-hitting competitive business environment; the survival is for the toughest only. Only those can survive who have an increasing customer intimacy and business receptiveness and who has an effective grasp over using smart technologies.
Every businessmanâs prime goal is to accomplish the target of high financial gains and lower costs. The objective cannot be achieved unless and until the available resources i.e. human and material ones are managed and utilized efficiently.
In the current era of technology, management of organizational resources has become colossal task. Companies have to spend an ample of budget for the purchase of business management solutions and the integration with the existing IT infrastructure.
The cost factor can only be justified once the system is up and running and producing results. It is also said that most businesses go into slump by choosing wrong business management system. The term is known as Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) which has remain the main concern for both end users and solution providers as it is the point of differentiation for both.
Every time an organization thinks of taking up a management system, it starts with the thought of how will it benefit the business, either in monetary or operational basis. In case if the business is slumped it will be considered as an unwise expense that was taken up by them. Thatâs why many SMBâs are reluctant to even be negotiated for Business Management Systems.

Ever since Software as a Service (SaaS) on-demand web-based/client model applications have been introduced in the market, business organizations have become autonomous in executing various tasks smoothly with less man power or heavy IT investments.

Millions of dollars are spent by the corporations on licensing, surveying and implementation of the business management system available by different vendors in the market now. And if the buyer is not satisfied he has to stick with the solution till expiration of the license. That is where SaaS business management systems provide opportunity especially to SMBâs to manage their business operations and to achieve bigger targets at a very affordable price.
Traditional, desktop based software have been overtaken by web-based applications which most commonly regarded as âonlineâ, âhostedâ, or âon-demand applicationsâ. Owing to the increased dependability on the Internet and World Wide Web, today we see more and more businesses signing up with SaaS model applications readily available on the web for taking care of CRM, HRM, document management needs, contacts etc. 
Why? Not just because they save time, effort, cost but also because SaaS applications offer benefits to business due to their multi-tenant efficiency, flexibility and scalability features. During the current economically turbulent times, it has become even more imperative to lead the race of time and be the priority choice for every opportunity and every customer interactions than it was ever before. Furthermore, it is best to utilize a system without having to make hefty investments on software which otherwise can be expensive to install, administer and maintain. Who needs initial big investments or suffer headaches of maintenance or fear the risk of losing your data, simply sign up with our services and access your data in a safe medium with pay as you go facility. No rules, no contract.

Vision Online Business Management System has been designed to fill the gap between various entry-level and multifarious high-end system. A cost effective management solution for your small or perhaps medium sized organization, Vision is a sophisticated business management tool packed with innovative features, facilitating with productivity-enhancing benefits and an array of customization options to befit your diverse business needs. 
Unlike some other software options, Vision is an all-in-one-solution, eradicating the need for purchasing other system modules separately for taking care of further different organizational/business tasks.

With Vision you do not have to purchase any software or switch from your old system or implement anything additionally. Vision is a pay-as-you-go service, starting at a monthly cost of $39, yes just that! In contrast with others, licensed Business Management applications usually require a hefty license fee in advance, followed by smaller monthly maintenance fee which can usually sum up to be approximately 15-20% of the total license fee. Imagine that!


Visionâs in-built six outstanding modules comprising of Project Management, Field/Support Services, Document Management, HR Management, Customer Relations Management, and lastly, Accounting Management, come along with a set of fully integrated and interlinked system developed to streamline your business, increase productivity, and boost your revenue. 

Along with the ease to set up and built-in security system, you can tailor your unique business needs with Visionâs customizable and scalable business solutions. Its powerful modules work seamlessly together in order to deliver incomparable performance, reliability, and add value to your business.

Vision Online Business Management System allows your employees to collaborate and share vital information and systematize their work in a single real-time system. You can keep a track on all the functional and financial activity going on around your entire organization. Armed with that knowledge you can improve your processes - your entire company becomes smarter about prospects and customers and your ability to meet their demands and exceed expectations.
Vision helps you maximize your customer relationships and other prospect opportunities that come your way. You can effortlessly streamline in-house employee or client communications in order to improve sales and service productivity which ranks up your overall business effectiveness and achievability. 

If you want to manage all your documents and projects in one place without losing any essential data and keep a track of time and budget, Vision qualifies for being your ultimate choice for meeting all your unique business demands. 

Enhance your sales and marketing efforts with an automated system that facilitates you in providing a better decision-making aptitude. Furthermore, it helps you stay updated with up-to-the-minute information and details any time.  
Vision enables you to forecast, track and administer your revenue plan, underlying projects in pipelines and other business goals.

Without installing any hardware or software, only an internet connection can help you make it all doable with your Vision Business Management Solution, amplifying your business processes and workflow within fewer resources. This way, you can access your information, share and save data accordingly from remote locations without having to be restricted to your organizational or business premises.

When you can easily get most of your work done with Visionâs multiple-tasking Online Business Management System, then why spend heavy funds and make investments on purchasing individual software to manage different organizational tasks? 



Mark Hoffman
Senior Consultant
Business Vision ME
www.businessvision.me
http://businessvisionme.blogspot.com/
www.youtube.com/businessvisionme
markh@businessvision.me

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## SilverNodashi

I'm still trying to decide whether this is just self-promoting-spam, or actually a useful post.

Dave, what do you think?


Mark, apart from starting your first post promoting yourself, would you care to contribute to the rest of the forum as well?

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## Dave A

> Dave, what do you think?


I feel much as you do. I let it run to get opinions  :Wink: 

Cloud computing is one of those buzzwords floating around at the moment. I get the basic idea, but at this point I'm not sure what the key deciding points are when assessing the value of going this route against using "conventional" systems. So at this time almost any discussion on the subject would seem to be of *some* value - even if all it achieves is to establish what is junk.

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## daveob

This concept of Cloud Computing is fine - but not here and not now.

Why not ?

Well, you remember the days of the old XT PC, running DOS, later replaced with the bells and whistles of Windows 3.11. Ever since then, all upgrades in operating systems and raw PC power, have been praised and comments often heard along the lines of "I can work twice as fast" and the likes. Often you would upgrade to a new PC and just couldn't believe how much faster it was compared to your last model.

Well, in my opinion, in South Africa, this Cloud concept would take us back to the level of Windows 3.11.

Only yesterday I was doing some maintenance work on our SA based online database which is used by php script on our web sites. Now I have a 4mb ( well, that's the spec, anyway ) ADSL line, and the time delays to update records, search, go to the next page, etc, were agonising.  Compared to what I can do in a fraction of the time in Access on my local PC, there just is no comparison.

At one point, I considered moving our client management database online. The biggest stumbling block I found was the bandwidth which would slow down our ability to give prompt service to clients. At the moment, a client calls in, I know from the caller ID on my phone who it is, and before they even speak, I have their complete details on the screen in front of me. Now imagine telling the client to hold for a few minutes while you retreive their details off the internet.  ( thinking about it, maybe Telkom have already gone this route ).

Now if you're in a first world country where you have a 1Tb line, it might be a different story. But if you want to have your employees doing faster work and less sitting around, I wouldn't recommend the Cloud concept at the moment.

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Dave A (16-Mar-10)

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## tec0

Cloud computing sounds like it will be fun for our service providers because they will be able to control our information and our ability to access the servers that is situated across the world. Basically it is a guaranteed income for your fat-cat service providers. 

Taking into consideration that all your data will be striped across networks across the world might make it more difficult for supper hackers but it will also mean that all your servers will have to be connected to the internet permanently and that all your users will basically access the net 24 7 and this is where data cost comes to play. 

Basically your internet traffic will kill your business. In South Africa cloud computing will be just too expensive

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## MarkH

I'm glad that such objective discussion has been triggered on this topic. Very valid points have been presented, i'd like to go through them:
1. The concept is as old as hotmail, yahoo, amazon, ebay and many others. 
2. bandwidth, agreed! just like you can't sell TVs in a place with no electric power services.. BUT, let's remember also that internet services have advanced a lot (a lot) and the need for faster connections is not imposed only by SaaS, Youtube, Facebook and P2P services require high bandwidth and ISPs have no option but to cope with that.. it will happen at different speeds here and there, but the fact that ISPs will cope with is not arguable.
3. security: businesses including multinationals depend on internet services (email, backup (ironmountain), online banks, etc).. security precautions are always there.. and they work pretty well so far.

on the other hand, the advantages are so obvious in terms of lowering the cost of implementation, no upgrades, no training, to name but a few..

again .. thnx for the nice discussion..

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## Dave A

Mark, what sort of broadband speeds do you get in Egypt? 
And at what sort of cost per Gig (might be an idea to put that in Euro's or USD so that we could relate more easily)?

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## Dave U

> Cloud computing sounds like it will be fun for our service providers because they will be able to control our information and our ability to access the servers that is situated across the world. Basically it is a guaranteed income for your fat-cat service providers.


Hey, not all cloud service providers are fat-cats!  I'm a small business owner, just like the rest of the people here, even though some days I wish I was a fat-cat.  :Smile:   Your concern about control of information is valid though.  I've been thinking of a possible solution to this.  One is for providers such as myself to give clients the facility to "dump" all their data into a file with a structured format and a matching technical specification.  My competitors (both in the cloud and offline) would then be able to write programs to transfer this data into their system.

I'm quite sure this would have a positive impact on my business.  It sends the message to my customers that I intend to keep them around through superior service rather than trapping them.  And if all cloud providers went this route, it would go a long way towards legitimising cloud computing.

So the key take-away for the readers here is that your provider must be committed to giving you ownership of your data, even if you never intend to move your data away.




> Basically your internet traffic will kill your business. In South Africa cloud computing will be just too expensive


While I agree that the internet is very expensive today, there is a clear trend towards lower bandwidth costs.  Also, typical business application web pages use much less bandwidth than most other internet activities.




> But if you want to have your employees doing faster work and less sitting around, I wouldn't recommend the Cloud concept at the moment.


That's definitely a valid concern.  I think the lost productivity isn't even the main problem - it's the constant frustration when you're just trying to do your job.

A lot of web apps, even when they've been adapted for the SA market, were never designed to run under our conditions of constrained bandwidth.  My server is in New Jersey, yet the product feels more responsive than that of my competitors who host their servers in SA.  I believe it's possible for most web apps to achieve the same.  Unfortunately there's not always motivation to expend the additional effort.  I had no choice, since SA is my primary market and I need every competitive advantage I can get.

Second key take-away: insist on a free demo to see how fast the system works.  And if it's noticeably slow, and something you'll be using every hour of every day, you may want to pass.  In my area (payroll) the system isn't used every single day, so slowness my be a bit more acceptable.

Well we haven't even gotten to the pro's of cloud computing / SaaS (software as a service).  Maybe I'll post on that at some later stage.

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Dave A (19-Mar-10)

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## tec0

The real danger of having such a service and a remote server storing your info is even with a contract stating that my info IS my info. If I fail and cannot pay my cloud bill I lose my business because of denial of service. Now, I can only speak for myself but having an online global server system holding my information  might be good for backup but in the end of the day a local server and a proper backup system that is owned and run by myself sounds like a better solution because I will always have access to my information.   :Cool:

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## Dave U

> If I fail and cannot pay my cloud bill I lose my business because of denial of service.


Hi tec0

I'm not sure I'm following you.  If you fail (I'm assuming you mean your business fails), then why would you need access to the service?  Or were you referring to the case where you're just short on cash for a month or two, thereby losing your cloud service?

I think if the cash flow in your business is that tight, you may have bigger problems than your cloud service being cut off  :Smile:   They could cut off your landline, cell, internet, everything... it's more likely that you've already lost your business due to other reasons if you can no longer afford the fee for the service, rather than due to being cut off.

I agree that many of the advantages of using a cloud service disappear if you have the technical know-how and enough time on your hands to do your own thing.  But for those who don't, it still brings these benefits: 

No need for backups, as you mentioned. (And I hope you do a full restore every month to see if your backups are working properly.  You don't actually have backups until you do that)No need to download software or keep it up to date with patches and updates.Have you ever had software that ran fine under Windows XP, but refuses to cooperate on Windows Vista / Windows 7? None of those issues.Superior support - your provider can actually see what's going on immediately, rather than the back-and-forth of screenshots that normally happens when trying to troubleshoot something.No need to buy, setup and maintain your own server, for those kinds of applications that would require one.  This is a big one.  Most small business who need some kind of collaborative software can't afford to keep a technical person on staff.  They can either get a technician in when needed, paid by the hour (which leads to unpredictable costs), or sign a support contract which includes a number of hours per month (and we're back at monthly billing, so maybe that cloud service isn't looking so bad after all).

And so we come full circle by connecting the point about the server to your original objection about being cut off due to non-payment:  what if your server dies and you don't have the money to replace it?  That's an unexpected expense of thousands of rands that could actually sink a small business.  A small, predictable monthly fee for a cloud service can be budgeted for.

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## tec0

Well I donât live in the past and the point of my post was is that you want access to your info if something goes bad. And if you look at the South African business system things can go bad easily. Secondly benefits of cloud against the costs of internet and its reliability at this point in time is not bad but ask anyone with a Telkom line it is far from trustworthy mobile internet is also limited to the amount of money you spend on it. 

So yes you donât need to do backup or do software upgrades and yes you have a powerful security system at this point in time but, there is a little something you missed. See if my line goes down because of cable theft and I need my books or info I canât access it. Now if you take that into consideration you may find that the infrastructure that needs to support the cloud system may not be adequate.  :Wink:

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## MarkH

> Mark, what sort of broadband speeds do you get in Egypt? 
> And at what sort of cost per Gig (might be an idea to put that in Euro's or USD so that we could relate more easily)?


Cairo: you can get up to 16MBPS for $90 p.m , mine is 4MBPS and I pay $50 p.m
Dubai: i have 8MBPS for $60 p.m

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Dave A (21-Mar-10)

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## Dave A

And that would be "as much as you can eat" deals? (As in - there isn't a monthly usage limit)

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## MarkH

> And that would be "as much as you can eat" deals? (As in - there isn't a monthly usage limit)


yes. but i'm sure i don't look like an alien here.. there are faster packages with unlimited bandwidth for cheaper prices (plus minus) are all over the place in Europe, America and the Middle East (these are the places I can talk about).. and ISPs are working all over the world to speed up the internet (e.g. Turkey is working on providing mobile phone users with 42MBPS connections, and US is considering offering 1GBPS connection for home users).. this is very similar in the revolutions in improving processing power, expanding memory, increasing storage, etc... this is why I do believe that cloud computing is the way to go SOON, of course people's ability to digest root changes varies, but that doesn't change the obvious facts/advantages of moving forward..

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## Dave A

Mark - up there in North Africa you're still way ahead of us in terms of both speed and pricing.

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## twinscythe12332

One of the questions you want to ask yourself when deciding to go onto a cloud is : is it really safe? storing a years-worth of financial data on the web is something you really have to look at versus keeping it on a local server. What happens if it gets hacked? A web hosting company is more likely to be attacked than a random server in the middle of nowhere. the same can be said for a cloud service company.

as for costs, well... that's an interesting point. it is true that you gain access to a server for cheaper, and that the hardware would be upgraded constantly... but at the end of the day, the only thing that is yours is the data... on someone else's hardware... in some remote location that you could never dream of reaching if something goes wrong...

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## MarkH

> One of the questions you want to ask yourself when deciding to go onto a cloud is : is it really safe? storing a years-worth of financial data on the web is something you really have to look at versus keeping it on a local server. What happens if it gets hacked? A web hosting company is more likely to be attacked than a random server in the middle of nowhere. the same can be said for a cloud service company.
> 
> as for costs, well... that's an interesting point. it is true that you gain access to a server for cheaper, and that the hardware would be upgraded constantly... but at the end of the day, the only thing that is yours is the data... on someone else's hardware... in some remote location that you could never dream of reaching if something goes wrong...


thnx for the input, but i respectfully disagree on both points, security and data availability.

datacenters do hosting for living, hence they are equipped with the tools and skills to protect their assets.. this is all what they have (the data on the servers) and if they don't protect that they would go bankrupt next day.. on the other hand, individuals or small firms will not be safe just because they are small, any machine connected to the web has an IP address which can be scanned and found (no matter how many other servers are setting beside this machine).. this puts everybody at the same level of risk, however, individuals in most cases don't have the skills, tools and time to protect their IT infrastructure because they have their main core to focus on.. historically and statistically, the people who most of the time are affected seriously when a global attack happens are the small fish not the professional companies who have enough time to setup processes and procedures, train staff and ..... I think the point is clear.

that also resembles the situation of keeping your money in the bank (a sort of cloud) or in the safe inside your wardrobe.. using the same logic, the bank is a more obvious target while your safe is in the middle of nowhere.. DO YOU keep a year worth of savings in your home safe just because you think it is safer than the bank!!!

Now to data availability, any trust worthy cloud service provider will give you the option to have local copies of your data on regular basis. Although I don't agree with your scenario, but assuming that the provider disappears, all what you loose is the data since the last backup.. which could easily easily happen when you save your data on your local server and it crashes suddenly. BEAR in mind that the likelihood of the server in the datacenter to crash is less due to the procedures of maintenance and the risk is less bcs of the local backup copies, offsite backup, redundancy, and business continuity precautions..

All in all, I keep saying that all of the time, all that is just a form of change resistance that will wither over time..

again, thnx for contributing to this thread..

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## Dave A

Perhaps not the best comparison in light of the GFM:



> DO YOU keep a year worth of savings in your home safe just because you think it is safer than the bank!!!


Depends - Lehmann Brothers should have been as safe as houses  :Stick Out Tongue: 

The security angle doesn't work either. You can blast away at my company intranet's external IP address on any port you like - the hardware firewall is going to reject any and all uninitiated external requests whereas an internet server *has* to accept uninitiated requests to function.

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## MarkH

> Perhaps not the best comparison in light of the GFM:
> 
> Depends - Lehmann Brothers should have been as safe as houses 
> 
> The security angle doesn't work either. You can blast away at my company intranet's external IP address on any port you like - the hardware firewall is going to reject any and all uninitiated external requests whereas an internet server *has* to accept uninitiated requests to function.


with all due respect that's totally wrong.. internet requests are routed through a couple of ports (80 or 8080). ANYWAY, let's not bog down the discussion by micro details which would divert the context, the output is that there are globally more than 500,000,000 servers connected to the internet (according to Eric -Google's CEO) and all in all they functioning well.. risks and issues are there always with all types of servers and technologies (including my electric teeth brush) but that doesn't change the big picture... risks of driving cars didn't stop that industry..
Also think of salesforce.com which have been only doing cloud solutions for the more than 5 years with a forecasted income of $1.2B this year..

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## Dave A

Don't mind me - I pick on the wierdest stuff at times. Every now and then it bears unexpected fruit.  :Big Grin:

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## MarkH

> Don't mind me - I pick on the wierdest stuff at times. Every now and then it bears unexpected fruit.


 :Smile: 
good food for thought though..

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## twinscythe12332

> that also resembles the situation of keeping your money in the bank (a sort of cloud) or in the safe inside your wardrobe.. using the same logic, the bank is a more obvious target while your safe is in the middle of nowhere.. DO YOU keep a year worth of savings in your home safe just because you think it is safer than the bank!!!.


a bank, while it has all kinds of security, big vaults, etc are still TARGETED. There are a lot fewer people who will say "let's go see what the robertsons have today," mainly because it is not a sure thing that they will hit the jackpot. A bank is sure to have money because that's what it deals in. 
The reason why my money is in the bank instead of in a safe at home is because banks have somehow managed to make themselves an integral part of transactions. There is some level of usefulness, but the second you have a problem with the bank, they lock down and you are the enemy.

just with regards to the backup scenario... most of the cloud computing services are offering Software as a Service. Now as much as having backups of data is useful, wouldn't they need recovery plans for when their software service goes down? traditional software approaches would mean you would have the software available (although it may be a little bit older), but if a company can no longer pay the SaaS fees, where do they go from there?

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## Dave U

> Perhaps not the best comparison in light of the GFM:
> The security angle doesn't work either. You can blast away at my company intranet's external IP address on any port you like - the hardware firewall is going to reject any and all uninitiated external requests whereas an internet server *has* to accept uninitiated requests to function.


I agree with MarkH, but I'm prepared to go into the detail required to address your point.

Attackers don't need to initiate requests from outside your network to get in.  All they need is one computer in your network that's been infected by malware, which will then initiate the connection to the attackers.  And how easy is it to become infected these days?  It seems every month a new bug is discovered that can allow an attacker to install malware on your computer just because you clicked on a website link.  Or opened a specially crafted PDF.

Servers aren't general-purpose machines like your desktop.  They're dedicated to just the purpose of serving requests and are therefore much easier to secure - no-one is going to open a web page from the server, resulting in the entire server being infected.  Of course, this is assuming your provider knows what he's doing, but it's likely that someone who's managed to stay in business for a few years has figured it out.

Now, obviously, if someone's infected your computer, they may be able to access your data that's in the cloud.  But the risk is actually compounded when you have all your services locally, because now every other computer on your network becomes a potential attack vector.

I guess the point you were making was that it's not necessarily clear-cut that a cloud service is more secure.  I can't disagree.  What I tried to show above, though, is that it's not clear-cut that keeping your data locally is more secure either.

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## Dave U

> just with regards to the backup scenario... most of the cloud computing services are offering Software as a Service. Now as much as having backups of data is useful, wouldn't they need recovery plans for when their software service goes down? traditional software approaches would mean you would have the software available (although it may be a little bit older), but if a company can no longer pay the SaaS fees, where do they go from there?


As I said to someone else in this thread, if you can no longer afford the cloud service, you probably have bigger problems than just that.  Like your electricity being cut off.  That's business for you - bad things happen when you run out of cash, which is why we have budgeting.  But what if the local server you were running your software on collapses and you don't have the cash to replace it?  That's a much bigger expense, and one you probably didn't budget for.

Also, do you realise that many companies charge annual licensing fees to use their software, even though you install and run it on your own computer / server?  Or if not a licensing fee, then a "support fee".  Most cloud services include support by default, of course.

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## Dave A

> Attackers don't need to initiate requests from outside your network to get in.  All they need is one computer in your network that's been infected by malware, which will then initiate the connection to the attackers.
> ...
> Now, obviously, if someone's infected your computer, they may be able to access your data that's in the cloud.


Well, that's the crux of my argument right there. There are two roads into the cloud, whereas there's only one into the company network. Once you're compromised, you're compromised.




> Or opened a specially crafted PDF.


I asked this question quite recently - last I heard PDFs are still safe  :Confused: 




> Servers aren't general-purpose machines like your desktop.  They're dedicated to just the purpose of serving requests and are therefore much easier to secure - no-one is going to open a web page from the server, resulting in the entire server being infected.


Not quite true. There's this horrid thing called an XSS flaw  :EEK!:

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