The latest trend in information technology is Cloud computing, the use of applications for word processing, accounting, music downloading, and other IT needs through a web browser. Essentially, the “cloud” application resides on the web and you access them through your browser.  Documents, data, reports, music, video and the like can be printed locally or stored on the web. This allows the use of “thin clients” (any device that runs a web browser is sufficient to run applications) because the processing is done in the cloud (using broadband, consequently the “cloud”) and not on your workstation. 

The most pressing issue for many offices today is workplace virtualization, the creation of a virtual office environment available in cyberspace from any location using almost any computing platform at any time. Virtualization is not getting email and the web on your phone! It is not being able to sign on AOL, Yahoo, and even that touchstone of the current cyber age Google! It is also not getting text in Timbuktu or tweets from the New York Times in Tomsk. Being connected may be a necessity but it is not virtualization!