·Reduction in transmission time. Consumers can access the system "on demand," via a variety of devices (e.g. tablet, mobile, desktop).

·Cost savings: IT becomes a variable as opposed to a fixed cost.

·Greater ability to monitor costs of different service components and activities.

·Means of managing shortage of expensive IT staff. With most operations occurring centrally in the cloud, there is no longer a need for IT staff located at the business site.

·Greater organizational flexibility and speed of adaptation. Changed or new provision of computing resources can be reduced dramatically, i.e. from over a year to minutes.

The compelling economic advantages mean that sooner rather than later most businesses and government departments will migrate all or part of their operations into a cloud environment. Right now, the legal rights and responsibilities in this new environment are largely governed by contract law. In that environment, the negotiating power of the parties is a by-product of their economic and/or political power.

In order to maximize cloud computing it is important for entities to review their intellectual property, confidentiality, insurance, information governance, security needs in order to ensure that the migration from a distributed to a cloud environment occurs with minimum risk and achieves maximum advantage. These and related issues will have to be clearly understood and negotiated between the cloud provider and user. From a regulatory standpoint, China will also have to ensure that there is fair competition in the marketplace and adequate protection of consumers.

Eugene Clark is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.ccgp-fushun.com/opinion/eugeneclark.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.