Trade officials from the United States and eight other Pacific Rim countries are meeting this week in Leesburg, Va., for the 14th negotiating round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an agreement noteworthy for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that it constitutes the first one of its kind in the cloud computing era.
The ability to deliver IT services over the Internet is easily the most exciting evolution in information technology in the last decade. In the past, only big corporations could afford high-end data-processing tools and facilities. Now, everyone has cost-effective access to infinitely scalable services. That offers huge economic benefits — especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, which can start up and grow faster than ever before. (more…)