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24Jul•Aug•Sep 2012InnovationsShooting forthe CloudsSMEs have the most to gain from cloud computing,a virtual IT delivery service that allows firms tofocus on what they do best, says Webvisions GroupCEO Poh Mui Hoon. Francis Kan reports.When a local companyselling media contentonline faced anunexpected spike in demand forits products, it easily ramped upits computing capacity to dealwith the additional load using avirtual technology known as cloudcomputing.More importantly, it was ableto scale down again when demandreturned to normal, saving theneed to invest in a costly physicalserver that would becomeredundant once the temporarysurge in activity subsided, said MsPoh Mui Hoon, Group CEO ofWebvisions Pte Ltd, a Singaporebasedcompany that provides cloudcomputing services.“Cloud computing gives you theflexibility to stretch or contractyour compute or storage servicesas demand for your business goesup or down,” she said in aninterview with BiZQ.“If you have a big project andrequire an increase in computepower only for six months, with thecloud, you don’t have to make a bigcapital investment to cater to that.”In an increasingly erraticbusiness environment wheredemand becomes harder to predict,having an information technologyinfrastructure that tracks the ebband flow of your company’sactivity is critical.That explains the appeal of cloudcomputing, a highly scalable andcost-efficient service that deliverscomputing and storage capacityvirtually to end users, and whichhas caught on like wildfire in thecorporate world in recent years.Webvisions, a leader inproviding web-hosting servicesMs Poh Mui Hoon, GroupCEO of Webvisions“Cloudcomputing givesyou the flexibility tostretch or contractyour compute orstorage services.If you have a bigproject and requirean increase incompute power onlyfor six months, withthe cloud, you don’thave to make a bigcapital investment tocater to that.”