Cloud solutions can help businesses lower total costs and transition from a fixed cost structure to a variable one while freeing up critical IT resources for strategic initiatives and innovation. In case of Cloud applications cloud providers are responsible for the maintenance, operations, and bandwidth of the software and not the cloud customers. Finally, cloud applications are accessed through standard web browsers, providing scalability and agility to the customer. Unlike traditional on premise software applications, cloud applications are located and managed remotely and built with a single code-base customized to the company's needs. Some advantages of cloud computing are: Increased speed in responding to unforeseen events, Easy to get the latest updates, adoption is quick and simple, improved information security, deployment time decreases from years to months, lower risk with subscription based cost model. Increased strategic agility, short deployment times, lower risk and costs - the advantages of cloud computing are compelling. To know more, go to: http://blogs.sap.com/innovation/cloud-computing/6-benefits-of-cloud-computing-032893