Since starting the project to commercialise our mail product MRX as a SaaS (Software Application Service) we have well and truely had our heads in The Cloud - in our case, The Amazon Cloud. For those unfamiliar with cloud computing, the basic idea is that instead of owning and maintaining your own servers, you rent a 'virtual' server located somewhere on the Internet. Each server you run is called an Instance, and it behaves exactly like a dedicated server on your own premises.

The cost benefits of this can be enormous, and you don't have the hassle of physically accommodating the server and maintaining the hardware. Furthermore, you only pay for it when you use it.

There are many advantages in delivering a software service like MRX using Cloud Computing. Not only is it far easier to manage, it is totally scalable, so as our customer base grows, it is very easy to add computing power.

Although our primary interest in The Cloud was for our own application service MRX, it soon became clear it would be of great benefit to our customers running applications we distribute, such as Canto Cumulus and HELIOS WebShare.

Both Canto and HELIOS and both support users who wish to deploy their server solutions on the Cloud. We expect this to be a major growth area as users reduce their hardware ownership in the future. If you are interested in running any of your JPY applications in the Cloud we would love to hear from you.