A cloud of choices when law departments consider cloud computing

An executive from Micro Strategies, Inc., in Met. Corp. Counsel, March 2011 at 33, points out some of the proliferating cloud choices: “software as a service [SaaS], infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and desktop as a service.”

SaaS includes such online hosted software as Serengeti Tracker and GoogleDocs. Infrastructure as a service includes huge server banks that law departments can use for storing e-discovery documents or backups of any kinds of files. I think deal rooms are examples of a platform as a service since they offer a suite of capabilities, and desktop as a service may pertain to iPads and other tablet functions that use Internet-based resources.

Given the ability of a law department to mix and match from this set, “This provides a minimum of 16 different kinds of cloud offerings.” Law department managers and their technology advisors need to stay abreast of this plethora of new alternatives.