Cloud computing and CRM

Cloud or hosted.
Hosted, is simply someone else managing your servers and connectivity.
The cloud is a different platform, and to be honst I don't see that much value in it for CRM, unless you are growing rapidly, and you can find a suitable CRM offering on one of the platforms.
For hosting the big ones are.
Where, ie will you fall foul of any legislative demands.
What level of SLAs do they offer, at what price?
What software do you have linked to your CRM, do you mine it's database, or populate the back end.
THe question you must know the answer to is why is this being considered, what benefits are expected, do they actually exist. If this is just one of your bosses got taken to lunch by a vendor, make sure a trip to the cleaners isn't expected as well...

With cloud being hosted services there are a few things to consider. One would definitely be security, although IBM has made many advancements to curb any security threats, another would also be speed. Applications, as you know, have a tendency to slow things down, however the cloud, with the proper bandwith, can help reduce the slow down by making it accessible off a hosted server.

Is the cloud something you have looked at before? Will you be looking to the cloud for other things as well?

Cloud computing is growing ever more prominent in the world of project management (and business efficiency in general). The company I work for uses @Task's web-based project management software in all their departments - from engineering to finance to marketing. This software organizes both inward and outward communication and is accessible away from the work place. This access (as long as it is secure of course) is the foremost benefit of web-based project management. I highly recommend it.