It’s all in the cloud (computing)

Canadian businesses are amongst the fastest adopters of cloud computing and, according to a Microsoft Corp. study released yesterday, they have much to gain from it. Canada could create as many as 36,000 new jobs by the end of this year and as many as 70,000 by 2015 just from businesses switching to the cloud, the Financial Post reports about a study by International Data Corp. Worldwide, outsourcing to a cloud could create as many as 14 million jobs by 2015, the study says.

But it is not entirely clear how the jobs would be created. The study summary says that, “Efficiencies gained from cloud are applied to innovation broadly (not just IT), such as hiring more sales, finance, production, marketing people and more." Moreover, the study should also be taken with a grain—or a heap—of salt, since Microsoft is in the business of cloud computing.