My first encounter with Cloud technology was with SkyDrive -- the online storage of Microsoft. This was in 2009 when I started to backup my Office documents on the Cloud instead of burning it on a CD. It was also very convenient since I can download my documents on any computer that is connected to the Internet. It's an alternate way instead of backing up on a flash drive which has the tendency to get corrupted.
Then I met the program Dropbox, which is very similar in concept to SkyDrive. I was able to backup even more files on the Cloud. Dropbox also gave the option for a public link to the files that's on my Dropbox storage. This allowed me to share those files to my friends by sending the unique link. The free storage provided by Dropbox (2 GB) is smaller in comparison with SkyDrive (7 GB).
At the same time that I discovered Dropbox, I also discovered Google Drive and Photobucket. I haven't tried Google Drive extensively yet but I'm currently backing up my photographs on Photobucket. I've been using Photobucket almost the same time as I played Ragnarok (2003). In fact, my earliest screenshots are stored there. It's also a great Cloud storage website.
I also discovered Zoho.com sometime in 2011 wherein I could type a document and save it on the Cloud. This made me realized that the trend in Word processing (and other Office applications) is slowly shifting towards Cloud technology. In fact, after the release of MS Office 2013, Microsoft released the web-based equivalent of that and named it Office 365. I haven't tried Office 365 yet but I'm guessing that it's almost identical to Office 2013 but all the installation files will be saved on the Microsoft server.
When I worked for Samsung last year, I discovered the use of Google Docs and Google Drive (online storage). We use it to share documents among our peers since our email program is not as good as Outlook. By the way, I’m only using the Word Processing software of Google Docs.
Now that I'm working for Microsoft, I just discovered today the Microsoft Office Web Apps! It's the equivalent program of Google Docs. It's very much similar to the look and feel of the desktop Office 2010 that I'm using. I like the interface of Office Web Apps better than Zoho and Google Docs.
The most prominent feature of Microsoft Office Web Apps (Word) that I'm using right now is the Word Count that is on the bottom of the page. This is very helpful in writing essays that requires a minimum number of words. I also notice that the default file extension of this Word document that I'm typing right now is .docx which means that it can be opened by MS Word 2007 and above only. It's also good to know that both Google Docs and Microsoft Office Web Apps come with Spelling checker.
Customers will be delighted to know that they have an alternate to Office 2013 (in case they don't want to purchase it) if they are only using the MS Word for simple word processing. I believe the Internet is indeed moving towards a society with almost-everything-is-free software.
What Cloud technology software are you using?
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