Just as VoIP is sweeping the world of voice communications, a similar revolution is taking place in the data world. All over, people are talking about "the cloud" and touting its benefits. You can work from anywhere, use any device, and not worry if your computer crashes or if you have to reinstall the OS. In fact, Google has made it its personal mission to push the cloud into users laps with their Chromebooks. At first glance, there may not be too much in common between the voice and the data worlds but a closer look reveals that they're almost the same thing. They share the same philosophy and the same goals.
Like the cloud, VoIP's most important requirement is simple - an Internet connection. Indeed, one of the greatest benefits of VoIP is that it doesn't matter whether or not you have a traditional phone plan. With an Internet connection either through a regular wireless data plan or with wifi, you can make cheap calls to anyplace in the world and not worry about your physical location. The device you call from is unimportant. You can use your mobile phone or your computer - whichever is handy at any given moment. The cloud also promises the same benefits. You can access and modify your data regardless of what hardware you use and where you are. The only requirement is an Internet connection.
It's no wonder that the sweeping changes which VoIP promises are also happening in the world of documents, email and data. The difference of course is that voice has always been traditionally locked down. And while almost everyone these days has an email account in the cloud via a provider such as Google or Yahoo!, not everyone has a VoIP account - yet. But the adoption of VoIP is growing more and more each day. Businesses have long ago discovered the benefits of VoIP and you'll be hard pressed to find a major corporation which doesn't include VoIP as part of its communication infrastructure.
We can go one step further. Because the two technologies are so inextricably linked, we're heading for a situation where we have one provider for everything. The same Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP) which provides VoIP services is well poised - even inevitably poised - to offer cloud services such as file sharing for example. Google already has its feet in both worlds and it's time VoIP providers began to diversify as well. After all, the cloud and VoIP are one and the same thing.
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