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Forgive my ignorance on the matter, as I'm not a web programmer and don't keep up with the relevant technologies, but what is the difference between cloud computing and the Internet, if this is the case? I mean, the finger protocol is arguably "software-as-a-service".

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It seems more accepted that cloud is one of:

* IaaS (infrastructure as a service - think EC2, vps etc)

* PaaS (platform as a service - think GAE/heroku/engine yard, things with an API)

* SaaS (think salesforce, other more end user apps).

each layer (could) build on the one above it (perhaps I wrote it upsite down !).

And I think most people have problems with calling SaaS a "cloud". According to that definition, a hosted visitor counter you can embed on your website can be called "Cloud Counting", and that's nothing new.

Like most things, there really isn't much new, just distilled ideas, perhaps with some terminology that makes it easier to describe (or more catchy). But yes, SaaS isn't new at all.

I think that point is the "cloud" should probably refer to things like virtual instances where you don't necessarily care what physical box they are on (or they could be running on a 'cloud' of distributed machines rather than relying on a single machine, though I don't know if that actually exists).

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