I'm pretty sure that back in the late '60s when The Temptations first released the song “Cloud Nine,” the lyrics “I'm doing fine on Cloud Nine” weren't referring to their perceived value of cloud computing. More likely, it described how people dealt with the problems of being poor and black in America. This psychedelic, soul-style music was a sign of the times.

Read Rick Gilman's previous column, “Groupon as a Marketing Model.”

As far as information technology goes, cloud computing is quickly becoming a sign of these times. When I first wrote about the shift in IT systems to software as a service (SaaS) and the use of thin clients (read “Clearing confusion on cloud computing,” AA&B Sept. 2009), the technical nature of cloud computing seemed to relegate the topic to the CIOs and CTOs of major companies. In reality, as I put it then, cloud computing was “new wrapping paper around an old gift,” as it was very similar to the application service providers and SaaS of the day. Many agents were familiar with both types of offerings and some, thanks to their agency management system vendors, might have actually been using cloud computing, at least in one aspect of their technology.