Cloud computing makes it possible for companies to offer Web-based versions of popular personal computer applications such as e-mail services, document editing, photo editing, and instant messaging, as seen in the accompanying figure. Discuss consumer applications in the cloud.

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Applications that were once limited to desktop use become more valuable when they can leverage the capabilities of the Internet. For example, both Gmail and Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access provide access to e-mail messages from within the browser, as shown in the accompanying figure.

Gmail is an entirely Web-based e-mail service, whereas Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access is the online counterpart to the Microsoft Office Outlook desktop application. Gmail also provides links to a user's accounts on other Google-provided software applications that run within the Cloud, including Google Docs, Google Reader, and Google Sites.

Users who would previously create or edit documents using applications installed on their personal computers and share these files with others via e-mail messages, may now take advantage of applications that run in the Cloud to create and share documents. ZohoWriter, Google Docs, and Microsoft Office Live provide online document, spreadsheet, and presentation editing, and storage, collaboration, and sharing capabilities.

Users may upload, create, and store documents online to facilitate sharing with others. Each application offers many of the same tools that you would find in the equivalent desktop word processing and spreadsheet applications. Whereas applications like Microsoft Office require substantial disk space and processing power for editing and storing a user's documents, their online counterparts only require the processing power needed to run a Web browser. For consumers, this dramatically reduces the requirements of a client computer connected to the Cloud. Many netbook systems are capable of Cloud computing and can be acquired for a fraction of the cost of business-class laptops.

Sumo Paint provides photo-editing software capabilities within a Web browser that are comparable to those found in desktop applications. Because Sumo Paint resides on the Web, users can choose to upload a photo from a personal computer or to import a photo stored on the Web by providing its URL. Users may save photos to their Sumo Paint accounts in order to share them with friends.