For the longest time, businesses have been installing email servers on site to have more control over their data. But the drawback of this setup is that it's more expensive and you need to have a dedicated IT team to manage everything. Microsoft Exchange Online is a cloud-based email service that offers the same features and benefits of an on-premises Exchange server, without the hassle and expense.

Software developers make a profit by selling us the best product they can create. When selling pieces of their software in bulk, they offer licensing packages to businesses so you don’t have to buy 100 copies of the same CD. Now that an increasing amount of services and tools are moving into the cloud, it’s a lot harder to track how many licenses you’ll need and how much they’ll cost.

Virtualization has permanently changed the world of IT and computing and bringing with it the overhaul of IT architecture and workflow. One would think that it would reach its saturation point sooner or later but with constant innovation and development, virtualization has permeated and penetrated deep as to reach the client level.

Software licensing has been a thorn in everybody’s side for as long as we can remember. It’s no surprise that as software begins to help us to consolidate and combine pieces of hardware through virtualization, we’re confronted with this problem yet again.

For the past year Strem Chemicals, a Massachusetts-based company which manufactures and markets specialty chemicals, has utilized virtualization. This process has seen them improve in several areas such as cost reduction and even disaster recovery. This is one of thousands of companies that has saved a substantial amount of money since incorporating virtualization into their business model.