Here is a post from on Miller that asks a good question, Can Cloud Computing Actually Save the Internet? I like hosted solutions and after my hard drive crashed, I like them even more. But what if everyone really uses the cloud instead of the desktop for their computing? I heard from someone at the Apple store that Apple will be offering to host your Mac desktop applications and up to 10 GB of storage. This way you can access mac mail, calendar, etc, from the cloud. Google docs is pushing this big time. What will happen to the web pipes it all this really takes off.

Ron wonder the same thing and wrote, “when I spoke to representatives from Google and Salesforce.com at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston last week and asked them about this (in separate conversations, I might add), I was surprised to hear them argue the opposite—that Cloud computing could actually *reduce* traffic.”

He went on to explain, “Both argued in separate conversations that it would actually reduce traffic because instead of moving large files around many times, you are actually moving around references to the files sitting on their back-end servers and most of the heavy lifting would not be on the internet itself, but on the company server infrastructure.”

This makes sense as I am moving the collaboration for a small startup I am involved with to a cloud platform, GroupSwim, and I will remove all those big attachments from my email in box and from email traffic. This reduction in traffic and in box clutter, and even more importantly, the establishment of a permanent accessible record of all company documents and discussions is the motivator (see GroupSwim Supports Online Communities with the Enterprise). Thanks to Ron to articulating this concern and providing what should be the answer.