Cloud commputing

I read an article today that was related to past class material. Microsoft conducted a study on cloud computing and found that cloud computing for business uses less energy than having a large IT data center. Microsoft conducted its study by comparing the carbon emissions of cloud computing vs. on-premise delivery on 3 of its applications, SharePoint, Exchange, and Dynamics CRM. The range of savings from having hosted vs. on-premise IT infrastructure is between 30 percent and 90 percent, according to the study (cnet). The greatest energy and greenhouse reductions can be achieved by small businesses with fewer than 100 users (cnet).