Cloud computing is slowly gaining prominence across the computing market place and many established software giants such as Microsoft, Google and Apple have joined the league of cloud service providers. Cloud services primarily work on the basis of providing storage space or a software for a particular period of time, on a monthly or a yearly subscription basis. Among the different cloud services available in the cloud computing  market place, the 5 best cloud services available are discussed here.

In the cloud computing space, the software industry analysts have placed Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Dropbox as the leading cloud service providers, though not in any particular ranking order.

Top 5 Cloud Service Providers

Google Apps

Google had quickly realized the potential of cloud computing market and its enormous growth potential, a couple of years back. They started to provide their email services free of cost to their customers and also provide 10GB of free space to store the files. They also provide spam protection and virus protection plans as part of their cloud computing services. Google Docs provide the opportunity to users to create word document and excel spreadsheets over the internet. Certain special features available in the office package needs subscription on a monthly or a yearly basis.

Amazon

Amazon can be considered as a pioneer in cloud computing, when it launched the Amazon web services six years back. Amazon web services provide pay as you use services over the cloud and this includes the storage services, hosting services, processing services in terms of memory required and processing speed required to run an application. Thus  the customers can choose the configuration they require and then get the required configuration.

Microsoft

The operating system and the office software giant had come up with their own version of the cloud service called the Windows SkyDrive. They are planning to provide this service inbuilt with their upcoming Windows 8 release. They also provide 25GB of free space to their registered users. The users need to have a Windows Live ID to access the free storage space. Office 365 is the cloud version of Microsoft’s office package. Small and medium scale business owners can actually  make use of the office 365 package by paying $6 per month as subscription charges. There is no need to buy a CD version of the office package and the small business owners get to save a lot of money by opting for the office 365 cloud service

Apple iCloud

Apple iCloud is their version of the cloud service and is a perfect fit for those users who are accustomed to the Apple products and operating system software. The service allows the users to store documents, flash files, audio files and video files over the Apple’s iCloud

Dropbox

Dropbox provides free online storage space of up to 2GB to its users. For getting access to 50GB of storage space, Dropbox charges $10 per month.

The users also get to have their own free web site designed according to their own needs and requirements.

Though the presence of software giants might make you think twice before entering the cloud computing company space, the success of drop box should provide enough motivation to enter the space. If you want to enter this vastly expanding space of cloud service providers, you have to come up with solutions that could provide cost savings to the small and medium size business owners . The cost savings should be significant to the small business owners and make them to opt out of their existing cloud service provider and subscribe to your cloud services. In addition to the cost savings, your cloud services should also have enhanced security features similar to the concept of firewalls.

Author Bio:

Biljana is a writer and blogger on behalf of Ninefold virtual servers company, exploring and publishing tips and latest developments within the online technology world.