The emergence and promise of cloud computing for under-developed societies

Within the past fifty years, information and communication technologies (ICT) have radically altered the dynamics of doing business in modern societies. However, a lack of access to these ICT resources has stifled the participation of several developing and under-developed economies. Cloud computing, an emerging technology paradigm, has the potential to unleash new businesses and create markets in underdeveloped societies through its promise of pervasive access, usage simplification, and negligible adoption costs. In this paper, we juxtapose new global commerce opportunities unveiled by cloud computing capabilities with the characteristics of demand in these challenging but rapidly globalizing markets. By tracing the characteristics of historic paradigm shifts and technological revolutions that have transformed societies in more developed economies, we examine how cloud computing can a) create new IT-enabled market constructs, b) change managerial imperatives, incentive structures and processes, and c) pose challenges to business transformation that may, in turn, affect its rate of adoption.