Cloud computing is among the most popular buzz word in computing today. Put a software application online, tap into it over the Internet and you’ve joined the latest paradigm shift in the business.

Doing so can save money and time by handing off the hosting, management and expansion of a company’s software and hardware infrastructure to someone else. Users have the same access to programs as before, just simply over the Web.

But is it really something new or a repackaging of products and services that already exist in high tech. The debate lingers.

Some say putting computing programs on the Internet, or in the cloud, make it easier for users to consume them, not only at the office but on the road. Executives say they can more easily offer access to customers, deepening key relationships on which their businesses depend.

But the other side of the argument highlights the steady pace of technological change going on for years. Cloud computing is enabled by cheaper computers and bandwidth, but it is not a radical departure from the past, says Rajesh Ram, vice president and co-founder of Egnyte, an online services company targeting small business.

The industry has been improving technologies for years; storage capacity has increased, computers are more powerful, the Internet has become easier to use and more ubiquitous.

“We’ve been reinventing a lot of wheels,” said Or Haviv, at Universeye, a maker of online software. Now cloud is taking all these improvements and rearranging them into something more usable to businesses and consumers, he said.

By Mark Boslet, Editor at Large.