Microsoft today sposored a roundtable discussion titled "Journey to the Cloud," which looked at security as well as Canada specific insights on cloud computing based on a survey conducted at Microsoft's request by Leger Marketing.

Invited to speak to reporters were John Weigelt National Technology Officer, Microsoft Canada; Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario; Michael Power Privacy Lawyer  and  Robert Cook Chief Information Officer, U of T.

Some take away from the survey included the realization that 19 per cent of Canadian businesses who thought they weren't using the cloud or cloud services actually are.

Cloud computing, is a network-based was to conduct data intensive tasks on the web through data farms. This includes managing and storing data as well as running databases and more complex function.

 A number of companies have gotten into the cloud game. Microsoft's products include Microsoft Web Apps, Microsoft Office 365 and Windows Azure as well as SkyDrive

Google, Apple and Amazon are also heavily invested in the cloud although their focus for the most part is on the consumer market (Amazon and Google, however, have various enterprise solutions competing  or complementing what  Microsoft offers.)

Robert Cook of the University of Toronto shared that they implemented Microsoft Live@edu.mail and software service for 70,000 students to simplify online collaboration and document sharing , “while keeping student’s data private and promoting online safety,” said Robert Cook, CIO of U of T.

Canadian organizations are starting to take advantage of the cloud for their service delivery initiatives but awareness is not yet where it should be.  80 per cent of Canadian chief executives polled were aware of the importance and long term implications of cloud computing and the effects it could have on their business but they were still figuring out the strategy part of it.