The transition from centralized computing resources to personal computing unleashed a multi-decade wave of productivity.

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By moving IT infrastructure to a centralized computing "power plant" rather than hosting their own processing and storage, Carr says, companies are able to buy computing resources at lower prices and avoid large initial technology investments.

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Cloud based computing has centralized e-mail data onto the servers of companies who are well positioned to deal with spam.

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Corporate computing started out highly centralized on mainframes and other room-size machines, but since the introduction of the PC has been going through swings between the autonomy of the individual computer user and centralized management by the IT department.

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Putting the bulk of computing and storage in the data center has other perks for IT management: It creates a centralized location for software upgrades across an entire organization and puts a layer of network security between users and sensitive data--a lost thin client laptop, for instance, doesn't contain private information, and so doesn't pose a threat of causing a data breach.

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