ITEXPO (News - Alert) is quickly approaching, and companies are gearing up to present, exhibit and network with other companies in the communications and technology industry. Among them will be Intuit (News - Alert), so we took some time to speak with Vinay Pai, its vice president of Product Development. He spoke of the cloud and its uses for both businesses and the everyday computer user, and what the business cloud is looking at.

According to Pai, cloud adoption has already gone mainstream, with Software as a Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) commonplace, and consumer apps like iCloud driving consumer cloud adoption. However, it’s important to understand the many benefits of the cloud, as the user mindset is a bigger challenge to overcome than the technology.

“For the end user, the cloud affords unmatched flexibility, connectedness and data insights,” says Pai. “By moving their operations online, small businesses save time with anytime, anywhere, any device access to their data. Accessing real-time data and collaborating with their partners, employees, customers, etc. is easy. The cloud also enables previously disparate applications to connect, so data flows between apps, giving small businesses a single source of truth and saving them time on data entry. The flexibility and connectedness of the cloud makes it easier for businesses to glean valuable business insights from their data.”

He was also sure to cover the differences between consumer and enterprise public clouds, as enterprises require much more security, reliability and availability than consumers do. Free apps are one thing, but paid cloud offerings have high standards to live up to. It also provides small and mid-sized businesses the opportunity to compete with larger companies, given the scalability of the cloud, and affordable prices for cloud data hosting.

As for the future, he sees hybrid models of cloud and on-premise solutions being the way to go. Not all apps will work best with purely cloud-based solutions, needing desktop apps to store data in the cloud.

Those attending Cloud4SMB expo, an event hosted along with ITEXPO, can expect to hear Vinay Pai speak about the ROI of cloud technology, and the benefits small businesses can receive from platform-as-a-service offerings. Pai will be speaking at Vinay Pai will be speaking at “Squeezing Dollars from the Cloud – What’s the ROI?” on Wednesday, October 3 at 11:00 a.m. and “Leveragng PaaS to Fast-Track Your Applications,” on Wednesday, October 3 at 1:30 p.m. As for Pai himself, he’s looking forward to seeing what the other businesses are doing so that he can learn from their practices and innovation.

To find out more about Intui visit the company at the Cloud4SMB Expo, collocated with ITEXPO West 2012 taking place Oct 2-5, in Austin, TX. Vinay Pai will be speaking at “Squeezing Dollars from the Cloud – What’s the ROI?” and “Leveragng PaaS to Fast-Track Your Applications.” Stay in touch with everything happening at Cloud4SMB Expo. Follow us on Twitter.