A London borough council discovered that the power of the cloud helped to combat overflowing rubbish, fly-tipping and graffiti - while saving everyone money. Members of the public who spotted a problem were encouraged to upload photographic evidence to a specially designated website. The council's environment department then provided an update, complete with new photos.

Thanks to this initiative, the time taken for the council to process a complaint was cut by 87%, and the time-consuming office casework was reduced by 21%. What it spent on the costs of cleansing, meanwhile, was held at the same levels for five years. Standards have significantly increased (graffiti has more than halved) and resident satisfaction has soared.

And another cloud success story was generated at a state-of-the art rugby stadium in Wales. Core IT systems are hosted in a private cloud environment where there is a virtualised IT infrastructure and dedicated circuit link. The venue is saving 70% of power usage in the server room after slimming down their hardware. Previously, it cost £7,000 to £8,000 for new hardware, now it's a licence increase of about £1,000 - and that's it.

If you're considering migrating to the cloud, and there's probably a lot to think about, then it would be wise to consider SharePoint 2010. Start by deciding whether you have the expertise in-house to undertake the task. If not, then can you afford to risk your business suffering loss or damage? For most, using an external consultant can ensure that migration is quick, painless and successful. Many organisations who have tried to complete the migration themselves, have caused more problems and issues without achieving anything.

So, if you're still deciding, then here are a few things to think about: SharePoint allows you to share various types of information such as documents, tasks, contacts and events through a shared platform in real-time. It is a collaboration suite, project management tool, and content management system wrapped up in one, streamlining your business communications and enabling you to quickly respond to market and business needs.

And if you are upgrading form SharePoint 2007, there's the promise of a seamless installation. New features allow site administrators to upload custom code with Sandbox Solutions. There's also more control over how the system is set up. For example, if you want to maintain a centralised SharePoint system, you can block decentralised deployments through Group Policy or track them with Active Directory marker support. Features include an easy-to-use Central Administration Web site, new capabilities to manage and monitor your SharePoint farm and Microsoft Windows PowerShell support.

SharePoint 2010 provides a single, scalable infrastructure that allows better control over server resources. For example, you can manage large lists more easily and improve data management and protection using high availability. A scalable services architecture also helps you centralise services like Search, My Sites and Taxonomy. These services can be managed through Central Administration and scripted by Windows PowerShell. Plus, because the architecture is extensible, third-party companies can build and add services to the platform.

When you pick SharePoint you are also joining Microsoft's one billion customers and 20 million businesses in over 70 countries. More than 200 of the company's online services and web portals are hosted on the cloud infrastructure. And you can feel safe in the knowledge that Microsoft works closely with law enforcement, industry partners and peers, and research groups to stay ahead of new threats to security. Definitely not just a rubbish story.