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In the past, there was hardware, software, and platforms on top of which there were applications. Now they're getting conflated. That is all going to get disrupted by the move to the cloud.

So if we're going to build new applications that require a large time investment, like say movie editing - today that doesn't matter for the enterprise desktop, but eventually it will when we get closer to consumers - you really need to have a cross-platform story.

Cloud computing offers individuals access to data and applications from nearly any point of access to the Internet, offers businesses a whole new way to cut costs for technical infrastructure, and offers big computer companies a potentially giant market for hardware and services.

We've been delivering cloud-based services for over a decade, with more than 30 million Intuit customers using offerings across a variety of desktop and mobile devices. The benefits are clear: online experiences are simply better for customer.

We can't ever forget that the Internet now is just a staid utility. The exciting platforms are software applications that are very, very simple.

When I talk about that Apple ecosystem, the ability to get one application to run across those five platforms is very difficult. In the future of Microsoft, using HTML5, IE9 and 10, the scalable OS, the ability to do that gets much, much easier.

Cloud computing means you are doing your computing on somebody else's computer. Looking ahead a little, I firmly believe cloud - previously called grid computing - will become very widespread. It's much cheaper than buying your own computing infrastructure, or maybe you don't have the power to do what you want on your own computer.

In the post-Snowden world, you need to enable others to build their own cloud and have mobility of applications. That's both because of the physicality of computing - where the speed of light still matters - and because of geopolitics.

Cloud is just emerging, but it's high growth.