Internet domain name manager Melbourne IT says it is well-positioned for the future despite a fall in annual profit.

Australian Football League (AFL) may soon have its own branded domain name, .AFL, the first Australian brand to openly confirm it is applying for a top-level domain.

IT services company, Melbourne IT (ASX: MLB) has blamed an 11 per cent year-on-year decrease in revenue on the impact of the strong Australian dollar and soft market conditions in the US and Europe.

Melbourne IT may be able to offer discounts to some enterprise and SMB customers as backup/restoration requirements change in the future, according to the hosting provider's chief technology officer.

Melbourne IT (ASX: MLB) managing director, Theo Hnarakis, has warned that the rising Australian dollar and the 20 June ICANN decision on domain liberalisation may affect the hosting company’s full year results.

What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago it was almost impossible to find Australian organisations that had embraced cloud computing. Now pretty much everyone is planning, piloting or executing some form of migration to the cloud. If there was ever doubt that cloud was little more than hype, it was eradicated in April 2010 by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) group executive for enterprise services and chief information officer, Michael Harte. In a speech to Committee for Economic Development in Australia, Harte declared that never again did he wish to be locked into using proprietary hardware or software and cloud computing was his escape route.

Australian companies of all types are cautiously shifting applications out of the data centre and into the cloud. Despite all the hype, cloud computing is proving to be one trend that's more than just hot air.