Vendors are always talking about cloud this and cloud that, as if you're all the same. Well, maybe to them, you are but wavy company in every sector has different needs for IT, and so different needs for cloud technology.

The Reg got together with UK cloud provider Star to create a Regcast - or, to be more accurate, three standalone Regcastlets - about how cloud works in three types of business: retail, media, and professional services. Star's Grant Tanner takes us through what those businesses lack, where they can use cloud effectively, and what the business and IT problems that they will need to solve will be.

In part one, Grant Tanner from Star explains how retailers need to keep track of customers through a number of channels; how shops have computers, but not support engineers and the problems that causes; and how cloud can take care of the basics, leaving IT staff time to innovate.