Exchange Mail

Ready to move your business in "The Cloud" and save some rent

February 9th, 2010. Published under news. 2 Comments.

As a technology consultant and small business coach, I asked about the new technology almost daily. If you want to go out and start a small business today, you can get almost all of its software for free. Any decent laptop running OpenOffice software, which is probably sufficient for most small business owners. OpenOffice is a writer, a spreadsheet program and presentation program and all this is free only to go to openoffice.org and download.

One of the biggest challenges for any entrepreneur or self-employed person is the programming. Some people call me directly and call my office, which is usually a better way to make sure that I appear. Several years ago we started out using Windows phone from HTC and AT & T Mobile. Since we have a Microsoft Exchange server in our Internet hosting company, the system worked reasonably well. My assistant could enter a calendar appointment, and in 15 minutes to appear on my phone. Anyone can go out and have this kind of email client for about $ 15 per person per month. This is significantly cheaper than buying your own exchange server and try to keep it. More important still is the cheapest way to try to recover a lost customer because no appointment.

Due to various other issues with mobile Windows disappointing, we turn to the services of Blackberry and Blackberry mobile phones a couple of years ago. It turns out that our Exchange servers were not compatible Blackberry services, so we had to buy that service through AT & T. Another $ 15 a month each. We have since found that the Blackberry services can be difficult and unreliable.

As our level of frustration reached a peak, one of my employees, which is Google Calendar for free. The premise is very simple, just register for iGoogle, and share your calendar with others. Since we are a very small office, we decided to give it a try. Within four days he had completely given up our BlackBerry services. There is a Google sync client had to go in the worldwide BlackBerry or iPhone. This proved to be a great advantage, you can use either blackberries or iPhones with the calendar of iGoogle.

If you use Microsoft Outlook as your primary e-mail instead of Google's free e-mail client is not a synchronization applet for that too. A total of 20 minutes per person was used and we had a mail client that did everything we needed, or so we thought. Within a day I noticed my desktop was not getting updates from my phone and my phone was not getting updates on my desktop. Google applet does not work with Vista 64 bit. We had just upgrade half of our PC's for speed 64-bit. Half the office was working very well.

The solution seemed easy, let the phone sync with Google and let the BlackBerry Desktop to sync with your Outlook email and calendar of computers to the phone. Then the phone syncs with the public calendars on Google. This is not 100% yet either. The flaw we found in this section was found to be related to the BlackBerry Desktop Manager. The synchronization client when another client recognizes Google Sync add or change your calendar. Google's client will ignore these issues. It has effect only when the appointment is entered into Google and Outlook, then whatever the phone syncs with the first becomes the master. If changes of appointment and is not the master, then the phone will not change. Smaller, but not the least important.

In general, Google calendar system has been a breakthrough for our small business, and resolved most of the problems we had with Microsoft Exchange Server and BlackBerry services. The best part is because they have fewer than 5 people who need to share each calendar others in a group, it's all free. I think the limit is 50 per office.If you do not need to share your calendar with more than its partner, collaborator and home, this is a no brain-er.

Google Calendar shows how far Google has come in its ability to provide services "in the cloud". Once you put the privacy and security of someone else hosting your data on one side, my biggest concern about virtual services and cloud computing has been the availability of data when they are able to reach the cloud.

Last month bought a netbook (net book?) To prove it, we'll cover everything later. The netbook does not have an exchange email client. Only used cloud computing. What this means for you is simple: If you can not connect to the Internet, you can not work or receive email. There must be a way to make thin versions of software that are synchronized with the services that are in the "cloud" or somewhere on the Internet. What about documents? While all the documents and they say the last 30 days the text of the message can be synchronized quickly to the cloud whenever you have a connection, you can keep working. This way you are taking a portable backup cloud wherever he goes. I do not want to be stuck on a plane for 12 hours and not being able to work on something because it had "Check It Out" or the plane does not have WiFi. Yes, (Are you listening Google, Apple, Microsoft and Cisco), there are places that still can not connect. The netbook is for people from the big city and semi frequent travelers in its current configuration.

In a small business where it is highly unlikely that more than one person will be working on a document, cloud computing may be a realistic alternative to expensive servers, or server rental services. In our office, everyone has their paper, and the changes are sent as a separate document to avoid synchronization errors when two people have made changes to the core document. The answer here is going to be a "fundamental change" so that when re-synchronize with the cloud, a window showing the changes published by other people since the last synchronization. If you are the owner of the doc then you can approve them. Otherwise, every rise should be a version change and this could lead nuts document owner.

There is a green benefit to the cloud and less computers, less waste means better managed. If we all store our data in the cloud in data farms, which can run at 75% efficiency or better, instead of three different hard drives somewhere in our homes. There is a big saving on the hard disks and use of energy here, if we use this right, no matter the improvements lost downtime and moves.

Here's another way to think about it, I started my first IT company in 1996 selling desktop computers, software, servers and phone systems. It is a very common operation, and then had very high margins. Today, if you start, own or work for a small company with fewer than 15 employees, you can buy laptops online for less than $ 1000, open the package and download a free OpenOffice.org office software. If you need Microsoft Office, you can use the trial version of MS Office for 60 days for free. 60 days without anything these days is a nice help right? Finally, everyone in the office can sign up for Google's own email accounts and Google Calendar to iGoogle, which is also free. If someone quits, everyone just kill the person on the shared agenda and that person disappears from your part of the cloud.

The immediate business has a way of communicating, and see the schedule of each other. To make it even harder for small business IT consultant to make money, a small office can get their phone service through Skype with a phone number and voicemail for under $ 100 a year, and $ 2.95 per month Unlimited long distance. There are also "hosted VoIP" phones that you just connected, and has an immediate extension.Instead of being able to sell workstations, software and phone systems, all we have to do now is connect remotely and provide basic training.

As a small business owner, this is really cool area. You can hire a dozen people around the housework and the risk is a good laptop, or the number of Hosted VoIP phone Skype and maybe a headset. No more need for a desk, office space or anything like that. Just imagine building a Real Estate office with 56 agents, and requires only three offices, a receptionist and a pair of conference rooms. After all, why all the players in? The houses are not sold in the offices, only the paperwork is there. That's why we keep the conference rooms. By sharing the offices and conference rooms can be booked on Google Calendar, all agents work from home. Of the workers happier and more low-income sound much like a better deal. I wonder if we could do this for law firms as well? It's a good thing your small business still needs help with their Internet presence plan otherwise would not have a job.