We have all seen the advertisements for doing things “in the Cloud”. It sounds like some new magic in Techie Land, doesn’t it? All these new features and abilities, making your computer so much easier to use. Water cooler talk about how things are so cool in the cloud seems to be rampant.
In actuality, we’ve being using the cloud for a while now. Think of it as a Version 1 Cloud. We send and receive email, access great amounts of data via your Internet Explorer or Firefox, maybe even use offsite backup services and file transfer tools over the internet. What is new is the focus on the user experience and in some cases even making enterprise functionality available to the home office user.
Typically, cloud-based offerings have one or more of the following things in common:
- Free or low cost monthly subscriptions
- High-powered tools and resources
- No high-dollar capital project expenditures
- Work on many devices, not just your computer or smartphone
- Allow data sharing from many of your devices (including tablets and smartphones)
- Typically accessed via a web-browser versus a specific installed software
For example, imagine being able to walk to up to any computer, access your software and your data as if it were on your computer. Without you doing anything, the most current version of your documents are also available for your laptop, desktop, smartphone, TV, tablet, etc. All synced together at all times. What if you could just your friend or colleague’s computer to get that document you left back at your office? That would be amazing, right?
That seemingly far-fetched concept is alive today as you can see from the following products:
Microsoft Office 365. Microsoft as released it’s cloud-based Office 365 where you can have a full version of Microsoft Office, including Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. But wait, you install NOTHING on your computer. You just go to a Microsoft website, login and begin managing your users and accounts, setup mailboxes, etc. You can open YOUR documents in YOUR Microsoft Word from any web browser in PC and even Apple Mac systems. Yes, I said “even Macs”. There are even tools to create your own website using SharePoint services and share documents with people that don’t even have a Microsoft product. Packages starting at only $6 makes this very attractive for the home office.
Apple iCloud. October will bring IOS 5, the new operating system for iPhones and iPads that will bring your content to all your devices – Apple as well as PC. You will be able to take a picture and have it instantly appear on your spouse’s device for that instant share. You will be able to synchronize your documents, music, apps, latest photos, email, contacts, and calendars across all your devices.
MozyPro. We’ve used this product for a couple years now. For less than $10 a machine, you can remotely back up your information into the cloud on an automatic schedule so when you accidently delete that data, you can restore it from your own computer. You can even restore a whole computer’s store of information in case of theft or catastrophic loss.
SalesForce. A common cloud-based tool for sales people to track their sales leads and opportunities, measure their performance and keep track of the details to ensure the close of the deal.
Springpad. A free form “smart” notebook to save your information the way it’s easy for you to remember. You add a note on your smartphone (iPhone or Android) and it’s automatically synced to the web to accessed from your PC or Mac, tablet or PC. Microsoft also has a similar tool called OneNote.
There are so many cloud offerings from so many vendors out there, and new ones are being released just about every day. We are definitely going to be “living in the cloud” in ways that we never imagined very soon.
As always, please contact CAP5 Technology Solutions with your questions about the Cloud and what it can do for your business. We can make the Cloud work for your business.
