Running a small business has always been difficult. As much as computers have helped make things easier, maintaining them can quickly divert your attention from the main mission of your business. It's time consuming to grapple with questions like: Which email host to use? How do I filter SPAM? How do we backup data? How do we share calendars? What if we want access to our data at home or at the other office? For every employee you might need to:
* Buy and Install Word, Excel, Outlook,
* Get them an email account
* Give them access to your network.
These basic software systems can cost as much as $500 per employee on top of the price of the computer. Then once you have your IT system, it is a challenge to maintain. Internal Exchange servers, storage space, upgrading software -- who has time for this? Google Apps is Google's answer, and this is going to make running a small business easier.
Google Apps for small businesses is a suite of applications designed to give employees powerful communication and collaboration tools. Google Apps brings your businesses technology into the 21st century -- the century of hosted applications. This means: Gone are the days of installing office software. Gone are the days of backing up data to a CD or floppy and taking it home for "off site copies." Gone are the endless days of upgrading software and maintaining server networks. The benefit of a hosted application is that you and your employees can access the applications -- and your data -- from any internetworked computer anywhere. That means you can see your data from home, from any of your office locations, from the road, from your mother-in-law's house -- where ever. And it means that all your staff can work on the same documents and spreadsheets at the same time -- no matter where they are. Most importantly, NO more need to buy and install expensive upgrades to your of your office software. Sign me up!
Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done
Get Started With Google Apps
This is so big at Google that they gave it a very simple location --
http://google.com/a. If you need a domain name, you can get one right there. If you have one, you can use your own domain name and all your staff can have: 1. Email and the greatest web mail client ever -- the gmail client -- except with your own domain. 2. Calendar and scheduling tools...allow your staff to share parts or all of each other's calendars and everybody can schedule shared resources -- like the conference room -- without conflict. 3. A super easy to learn and an "everything you need" word processing application. 4. Spreadsheets, spreadsheets, spreadsheets. 5. Tons of storage space. 6. A web site content management tool -- so staff can create and edit their own web pages without knowing web programming languages 7. Free voice and chat around the world. Plus more and more to come.
I recommend: I recommend going to
Google Apps and reading all about it. Then
compare Google Apps versions -- they have a free version and a premium version, which costs $50 per year per user.
Make Sure There Are No Conflicts
Many people already have an account at Google for one of their many products, like Adwords, Adsense, Gmail and Checkout. If you already have your own domain, the challange is: Some of your staff might have already signed up for a Google account , and they may have used the email account you gave them. When you set up a Google account, if you give them the same email address, when they log in the next time, they might not see their old data.
I recommend: I recommend asking your staff if they use any Google products or services. If so, have them sign on to their Google account and change the email address associated with those old accounts. They can change them to any email address other then one ending in your domain. Then you'll be free to create new accounts at Google Apps that will not have conflicts with their other applications. I'm sure you'll want to look at these resources for more help: The
Google Apps Help Center and the
Google Apps Discussion Group
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