The Cloud and Your Business

So, one of my hot-buttons is the term Cloud Computing. Currently, I can't really think of a more incorrectly used term in computing, although I am sure there are a few others...like Agile, Virtualization....sorry, I digress. Those are topics for another day.

I am going to cut straight to the point. Have you heard of Google Docs? Zoho? Microsoft Skydrive (formerly OfficeLive)? Accessing your software via the web instead of having it locally? Access to your information and software anywhere in the world without having a system preloaded with it all? Well, for any non-tech out there, this encapsulates "The Cloud." Now, before you tech people start yelling at me about online document storage locations as not really being part of the Cloud, I will yell back at you first. ANY online storage that can be shared and accessed by many is considered a Cloud solution. Yes, there are plenty of online storage sites that are for YOU only, and those are not Cloud solutions. Although, loosely, they are still considered Cloud.

So now that you have an idea of some Cloud services you may be familiar with, here is the rundown on Cloud and why it is AWESOME! First off, Cloud Computing is the sharing of information, software, and resources via the Internet. Many people call it Web or Internet Computing. This allows for on-demand access and dissemination of all company resources to any employee at any place in the world in which there is access to the Internet.

Many people will generally say, "Who cares, what is the benefit to me?" Quite simply, it can save many organizations considerable amounts of resources. Granted there are many companies that need their own setups, systems, etc, but those types of organizations are becoming fewer. Also, many of those companies hire consultants (like me) to help setup their own Cloud solution. As many people are aware, a typical office computing system is as follows: Individual desktops or laptops, the same software on each system with its own license (depending on organization size, may have a bulk license), network storage, share drives, possibly some redundant servers for backups, a VPN or RDP setup for remote access, and any other host of hardware and software items.

With this general office environment in mind, you need to have computing systems that can support everything. This can be very expensive and hardware intensive. Wouldn't it be nice to have terminal setups or bare-bones machines that cost next to nothing? Wouldn't it be nice to stop buying software and not only paying for the user licenses, but dealing with installation and support for those applications? Wouldn't it be nice to not worry about losing your data if the building caught fire? Or a virus infected your network? Ta-dah...the Cloud is your answer. The beauty of Cloud Computing is you can use as much or as little as your organization needs. Some organizations may have certain software that must be housed locally. That is fine, have everything else on the Cloud. Maybe you just want to have file storage or messaging off-site. Cloud. The possibilities are limitless. I will be going into more detail later on some top Cloud solutions.

Collaboration at your fingertips

In business today, being able to collaborate documents across a company or even the world has become much easier. However, to save a company resources, such as time and money, businesses need to collaborate quickly and easily. Therefore, a company needs to find a collaboration tool. Of course, there are many tools out there, some ranging from free to very pricey. They all have the pros and cons, but I wanted to mention two that really stand out for the everyday company, ranging from large to small.

Google Docs

Well, as most people know, Google has a great web-based office suite. The tool is called Google Docs. It allows you to collaborate with spreadsheets and word processing documents. While one user is updating a document, another can be updating as well. Or, while one person is going over a document a group of people can follow along, since there is a built-in chat feature with the document sharing. GDocs also has a "PowerPoint" presentation equivalent, form creator, drawing tool, and now file storage for any document type. For a free online tool such as this, it doesn't get much better. Or does it? I had said no before, but most of Google's latest enhancements has it playing with the big boys now. If you are savvy with HTML, CSS, and the like, you can do everything that you would in Office in Google Docs. Did I mention this is free? Although, if your organization wants to benefit from a SharePoint-esq feel, there is a paid service, which is very afforable to all size organizations.

OfficeLive (Now SkyDrive)

What if you still want free but need to use Microsoft Office? Well, don't worry, since most companies fall into this boat. Microsoft actually offers a document management and collaboration solution for free! And now, you can edit/create Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents directly on the web, thanks to the power of Microsoft's 2010 products. Wonderful! A person doesn't even need a Windows Live / Hotmail account to view the documents. However, if they want to edit or work with the documents, they will need an account, which is free as well. OfficeLive, now SkyDrive, acts like a document repository in which you have collaboration abilities. You can have multiple people working in the same document at the same time. You can then edit documents offline or in a full version of Office.

Conclusion

If you had to pick between these two only, it would be a tough call, but still the same end result. If you are on a budget and can't afford Microsoft Office for every person's computer but need something that has a good chunk of the features, then I would use Google Docs. All you need for that is a computer with an Internet connection...or even a Smart Phone. But, if you really need to use Microsoft Office, then I recommend trying out SkyDrive. It has a slight learning curve, but is very dynamic and useful, as well as easy to integrate into your current work environment thanks to Live.