E – N E W S from 2SS.Com Int’l Standard Serial No. - ISSN: 1523-3537 2009-No. 25 |
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Have you visited our website lately?
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Considering 'The Cloud'? |
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A long time friend and client recently asked: "What is your view on small businesses thinking about migrating from an in-house server (e.g. exchange, etc.) to remote desktops in the cloud? If so, do you see them migrating server files into sharing tools like SharePoint to allow for easier access than remote desktops provide?" At 2SS.Com we believe the big picture is that before long (maybe as soon as 5 to 7 years) we’ll all be able to carry around a small device (it may become a feature of our phones) that allows us to make a simple connection anywhere. The connection might be to a ‘then’ old-style desktop PC or Mac as found in most any office, or to some kind of ‘connect and view’ workstation that’s set up for this purpose. The point will be to make available a large screen and easy to use input devices (e.g. mouse, keyboard, voice activation and/or touch screen) to instantly make our data, our preferences and our applications (configured as we like them) available to us wherever we choose to ‘Connect’. Of course you’ll be able to do all that on the device itself but not with the same productivity as when you connect.
So we think that between now and then lies the answer to this question. 'Cloud computing’ and cheap storage are already just two of the several forces driving the Internet to become our universal operating system. Increasingly the devices that access it (Mac, iPhone, Android, PCs, ‘net books’, etc. ) are not nearly as important as what they deliver when they connect. Already many of our 2SS.Com customers have implemented ‘hands-off’ backups. That is local backups to one or more cheap USB hard disks, combined with offsite backups into the cloud where as a reseller we’re currently able to drive the price down to as little at $5.00 per megabyte per YEAR!. And of course we’re beginning to have clients who find Exchange and 'updated anywhere' E-mail to be a useful tool. But, old-style E-mail is still just fine for many folks and the current complexity of getting a company or even a few individuals into ‘the cloud’ is still a little prohibitive. Nevertheless its changing fast!
The last part of this question focuses on file sharing and surprisingly we’ve seen little interest in 'cloud-based' file sharing solutions (e.g. SharePoint) among our 2SS.Com clients even though its been proposed a couple times. We suspect that it’s because these tools are a BIG investment (e.g. subscription, development and training) compared to doing nothing, and most small businesses have not yet switched to the ‘everyone telecommutes’ model that may force them to have greater interest. Right now cheap (e.g. under $150 a year) work-from-home solutions like 'GoToMyPC' or 'WebEx PCNow' do just fine to get people into their already sunk-cost proprietary business networks which offer the rough equivalents of 'cloud-based' file sharing, using shared drives, access to network applications, and in some cases even shared Outlook contact lists and calendars.
We see Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and a few others lining up to offer the next generation of SharePoint style solutions as a cheaper, even free, alternative. In particular Google is already well along with its $50 a per person per year corporate access to G-Mail, Google Voice, Google Docs, and much more. New businesses without infrastructure investments and others young enough to learn, are breaking early toward using and getting full value out of 'cloud-based' tools, But, established businesses are understandably held back by already sunk investments and the need to insure that they survive to consider investing in new alternatives at the right time. |
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Shortcuts to get into 'The Cloud' today!
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November 22, 2010