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Top 5 Free Google Apps Add-ons For Business

By Fei on November 26, 2010

By Keir Thomas
November 26, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Google launched its Apps Marketplace back in March, effectively inviting companies to create business software for the cloud that would sit alongside the standard set of Google Apps.

Marketplace apps can take data from the existing apps, so can utilize your e-mail contacts database, for example, or your spreadsheets. Additionally, you can login to marketplace apps using your Google domains account for seamless switching between apps.
There was something of a slow start but the Marketplace is looking healthy and is well worth a look. Listed below are five apps that are free and offer highly useful functionality for small to medium sized businesses.

You’ll need your own Google Apps domain to utilize these apps. They can’t be used with standard Google accounts (those with a free Gmail address), although they work fine with the free 50-user version of Google Apps.

Installing marketplace apps to your domain is usually a matter of clicking the Add It Now button on the product page, typing your domain name when prompted, and agreeing to various terms and conditions. Sometimes a little configuration is necessary, as detailed below. Once installed, you can access the apps from the More menu at the top left of any Google Apps page, such as your inbox.

1. Rhino Accounting
Rhino Accounting is free double-entry accounting app in the same style as QuickBooks. Once it’s installed you can track income against expenditure, create invoices (which can then be seamlessly e-mailed), and even create paychecks. Rhino isn’t for the newbie accountant, lacking setup wizards or even help files, but anybody with a knowledge of existing accounting packages or practices will find the interface intuitive.

Integration with Google Apps comes in the form of importing contacts, although at present you must create entries for companies manually, and only companies can be invoiced. However, each company you deal with need only be added once.

Despite Rhino being free, support is also free of charge and by all accounts of high quality.

2. Appogee Bookmarks
A successful business is one that shares intelligence among its employees, and that can take the form of useful Websites. You can share interesting links among your Google Apps users via the Appogee Bookmarks app. This adds a panel to your iGoogle home page or e-mail inbox that lists URLs. More can be added by any user. Anybody within your domain who also has the Bookmarks app installed can then view the bookmarks.

Once the app is installed, you’ll need to enable a Google Labs feature that allows you to add a gadget by its URL. This can be done by clicking the Settings link within your inbox, then the Labs link, and then putting a check alongside Add Any Gadget by URL. Click the Save Changes button and then access Settings again, this time clicking the Gadgets link. Then, in the URL field, enter the following, replacing mydomain.com at the end of the link with your Google Apps domain, such as: http://appogeebookmarks.appspot.com/gadget?hd=mydomain.com .

Click the Add button and, upon returning to your Inbox, you’ll find the Bookmarks app window below your chat window at the left. Adding a link you want to share is a matter of clicking the “plus” icon and entering the details. Clicking the Domain checkbox will share it with the rest of your users. Otherwise it will remain a private link only visible by you.

3. TripIt Travel Organizer
Tracking the travel plans of colleagues can be a nightmare. Google Calendar lets employees share information about when they will be out of the office, but specific details of travel plans are often shared in hasty e-mails–if the individual even remembers to send one.

The TripIt Travel Organizer app integrates the functionality of the excellent TripIt Website with Google Apps. TripIt not only tracks travel arrangements, such as flights and hotels, but also links into practically every kind of social networking and e-mail service so the information can be shared.

Once installed, the Travel Organizer app can sweep your inbox automatically for travel confirmation e-mails sent from the likes of booking services, hotels, and airlines. It then automatically creates a travel plan on the TripIt Website, including calendar events, which are published to your organization’s Google Calendar.

Upon first installing the app you’ll be invited to create a TripIt group for your organization, to which any further users who install the app are automatically added. This allows everybody to monitor the travel arrangements of others via the TripIt Website. It even features a map showing the current location of staff member.

4. RapidTASK
Every business manager has to embrace project management, at some point but it’s not an easy learning curve getting to grips with specialized software like Microsoft Project. The RapidTASK app makes life a little easier by building project management around a to-do list, and nearly all of us have mastered those. As you might expect, RapidTASK allows the sharing of to-do tasks among members of your domain, and you can assign tasks to colleagues.

Upon installation you’ll need to setup RapidTASK to integrate with your Google Apps calendar, so the due dates of tasks are automatically added. If you want RapidTASK to send e-mails automatically to colleagues when tasks are assigned, this must also be configured.

To do so, start RapidTASK (like all apps, find it on the More menu at the top left on any Google Apps page), and then click the Settings link at the top right of the RapidTASK window. Click the Email Settings tab and put a check alongside Send Confirmations When You Create New Task via Email. Click the Save Changes button, and then click the Google Apps Integration tab and click the confirmation links next to Sent Task and Received Tasks.

To get the most from RapidTASK in an organization, each of your colleagues in the domain will need to install it and configure it as mentioned.

5. YouCanBook.Me
Designed for anybody whose work involves appointments with clients, YouCanBook.Me ties in with the Website of the same name and offers a page where anybody can click on a calendar date and time in order to book an appointment with you. Appointments then automatically appear on your Google Apps calendar, and you’ll also receive an e-mail containing details of the dates and times.

You can also configure the service to e-mail or SMS your clients to both confirm appointments, and also remind them via e-mail or SMS of impending appointments as the time approaches.

It’s simple and extremely easy to use for both your clients and yourself, although you will obviously have to ensure you pass on the booking link only to those you trust; the opportunity to mischievously book up all your calendar slots might be too much for some.

The calendar view people use to book appointments is a little primitive, but can be personalized–just click the YouCanBook.Me link under the More menu of any Google Apps page.

Supercharge Your Business With Google Apps

By Fei on August 26, 2010

By Zack Stern
August 26, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – All businesses need basic services such as e-mail hosting, document sharing, and file editing. The ways to set up these functions vary greatly, however–pick the wrong method, and you’ll waste time and money.

For example, you don’t need to cover the costs of your own server, since the various Google Apps for businesses shift these tools into the cloud. Plus, the online approach makes your organization more mobile, since it allows you and your staff to connect from any computer and from most smartphones.

Google’s offerings for businesses differ from the company’s consumer applications. But that’s just the beginning. In this article I’ll reveal tips and tweaks that can supercharge Google’s tools to improve your business’s productivity. Whether you are just beginning to explore Google Apps or are already a subscriber, these tricks will help you get the most from the services.

Google Apps Collaboration Tools

In addition to handling your e-mail, Google Apps can help people in your business collaborate. Many tools are available, covering everything from scheduling to document creation to videoconferencing. And though you save everything in the cloud, Google maintains good security to protect your data.

Google Calendar can help you keep appointments and share scheduling with groups. The business service is similar to the consumer version, but oriented toward clusters of employees. You’ll be able to share workday details with coworkers so that they know when you’re free for a possible meeting, for instance. The tool can send meeting invitations and update itself as recipients verify their attendance.

Google Docs imports and edits basic office-suite files, including .doc, .ppt, and .xls files in its word processor, presentation tool, and spreadsheet app, respectively. Multiple staffers can share documents, each person editing them without worrying about losing someone else’s changes (as they might when downloading and uploading documents to a file server). Google keeps a complete history of each contributor’s updates, and colleagues can even edit files at the same time. This setup can serve as a great group note-taking space for a conference call or during a presentation.
Google Sites, available in each edition of Google Apps, acts as an intranet Website. You can use it as a company bulletin board for everyone, store HR policies, highlight an upcoming event, or otherwise organize information. Google Sites and Google Docs can store any document type, so you can use them for simple file sharing, too.

Google Groups, available in the Premier Edition, acts as a center point for collaboration. Groups allow staffers to send messages within mailing lists at your company, such as a sales-team list. In addition, members can share a calendar and documents as a group. When new people join the group, they gain access to the message history as well as to the rest of the information, so that they can get up to speed with in-progress plans.

Google Video, another Premier-only service, is essentially your company’s own version of YouTube. You can post private, internal videos for training, collaboration, or any other use. The tool also hosts your public videos, eliminating another subscription or service that you might need.

Using Gmail for Business

The main difference between consumer Gmail and the version available through Google Apps is easy to spot: custom domain names. Instead of an @gmail.com address, you get @yourbusinessname.com, which makes a major difference in your branding, even if you operate a sole proprietorship. I know I always assume that bob@bobsmithconstruction.com (or even @bobsmith.com) represents a more established business than does bobsmith@gmail.com.

If you already own a domain name, such as for your Website and current e-mail, you’ll point its MX records to Google. Essentially, when computers contact your domain registrar to locate your mail server, the MX record creates a forwarding address to Google so that mail still flows properly to you. If you don’t own a domain name yet, Google can register one for $10 a year, configuring it automatically.

Small businesses might be content with the free Standard Edition of Google Apps. It supports up to 50 e-mail addresses, each with 7.4GB of storage space. Each e-mail address can send messages to 500 different recipients each day. Unless your business has a wide volume of daily contacts, those limits should be fine. But like consumer Gmail, this mail service includes ads, which might be a reason to move up.

The paid, $50-per-year-per-user Premier Edition eliminates ads and increases those limits. Each address can send to 2000 recipients per day, and you get 25GB of storage per e-mail address.
With the paid or free version, you can share contacts within your company, pooling resources from Web-based or mobile Google Apps.

Next: Tweaking Gmail, Calendar, and Voice

Turn Off Ads in Premier Edition Gmail

If you use the paid, Premier Edition of Google Apps, you might be annoyed to see text ads in your mail service. Relax. Here’s how to turn them off.

When logged in as an administrator, click Manage this domain at the top of the page. Pick Domain settings, and check the box in the middle of the page for Hide all ads for [your domain]. Click Save changes. That’s all it takes, although I’d rather Google assume that paid users want ads off by default.

Follow Business Leads Within Gmail

What happens to your important but misaddressed e-mail, such as when a new client tries to reach out to your business but misspells your name? You can create e-mail aliases for suspected misspellings, catch all misdirected e-mail, and make a group e-mail address for certain teams.

While logged in as an administrator in the Dashboard, click Email. Pick the Email addresses option. Click the user’s name. Scroll down, and click Add a nickname. Enter an alias there–I added “zach.” Click Save changes.

Other misaddressed messages might be junk, but you can catch them just in case they’re important. Go to Service Settings, Email. Scroll down to the ‘Email routing’ section. Click the radio button for Route to catch-all address, enter your username, and click Save changes.

Google Groups can manage internal communication, but you can also use Groups to receive messages from anyone. That way, you could have a sales@yourbusiness.com address that forwards mail to everyone on the team. Just click the Groups button and select Create a new group.

By default, only members of the group can send messages, but you can change that here. Scroll down and click the checkbox for Also allow anyone on the Internet to post messages. Now customers can contact all of your sales staff via one address.

Customize Google Calendar Meeting Reminders

You can set Google Calendar to remind you about meetings in a handful of ways: e-mail, pop-up window, or SMS to your phone (including a plain, dumb handset). Here’s how to configure the defaults to remind you to prepare well in advance and to ping you just before the meeting time.

Within your personal Google Apps account–not the administration dashboard–visit the calendar. Click Calendar settings and Notifications. You can click Add a reminder or remove to layer more or less. Try setting the first default to e-mail you a reminder 1 day in advance. Set another reminder (or two) to send you a text message just before meetings. (First, if necessary, click Set up your mobile phone to receive notifications.) Click Save.

Do More With Additional Apps

The e-mail, calendar, document, and other tools bundled with Google Apps can act as the cornerstone of your business operations. But additional, third-party apps can add more tools, even interfacing with your contacts, calendar, and other data. Among these extras are project management programs, CRM tools, time trackers, and more.

Visit the Google Apps Marketplace to find a mixture of free and paid add-ons. When you find something of interest, click Add it now, and follow the prompts. When you click the button to enable the app, it will be activated for all of your users, saving installation time versus traditional software.

Custom-Route Unknown Google Voice Callers

Google Voice permits people to reach you by phone wherever you may be. The free service assigns you a single phone number that rings all of your phones. You can have it ring your home number, the office, your cell phone, a temporary location, or anywhere.
Being reachable is great when you’re working, but it’s frustrating when you’re away and you don’t want strangers to call. You could temporarily shut off your mobile-number forwarding, but that would block people you want to be able to call. Instead, manage where calls ring depending on the caller, with calling groups.

First, scale back the default places that Google Voice will ring. Uncheck various lines in Settings, Voice Settings, Phones. Think of these preferences as your away mode, when you don’t want to be reached by strangers. I recommend leaving just your office line enabled. Then click Groups, and edit those profiles. In the Friends group, for example, edit the default to ring all of your phones. Click Save. (Add people to the groups in the Contacts area.)

Now when your friends or members of other groups call, they’ll be routed to certain lines. When strangers call, they’ll reach you at your desk but not at home after-hours.

Stay on top of a to-do list

By Fei on July 14, 2010

By Adam Pash
July 14, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Your life is busy, and you have got enough on your plate without needing to remember to move your car every week, pay oddly timed bills, or show up for one-time weekend appointments. Luckily, a finely tuned calendaring system can help.

Take a service like Google Calendar. With the right setup (which we’ll detail below), you can access it from any Web browser, plug it into your favorite desktop calendar, and manage it from your phone so you can quickly add any item to your schedule no matter where you are.

Of course, scheduling is just one half of the picture. Remembering your appointments is the other. And that’s the best part of this system: You’ll receive alerts reminding you of all your scheduled events, no matter where you are or what you’re doing.

The Setup

In this article, we detail a three-tiered approach to managing your schedule from the Web, from your desktop, and from your phone, so you’ll have a bulletproof system for keeping on top of your schedule. The glue that holds this system together is Google’s free calendaring application, Google Calendar. If you don’t already have a Google account, you’ll need to sign up for one before you can use Google Calendar.

First, let’s take a minute to get familiar with Google Calendar and some of its handier features.

Use Quick Add to Translate Your To-Do List

No matter how streamlined a calendar is, you won’t want to add events through the normal steps, which require you to give your event a title, hunt for the right date and time, and set up notifications to remind you of the event.

Rather than go through this time-consuming process every time, do yourself a favor and get comfortable using GCal’s Quick Add feature. Type any plain-language appointment-related text–such as “Pick up dry cleaning from A1 at 1pm next Tuesday”–into this box, and Google Calendar will translate that notation into an event on your calendar, with the proper date and time.

Next, to ensure that you don’t forget, you could manually edit the event and set a custom notification to remind you when the event is approaching. But suppose that you’re prone to forgetfulness–or just have too many things going on every day–and you want to have some type of default reminder set up for every event of your calendar.

Go to Google Calendar; click Settings, Calendar Settings, Calendars; find the calendar you want to adjust default notifications for; and click Notifications. Once there, you can set up one or more default reminders for any new event that you subsequently add to your calendar.

For most events on my calendar, I like to get a reminder a day ahead of time, just to make certain that an appointment is on my radar; then I like to receive another reminder an hour before the scheduled event time.

Likewise, you can set up your own defaults to suit your preferences. Bear in mind that you can override the defaults if you prefer a different sort of notification (you may want more advanced warning to make sure you move your car in time, for example) or if you decide that you don’t want any reminder at all.

Use Calendar in Your Other Google Apps

If you’re an avid user of Gmail, Google’s e-mail program, Google Calendar can save you even more time. Gmail automatically recognizes when the text of an e-mail suggests an event or appointment and provides you with a Quick Add link that you can click to automatically populate a new Google Calendar event with may of the event’s details–the what, where, and when–already filled out.

Similarly, if you’re a fan of Google’s relatively new to-do list, Google Tasks, you’ll appreciateTasks recently added integration with Google Calendar. Now, when you set a due date on a to-do item in Tasks, it will automatically show up as an event in Google Calendar. (If you don’t see your Tasks in Gmail already, make sure that you’ve clicked the Tasks calendar under the My Calendars sidebar.)

Remember Recurring Events

Whether it be a birthday, monthly rent payments, bimonthly bills, quarterly taxes, or even meet-ups on the third Tuesday of every month, Google Calendar can help you quickly and easily create recurring-event notifications so you’ll never forget another repeat appointment.

To set up a recurring event in GCal, either add a note

about the recurring activity to your quick-add text (e.g., “Move car every Tuesday at 8am”) or click the Create Event button in Google Calendar and set your recurring schedule in the Repeats section.

Stay Synced With Outlook

Google Calendar by itself is fine and dandy if you’re comfortable living your life in your browser, but if you prefer to keep your data local and accessible when you’re offline, you can take advantage of most of the great things Google Calendar has to offer without giving up your desktop calendar.

If you use Microsoft Outlook, just download Google Calendar Sync. Enter your Google Calendar username and password, and it will take care of syncing your calendar data back and forth between Google Calendar and Outlook.
The nice thing about syncing your calendar between Google Calendar and Outlook is that you get the best of both worlds. If you’re away from your main PC, you can access your calendar from any Web browser, on any computer through Google Calendar; if you’re on your main computer, you can stick to scheduling with the Outlook you know and love, whether you have an active Internet connection or not.

Connect Your Calendar to Your Cell Phone

Since you’re not always sitting in front of a computer, being able to access your calendar only when you’re at a computer isn’t all that useful. Imagine that you parked your car in the morning, but you have to move it by 5 p.m. to make way for street cleaning or you’ll get a ticket. It’s easy to forget to add an item like “Move my car by 5pm” to your calendar if you have to wait until you get to a computer to add it. The solution to this problem: Hook your phone into your calendar.

There are several ways to do this, whether you own a cutting-edge smartphone or a bare-bones (but functional) “dumb” phone. Let’s start with the smartphones and work our way down.

Sync With Smartphones

If you use an Android phone, this is a no-brainer. Android works seamlessly with Google Calendar (both are Google products, after all); you merely log in to your Google account on your Android device, and it will automatically set up your phone’s calendar to sync with GCal. Any events you add from your phone will automatically sync with Google Calendar wirelessly.

If you have an iPhone, BlackBerry, Nokia S60, or Windows Mobile phone, syncing your phone’s calendar with GCal is similarly easy when you use the free Google Mobile Sync tool for your particular phone. Head over to the Google Sync page and follow the setup instructions for your device.

Check Your Calendar and Add Events Via SMS

Don’t have a fancy smartphone? No problem. You can still receive event notifications, check your calendar, and even add events to your calendar from any phone that supports SMS messages.

First, head into your Google Calendar settings and associate your cellphone with Google Calendar. (To do so, select Settings, Calendar Settings, Mobile Setup, and follow Google’s instructions for validating your phone.) Once you’ve validated your phone number, Google Calendar can send you event notifications via e-mail or SMS.

You can even add an SMS reminder as one of your default notification methods, in which case you’ll always receive notifications for upcoming events, regardless of where you are, as long as you have your phone on hand.

Now for the really cool part: After you’ve associated your cell phone’s number with your Google Calendar account, you can check your itinerary and create new events by sending text messages to Google Calendar’s GVENT (48368) number. Want today’s schedule? Just text “day” to GVENT.

Even better: You can create new events by texting GVENT, and it supports the same plain-language input that GCal’s Quick Add button does. So if you text GVENT “Move my car at 4:30pm,” GCal will translate that into a new event on your calendar. For complete details on GVENT commands, check out this Google Calendar help page.

Conclusion

The system described above isn’t the only calendaring method possible under the silicon sun, but Google Calendar is the best free way to create a fast-syncing schedule minder that you can access from virtually anywhere. And with all your reminders correctly set up, you’ll never forget to move your car or pay a bill again.

Should you trust Google?

By Fei on July 7, 2010

By Paul Venezia
July 07, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – It’s not the first time that I’ve had this question on my mind, but reading Matt Prigge’s post last week — which echoed my own sentiments about cloud computing — led me to contemplate why we seem to consider Google’s cloud more trustworthy than others.

Nobody pushes cloud computing harder than Google: Gmail, Google Docs, Google Apps, Google this, Google that. It’s all based on a framework of remote resources and an amorphous blob of processing that’s been tuned to spit out whatever we happen to be looking for, accept whatever documents we create, and send email and IM messages. And unlike so many other cloud service providers, Google seems to be accepted in this role, while others inspire skepticism.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Read about Google's adventures in Wi-Fi snooping in France. | Check out Neil McAllister's comparison of Google Docs and Microsoft Office Web Apps. ]

Most people have heard Google’s corporate motto, “Do no evil,” which has been challenged again and again, from censorship in China right up to Google Street View cars detecting and cataloging nearby Wi-Fi networks. Google claims the latter was inadvertent, but the company is still in hot water for it.

Nonetheless, Google is going a step further. To feed Google Places, it’s placing cameras in certain public places and establishments, so you’ll be able to view the interior of a restaurant, say, before heading out for dinner. And this seems perfectly fine to most people. I wonder what the reaction would be if Microsoft or Oracle tried the same thing? Would it be all roses and sunshine, or would people look at some crusty, beady-eyed Oracle guy and send him packing?
Somehow, Google has convinced the world that the company isn’t, in fact, evil. That’s despite the fact that Google is the most powerful force on the Internet today — a position that companies with different corporate mentalities might wield like a truncheon.

But Google steps lightly and presumes nothing. The famously sparse home page remains free of ads and clutter — a design so beloved that when Google introduced a Microsoft Bing-like background image a few weeks ago, the Internet exploded with outrage, and the situation was quickly reversed. But screaming about background images is like yelling at a prison guard for the quality of the food: You’re still under lock and key, even if the consistency of the pudding improves.

Recently I’ve noted how much Facebook knows about you, but make no mistake, Google knows plenty, too. Based on IP information, they know your searches, naturally, but they also know everything you do with Google tools. Planning a trip? They know where you’re going and how you’re getting there if you use Google Maps and directions. Correlate that information with keywords in messages in your Gmail account and you can determine times, companions, specific destinations, the whole works. Use Google Maps on your smartphone and, technically, they could track your progress.
Given the paranoia about so many other intrusions such as government surveillance, snooping bosses, predators, whatever, it’s amazing what Google has gotten away with. We’ve taken the candy, and in return we’ve given up significant levels of privacy to some huge corporate entity that we inexplicably trust not to betray us.

Maybe we trust Google because it has been benevolent in the past — in not “monetizing” when it could have, in promoting open source here and there, and in providing whimsical perks to its employees. Sure, now and again we’ve sucked air and said, “Oops, that was kinda evil.” But strictly speaking, the company hasn’t screwed over enough people to dent its public image. The idea that Microsoft — or even Apple — could ever make that same claim is almost comical.

Google also has the benefit of being constantly available. Can you even recall the last time that Google Search was unavailable or down? Some apps have had snafus in the past — notably Gmail — but the Google main page has always been ready for service, fast as you please. And that impeccable reliability may have more to do with why folks trust Google with their details, documents, pictures, videos, and so on than anything else.

Me, I don’t trust the cloud. I don’t know that I ever will. Yet I have a Gmail account and I use Google Maps and a variety of other Google tools all the time. At this point in the evolution of the Internet, it’s impossible not to. Let’s just hope that those in control of our information can truly be trusted to do the right thing. Hope, in the end, is all we can do.

Molding the iPad into a Business Tool

By Fei on March 15, 2010

By Tony Bradley
March 15, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – The Apple iPad has been available for pre-order for more than 24 hours now. Initial demand seems promising, although not everyone has embraced the concept of dedicating $500 or more to be an early adopter of a device that nobody really has all the details on just yet.

Not to sound like a broken record, but the iPad is a consumer device. Actually, as far as I am concerned anything with an Apple logo is–by default–intended primarily for a consumer audience. Despite the passionate zeal of the Apple faithful, you won’t see any Fortune 500 companies lining up to dump Windows-based PC’s for Macs, or BlackBerry smartphones for iPhones any time soon.

That said, the iPad–and other Apple devices–can be more than functional business tools as well. Most business professionals will need a little something more from the iPad than a music playing, e-book reading, Web surfing, movie watching tablet device.
The following is a selection of apps that business professionals can use to transform the media-consuming toy into a productive business tool:

• Salesforce Mobile. Salesforce.com’s app provides on-the-go access to Sales Cloud. Sales Cloud give business professionals the ability to log calls, respond to leads, access critical customer data, and view dashboard information from the iPad.

• FedEx Mobile Web App. Mobile and remote workers need a convenient way to schedule and track package shipments. The FedEx Mobile Web App lets you create shipping labels, locate the nearest FedEx office, or monitor the progress of shipments in transit.

• Meebo. Instant messaging has become an essential means of business communication. Meebo supports all major instant messaging networks and enables you to keep in touch through instant messaging from your iPad. Meebo overcomes the lack of true multitasking with Push notifications that work even when the app is closed, and it automatically reconnects if the signal is lost to make sure you stay in touch.

• Freshbooks. Business professionals that need to track and log their time for billing purposes will appreciate Freshbooks, especially if managing multiple clients simultaneously. The Freshbooks app is another example of an app developed to function properly in spite of the lack of multitasking. The Freshbooks task timer will continue to run in the background while you use your iPad for other functions. It also works even with no Web connection–queuing time entries until a connection is available.

This is an exceptionally small sampling of what is available. Granted, out of 150,000 plus apps available, there are far too many that make fart noises, or display a flickering lighter, or some other moronic thing. However, despite the repeated mantra that the iPhone and iPad are not for business, there is also a diverse and growing selection of apps designed specifically to change that perception.

Aside from standalone apps, there are also much more comprehensive solutions that can deliver a more complete business environment to the iPad. Accessing Google Apps from the iPad via the Web, and the new Google Apps Marketplace, offers business professionals cloud-based access to a plethora of valuable business and communications tools.

Organizations can use Array Networks Desktop Direct, along with the Desktop Direct client app, to establish a remote desktop connection from the iPad, directly to the user’s desktop. Desktop Direct provides a direct portal to the desktop–so the user can access all data and run all applications on the desktop directly from the iPad.

Devices like the upcoming HP Slate–built on the Windows 7 operating system–seem like a more logical fit for business use. However, the world has changed and the line is blurred between consumer and business devices. The bottom line is that people will buy an iPad as a consumer, but will naturally want to figure out how to integrate it as a business professional.
Fortunately for them, the tools are out there to make that work. To each their own.

Should You Move Your Small Business to the Cloud?

By Fei on February 2, 2010

By James A. Martin
February 2, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Cloud computing. For some, the term is wildly nebulous. Not long ago, even Oracle’s Larry Ellison publicly asked what the heck people meant by “the cloud.”

For others, cloud computing instantly raises concerns about security and reliability. After all, Gmail, a popular cloud-based e-mail service that has endured some high-profile outages, didn’t earn the nickname “Gfail” for nothing.

Before you dismiss the cloud as a lot of vapor, though, listen to what three small-business people told us about their experiences with it:

• “We saved over $4000 in up-front costs by moving to an entirely cloud-based solution [for e-mail, Web hosting, virus protection, and more]. We were also able to substantially reduce our power bill and the costs needed to maintain and upgrade hardware.” –Bob Everett, president, Bottom-Line Consulting, a three-person firm offering various small-business services.
• “As a non-IT person, I find cloud-based applications easier to set up and use than many [computer] applications, and I don’t need to rely on internal IT support as much for assistance.” –Cristina Martin Greysman, executive vice president, business development, Vuzit, a six-employee software company.
• “A power surge nearly destroyed our in-house e-mail server. Had we not recovered it, a great deal of historical knowledge and valuable information would have been lost forever, not to mention the lost productivity for days or weeks. Now we have a secure, redundant, cloud e-mail system we can access anywhere, anytime, with a consistent interface, and it’s made our business stronger.” –Kevin Hart, partner and founder, Hart-Boillot, a ten-employee marketing and communications agency.
To be sure, cloud computing has its shortcomings (more on that later); but small businesses looking to cut computing costs and improve efficiency during this long recession are finding the many benefits of Internet-based software and services increasingly attractive. In fact, companies with 100 or fewer employees are expected to spend $2.4 billion on cloud computing services in 2010, up from $1.7 billion in 2009, according to Ray Boggs, vice president of SMB research for IDC.

Here’s what you need to know about cloud computing: what it is, pros and cons, suggested services, and tips for applying it to your business.

What Does Cloud Computing Mean?

For decades, engineers have drawn a cloud to depict a network (such as the Internet) whose inner workings were unknown to them. From there, cloud computing evolved as a term to describe free or subscription-based services delivered in real time over the Internet.

Cloud computing can refer to software as a service, such as Salesforce.com for customer relationship management (CRM); to file storage, synchronization, backup, and other utility computing, such as Dropbox; and to infrastructure as a service, including Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, which delivers customizable computing capacity over the Internet.
For further discussion of what the cloud covers, see “Cloud Computing Explained.”

Examples of Cloud Computing Services for Small Business

We queried dozens of small businesses about the cloud services they use, and why they use them. Among the most popular services were these:

• Google Apps ($50 per user per year) and Google Docs (free) are offerings from the Google cloud empire. Google Apps is a business-class version of Google Docs and includes souped-up Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs (for word processing, spreadsheet, presentations and forms) components along with administration capabilities.
With either Google Apps or Google Docs, your data remains in one place no matter where you access it from, according to Brian Armstrong, founder of BuyersVote, a product review site that relies on Google’s premium services. Despite Gmail’s periodic outages, Armstrong says, Google’s cloud tools are “actually more secure on the whole because, although you’re trusting your data to an external provider, Google works hard to secure a ton of data; and it’s the sort of attention to detail that you probably don’t have time or money for in your local IT department.”
• Box.net (free for 1GB of storage; $10 for an individual plan; $15 monthly for three or more users) is an online workspace service for file sharing and collaboration. Paul Rosenfeld, cofounder and CEO of Fanminder, a mobile marketing firm with 12 employees, calls it “incredibly easy to use and powerful”: “Having a virtual team makes it nearly impossible to coordinate workflow without their tools,” Rosenfeld says.
• QuickBooks Online ($10 to $35 per month), unlike QuickBooks installed on PCs, makes collaboration easy across a small team. “It enables our bookkeeper, accountant, and outsourced CFO to all look at the same up-to-date information to advise us on our financial situation,” says Nicolas Boillot of Hart-Boillot, whose company uses the service.
• Skype is popular for its free video chats as well as for the low-cost calls to landline and cell phones that it makes possible. Brand Thunder, a browser customization firm with 11 members, uses Skype for all-team meetings, says Patrick Murphy, the company’s founder and CEO. Though Skype call quality varies, the service “allows easy and open communication between team members, despite their being geographically dispersed,” he says.
• Highrise for CRM and Basecamp for project management ($24 to $149 per month each, depending on the level of service you choose) both come from 37signals. A number of small businesses we contacted recommended these services for their feature sets and ease of use.

The Benefits of Cloud Computing

Cloud-based services can help small businesses dramatically reduce their software and other computing costs.

For example, Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business will cost $199 for a downloadable version and $279 for a boxed version. By comparison, Google Docs, which offers office productivity tools via the cloud, is free. (Microsoft is currently working on Web-based versions of Office 2010 apps.)

Storing files on a secure, reliable, cloud-based service helps eliminate backup worries and gives you anytime access to your files. Usually, cloud-based services are simple to use–the only things you need are a computer (or in some cases, a mobile handset), a browser, and an Internet connection. And such services require no maintenance from the user.

Easier collaboration with colleagues in distant locations is another oft-cited cloud benefit.

“If you’re the kind of small business that has employees who work from different places–or has remote employees, board members, or vendors who need access to your data–cloud computing is the only way to go,” says Rosenfeld of Fanminder.

These benefits enable small businesses to “stay focused, be more collaborative, and bring products to market more quickly, because they’ve got access to the kind of infrastructure that only large companies used to have,” says Judith Hurwitz, president and CEO of Hurwitz & Associates and a coauthor of Cloud Computing for Dummies .

The Cloud’s Dark Side

The biggest misgiving that most businesses have about the cloud involves security, according to two recent surveys.

In a December 2009 Forrester Research survey, 51 percent of SMB participants said that security and privacy concerns were their top reasons for not using cloud services.
Similarly, respondents to an IDC survey in late 2009 said that their biggest worries about cloud computing were, in descending order, security, availability, and performance.
It’s not difficult to find instances of security breaches in cloud computing, of course. On the other hand, you can’t entirely eliminate risk from any computing environment. Intruders may hack into files stored on your business’s own servers or hard drives. Hard drives may fail. Unencrypted information stored on laptops may lead to identity theft or lawsuits when the laptops go missing.

Cloud computing security lapses are “like airplane disasters,” says Rosenfeld. “Trillions of transactions happen without any problem every day. You only hear about it when something goes wrong.” Rosenfeld adds, “I know enough both to worry about [cloud computing] security and to not give it too much thought.”

Here are some other commonly cited concerns about cloud computing:

• Privacy: How much data are cloud companies like Google collecting about you, and how might that information be used?
• Availability: Will your cloud service go down unexpectedly, leaving you without access to critical customer records, e-mail, or other information for hours or more? Gmail outages are widely reported, but Salesforce.com and other well-established services have gone dark on occasion, too.
• Data loss: Some online storage sites have shut down abruptly, sending users scrambling to recover their data, sometimes with only 24 hours’ notice. And T-Mobile Sidekick users were unhappy to discover that their personal data had been erased from their devices–especially when Microsoft said that the data loss was irrevocable. (A few days later, Microsoft announced that it had recovered most of the data.)
• Data mobility and ownership: Will you be able to share data between different cloud services? If you decide to stop using a cloud service, can you get all of your data back? What format will it be in? How can you be certain that the cloud service will destroy all of your data once you’ve severed ties with it?

• Tool robustness: Cloud-based tools frequently aren’t as powerful as software applications. Google Docs, for instance, lacks a number of features that Microsoft Office has had for years, such as the ability to track changes in a text file.

Tips for Moving Into the Cloud

Once you’ve weighed the pros and cons, you may be ready to take your first steps into cloud computing. Before you do, consider these tips from small businesses that have already made the transition.

• Start small. Cloud computing is a different way of working from what most people are used to, and building familiarity and trust takes time, says Trevor Doerksen, CEO and founder of MoboVivo, a 12-member video content portal/software company. Doerksen recommends starting small–for example, by having two or more workers collaborate on a Google Docs file. Once team members grow more comfortable with the new work environment, you can start adding more cloud services to the mix.
• Think big. Can the service you’re considering scale to meet your needs as your business grows? If not, keep looking.

• Make sure you can export your data in standard formats. You’ll want to be able to export in the formats used by Word, Excel, and other programs you use. That way, you can back up (and access) your data locally or move it easily to another service later.

• Read the agreement closely. To use the service, you’ll most likely have to accept an endless service-level agreement or other contract at the outset. Read it carefully to ensure that you know what you’re paying for, what the service provider’s privacy policy is, whether there are fees for early termination, and so on.

• Get creative. Look for ways to use free or low-cost cloud tools instead of more-expensive ones, suggests Doerksen. For example, his team uses free Google Docs spreadsheets as a basic CRM system, rather than springing for a paid CRM cloud service.

• Evaluate more than one service before deciding. Most services offer a free trial, and “you can usually figure out in 10 minutes whether the service’s user interface will drive you mad or is easy to use,” says Rosenfeld.

• Consider open-source cloud services. This arrangement encourages third-party developers to build add-ons that make a cloud-based service even more feature-rich. Plus, it allows you to create your own tools for using the service that are unique to your business.

• Don’t be afraid. It makes sense to cautiously approach any big change in how you do business, and this certainly applies to moving to the cloud. But many feel that the business world is already making the transition to cloud computing, and–given the lousy economy–now is a good time to make the transition.

“I can’t think of any company that shouldn’t try it,” says Doerksen. “If you don’t, you’re missing out on an opportunity to prepare your business for the future.”

Memeo Connects Google Docs to the Desktop

By Fei on January 14, 2010

By Tony Bradley
January 14, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO – Memeo, a privately-held company focused on helping users share, manage, and protect their data, announced the launch of Memeo Connect for Google Apps. The new tool enables Google Apps Premier customers to access, migrate, and synchronize files between their desktop and Google Docs.

Google has been courting business customers with its products and services, but most enterprises, and even small and medium businesses, rely on the applications in the Microsoft Office suite for business productivity software. While Google Apps is a robust solution on its own merits, customers need tools that help them leverage Google Apps in a world dominated by Microsoft Office.

In a press release announcing the new tool, Matthew Glotzbach, product management director for Google, said “More than 3,000 businesses sign up for Google Apps every day, and many of them are interested in a tool that effectively assists in the import and management of their existing files and documents between Google Docs and the desktop environment.”
Glotzbach added “Memeo Connect for Google Apps presents our customers with an attractive option to integrate or migrate all of their files into Google Docs.”

I interviewed Spencer Chen, director of corporate communications for Memeo. He explained that “Google has always been oriented around the cloud, but most enterprises possess a legacy of coming from an on-premise environment.”

Chen continued “Memeo has a great track record in providing rich, desktop applications with leading technology partners, so it was a natural fit for Memeo to jointly develop a solution that integrates that divide between the cloud and the desktop environment. Memeo Connect for Google Apps will enable customers to switch back and forth and manage any file type without limitations between these two environments.”

Alternative software like Google Docs, StarOffice, or OpenOffice offer options for businesses looking for cost effective business productivity software. The success of these products, though, relies on being compatible with Microsoft Office formats and conventions.

Even if a business is willing and able to sever itself completely from Microsoft Office, it can’t ignore the fact that Microsoft Office is the dominant software used by partners, vendors, and customers. These businesses need tools that help them straddle the line and transition seamlessly from desktop to cloud, and from Microsoft Office to Google Docs.

The addition of Memeo Connect for Google Apps, which will cost $9 per user per year, makes it easier for business customers to seriously consider transitioning to Google Apps without having to factor in the headache of trying to convert or migrate all existing Microsoft Office data to do so.

The Memeo announcement is indicative of a shift in strategy by Google to recognize that business customers aren’t ready to simply abandon the desktop or ditch Microsoft Office entirely, and to embrace third-party partners to help it fill in the gaps and deliver the functionality customers need.