Tag Archives: Intermedia Group Inc.

About 1568 days ago Business Software

Cloud Computing: Freedom to Be Productive

Technology is one of the fundamental reasons why today’s small businesses can break through with innovative products, compete head to head with large corporations, and even change the very rules of the game. The modern paradigm of entrepreneurship — fueled by inexpensive and available technology — emphasizes flexibility, responsiveness, and cost effectiveness, enabling small businesses to contend for market position in a way that was not even thinkable just a few years ago. Software provided as a service via the Web — or in the “cloud” — is the quintessence of what small businesses need for their information workers: cost effective, flexible tools that free them from physical dependency and allow for location independent operation and wide scale collaboration. The most common tasks performed by small business employees are definitely related to basic office communications and productivity. Such tasks can now be performed through and incredible array of choices that leverage the software in the cloud model and take advantage of the inherent collaborative nature of the Internet for very low cost, or even for free, offering strong alternatives to traditional desktop computing. E-mail, communications, and personal information management Web mail has been available for many years, but in the recent past has become a complete alternative to traditional e-mail clients such as Outlook, Eudora, or Thunderbird. Web 2.0 technologies have allowed in fact for such tools to offer very rich and complete user experience. Gmail is an appealing solution with its widespread adoption among consumers, more storage than you’ll ever need, full integration with traditional clients, and the unbeatable price — it’s free. Its true power though becomes evident when used in conjunction with the other Google applications, such as calendaring, contacts management, instant messaging, Google Docs and Google Sites. A premium, paid option called Google Apps integrates all these applications around your own domain name and allows for true workgroup functionality, plus extensive customer support for $50/year per user. Microsoft’s Hotmail has been around for as long as I can remember, but in the last few years it has turned into a communication platform actually usable by a small business with success. Now part of Office Live Small Business, it integrates with services such as online storage and your own website. Starts for free and you can add services for tiered fees. The best e-mail based tools though are the ones that allow you to get the best of all worlds: Web mail and client-side e-mail download and fully synchronized, together with online and offline calendars, contacts, tasks, and workgroup-level collaboration.  In this domain, Yahoo!’s Zimbra and Microsoft Exchange can now be purchased as online services with absolutely no technical knowledge required for setup. They’re both fantastic tools, but outsourced MS Exchange services are definitely the most mature and available. The domestic leader in the Exchange as a service offer for small businesses is Intermedia with robust and reliable hosting, full customer support starting at about $10/month per user. Less expensive, but more consumer oriented providers include 1&1 and mail2web that include a free Web-only service with no workgroup features. Office productivity suites In the past few years a new breed of online applications that perform most of the tasks that we are accustomed to perform with Microsoft Office have reached business maturity and are getting ready for prime time. The one that I find to be the most reliable and well featured online alternative to Office is ThinkFree. It has been around for many years now and it offers both a Web-based office application and an identical companion for the desktop that requires no connectivity. The Web offerings are rounded by documents storage services, great workspace collaboration, and smartphones integration. Basic service is free; premium services and products can be added for modest fees. Google Docs is clearly becoming a strong contender. Free, well integrated with its other services, it provides extremely simple interface with native collaborative features: multiple users can concurrently work on the same documents with no chance for confusion. Don’t expect too many bells and whistles though. It’s a solid, collaborative office suite at no cost with essential features. A recent entry in the Web productivity market that has made very good inroads is Zoho. While its services go well beyond the basic productivity suite and extend into teleconferencing, project management, e-mail, and customer relationship management (CRM) and are accessible mostly for free, their products are not exactly ready for robust applications yet, but they are certainly moving in the right direction. Definitely worth take a look.   A number of other Web-based applications designed to make small business more collaborative and flexible are finally reaching maturity. Some examples include file transfer (YouSendIt), intranets and collaboration (HyperOffice, Web Office), and project collaboration and management (Central Desktop and Basecamp.) With the emergence of more and more applications leveraging the low development and distribution costs afforded by the software-as-a-service model (SaaS), small businesses are going to see a growing number of offerings tailored to their needs and responding to their functional requirements much better than what is available today on desktop software. In my next column,, we will explore options for Web-based accounting and financial management. Stay tuned. Andrea Peiro is the Small Business Market Expert at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Founder of the Small Business Technology Magazine, a recognized authority, author, analyst and speaker on high-tech marketing and use of information technology in small and mid-sized businesses, he has been frequently interviewed and featured in such media outlets as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Inc. You can reach him at us.andreap@gmail.com.

About 1874 days ago Business Software

Are Managed Services Right for You?

our beautiful site

You’re at the helm of a small software company and you feel overwhelmed by what you need to organize. First of all, there’s business communication, collaboration amongst your staff and clients that needs to happen, maintenance of your servers, and the list goes on. You know that in order to keep yourself profitable, outsourcing through a managed service might solve your problems. However, you wonder about security and control issues and if using these vendors can really save you the money they promise. Using managed network services, especially in this downturned economy, is a choice many small and mid-sized businesses make daily. Turning to managed services for voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), network management services, e-mail, and collaboration can substantially lower in-house IT costs and can cut time spent upgrading and maintaining servers for the small business. In addition, these vendors include professional 24/7 support that will react in a timely fashion if the system is down. Although deploying these managed and hosted services may feel that you’re sacrificing control, managed service vendors often offer physically digital secure data centers where data is continually backed up. In most cases, the managed service can offer more security for their data than what the small business can. Pros of using managed network services Lower IT Cost — According to Michele Pelino, analyst for Forrester Research based in Cambridge, Mass., businesses in the retail, production, wholesale, and transportation vertical markets use managed services to control their IT costs and keep their IT staffs streamlined by outsourcing their voice and data operations. In addition, managed services providers offer the software-as-a-service (SaaS), in which vendors provide software applications on a per user monthly plan. Simplify Operations — Rather than outlaying tremendous efforts in money and time in server maintenance and software programs such as Microsoft Outlook or Exchange, managed network vendors can relieve this stress on the company’s bottom line. Danny Essner, director of marketing for Intermedia, a New York-based provider of managed business e-mail services for small and mid-sized businesses, says that small businesses get “the best of both worlds” by having all of the benefits of using managed services with none of the direct costs of maintaining these servers and upgrading this software. Security — Says Maysoon Al-Hasso, the vice president of marketing for Apptix, a Herndon. Va.-based provider of managed messaging and collaboration solutions for small and mid-sized businesses, “We offer control without all of the hassles.” Managed service vendors provide anti-spam and anti-virus protection at all price levels and in the case of Apptix, their servers are housed in data centers with Cisco firewalls with 24/7 human and technical protection. Cons of using managed network services Lack of Support — The managed service provider may not place you high on the priority list when you call the Help Desk. Make sure you check the vendor’s record of support before you deal with them. Maysoon Al-Hasso of Apptix recommends businesses to call the support desk on a Sunday at 8 p.m. to see if they are ready to take care of you. Security — Check that your provider is as professional as they say they are. What kind of computers do they use as their servers? Intermedia uses Dell servers and has made a significant investment in their Cisco network, but other vendors may not have this level of server and back-up protection.  Conclusion Invest the time to see if your company is the right fit for a managed service provider and educate yourself on how using these vendors can possibly resolve your IT issues. The old days of enterprise software that is a significant annual investment are past and now businesses want SaaS service that provides them scalable options. For instance, if your company grows, it’s a lot easier to click a button to move up a service tier than it is to invest in another server. SIDEBAR: Managed Service Providers for Small Businesses Apptix with over 186,500 subscribers, Apptix differentiates itself through its messaging, voice, and collaboration solutions. They sell business communications services such as Hosted Exchange, Hosted SharePoint, Hosted IP-PBX and also offers hosted VoIP solutions. Apptix is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Hosting and Application Services. Intermedia.net offers Microsoft exchange hosting, SharePoint hosting and e-mail archiving and compliance. In February 2008, Intermedia launched Secure Mail, which encrypts email and is industry compliant. They also offer two control panels: HostPilot and MyMailboxManager for greater mobile access and shared calendars to increase productivity and collaboration. USA.NET Hosted Microsoft Exchange works with companies from five to 60,000 users who can benefit from USA.NET’s tiered approach to e-mail and e-messaging services.  Offers a scalable solution that fits your business and it is the only hosted e-mail provider that is Microsoft Gold Certified and SAS 70 Type II Audited.