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Laura Brown's Blog

What Happens if the Cloud Crashes?


2012 has been pitched as the year more and more businesses set up camp in the Cloud.

Figures in Wired just two months ago said that according to AMD, 70% of businesses are already using the Cloud or are looking into what it involves.

Helping them complete their work safely and efficiently cloud solutions such as Exchange hosting helps businesses manage teams working at various locations, share tasks, calendars and documents, work on the move and give each client great customer service wherever you are. It is cheaper and more secure removing the need for expensive servers that need to be maintained and updated on site.

As reliable and secure as the Cloud is, when discussing the system with a provider it is important to ask questions. And the most important one is, what happens if the Cloud crashes?

First of all it’s worth explaining what we actually mean by the Cloud crashing. A switch isn’t going to be flicked and the Internet turned off. It isn’t going to jam or have a bad day. The Internet doesn’t work like that.

However the individual sites that house the Cloud Servers of your provider could go offline. The chance is minimal and would take an accident like a flood or massive power cut and no back-up server or power source for it to happen.

But the chance is there.

It is important to ask your provider what their contingency plan is. What are their plans in case of flood, natural disaster or something similar? They might use a backup generator or have a separate site with backup server, meaning the impact at your end is minimal.

Yet their contingency plan is the difference between you losing all your work information and backup and not.

Another major risk is security. Storing business information and files can put someone off. A contingency plan from your provider, like backing up your data offline or providing on-going security features helps to manage a one-off threat and also the potential for a security breach.

Hosted SharePoint and Hosted Exchange can offer real opportunities for business. Cost-effective and quick to implement and often cheaper to run than an expensive IT system, the Cloud offers a tool for small to medium sized businesses to grow and manage their business differently and more streamlined.

However technology is never failsafe and fool proof. There is always a potential for things to go wrong. That’s why when choosing a provider you need to know the right questions to ask and more importantly, the right answers to anticipate.

If you ask a provider what their contingency plan is if a natural disaster like an earthquake hits their data servers and they just laugh, well then perhaps you should look for another provider.

Similarly if their reaction to the idea of a security breach is to wave their hand and say nothing like that will ever happen, then perhaps they’re not the right provider for you, or anyone.

Ultimately, there is no perfect technology solution, only the development of contingency plans. Good customer service means anticipating risks and helping to implement strategies to minimise the threat and react quickly and efficiently if things go wrong.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 14th, 2012 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Laura Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

How the Death Star could have been saved, if only they had Cloud Computing


Happy Star Wars Day.

Inevitably on special days like this one we think of what might have been. How if one tiny piece of the jigsaw had been changed, the whole outcome might have been very different.

Consider, for a moment, if the Empire had used Cloud Computing, for example.

The progress of the Death Star might have been very different.

The Emperor would have been able to monitor progress remotely with the team on the ground being able to share documents via Exchange hosting, uploading their tasks and sharing calendars. For project management this is vital, particularly if you’re dealing with teams remotely. Admittedly, your team might be in Milton Keynes and you’re in Manchester and not on the other side of the galaxy but the principle remains the same.

Good project management relies on communication, regular reporting and updating. Star Wars begins with Darth Vader arriving to see progress on the Death Star, frustrated with a lack of updates and the project falling well behind schedule. He doesn’t mention costs but we can imagine it’s getting pretty expensive for the Emperor (and obviously delaying his ambition for total annihilation of any planet that gets in his way).

Regular reporting could have alerted Vader to the project falling behind schedule and the problems could have been solved earlier. Instead he has to take control of the construction and get it back on track, wasting time and energy and, one might argue, taking the Galactic Empire’s eye off the ball and giving the upper hand to the Rebel Alliance.

There is also an issue of security. It’s not revealed where the stolen plans from the Death Star come from and how the Rebel Alliance have discovered them. Ultimately, this theft leads to the destruction of the Death Star, allows the Rebel Alliance to grow and starts them on their ultimate path (spoilers alert) to victory two films later.

If the Empire had invested in cloud services such as hosted Exchange and hosted SharePoint, they could have been reassured that their plans and documents shared between teams, both on the ground taking part in the construction and those around the galaxy, were secure. External servers mean that all information is not only securely backed up but it is protected and safely filed, ensuring no one can break in, install a virus or steal data.

The plans to the Death Star might never have been taken. It’s weakness might never have been discovered and the Empire could have swatted the Rebel Alliance once and for all.

Admittedly, this suggests that Cloud Computing could have been the difference between a victory for evil, but history is written by the victors, rather than those defeated.

May the Fourth be with you.

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2012 at 11:30 am and is filed under Laura Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Kitting Out Your Virtual Office


What technology has done is give us another office.

We have the tangible office, the one where we work, arrive every morning and place our computer, filing cabinet and so forth.

The second is the virtual office. It’s where your work is kept, where most of your communication takes place, where you save your contacts and tasks. Increasingly as we embrace flexible working and working on the move it’s becoming the place where we spend more time with our colleagues and staff. In the Cloud.

The virtual office might seem more daunting a place to tackle efficiency, performance and making sure we’re getting the most out of our work colleagues but in fact it works on the same principle as any other kind of workplace.

Organisation, communication and knowing that you’ve got the right infrastructure for the job at hand.

In the tangible office you need to know where everything is, you need to have the right tools to get the job done and you need to know what everyone’s tasks and responsibilities are to make sure the job gets done smoothly, on time and on budget.

It’s exactly the same in the virtual office.

Increasingly we are managing workloads across different offices and devices; from PC to Mac to smartphone to tablets. To make sure people can communicate and organise their time we rely on the Cloud; solutions like Exchange hosting means we have access to our business data wherever there is internet access, and solutions such as hosted SharePoint allow us to centralise our work and access it whenever and wherever.

It makes us more flexible, ultimately ensuring we can do a better job for the clients if we are not tethered to a desk or conference room.

Infrastructure is equally important. In the same way we want to make sure our offices are in a place where we can get good internet access, where it’s easy for clients and staff to get into and out of work we need to make sure we have a good setup for our digital office to run effectively.

Server, storage and the desktop; as it grows it puts even more pressure on networks. More pressure means a greater risk of crashing. We want nothing to get in the way of our ability to do the work we need to.

Virtually, we need to be more dynamic and efficient and with that comes what IT experts are describing as “flatter” infrastructure solutions.

Let’s be honest, if you’re planning a move to a new office, you wouldn’t want to leave the designing of the building and the construction of it to your junior members of staff. You’d hire a professional team with the skills and experience to get the job done. Why is it any different with a virtual infrastructure?

Using a provider like MessageStream can make it cheaper, more secure and mean you get the benefit of the latest technology without the headache of having to install and manage the updates and upgrades. Many companies have developed a bloated infrastructure technology-wise as they try to solve problems piecemeal, rather than overhauling and starting again using a service provider.

If you want to be more dynamic and efficient then making key decisions about how your virtual office will be built is the first step.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2012 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Laura Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

How the Cloud Boosts Business Collaboration


What difference could it make to your business if you could talk to clients all over the world, face to face?

How about if you wanted to expand into different countries but wanted to stay in one base? Five years ago you would have had to commit a chunk of your time to air travel. Admittedly it would mean generating air miles but the amount of investment required setting off offices and infrastructure in each new outlet is a major factor switching off a lot of businesses and entrepreneurs from international growth.

The Cloud is changing all that, one business collaboration tool at a time.

SharePoint, Hosted Exchange and even video conferencing; Geography is becoming less and less important to business and technology expands into the gaps making working together much easier wherever we are.

This week Orange has announced it is launching a new video and conference calling service for business using the Cloud to help connect companies.

The Telepresence Pass gives business a what Orange describes as a “telepresence infrastructure”, or in plain English the ability to make video calls and conference calls without spending a lot on expensive technology.

The only cost is a monthly subscription fee. So there is no great investment in kit, as it is based in the cloud there is no need to manage the system or hire someone new for maintenance.

The old adage goes that technology is making the world smaller. And if you think that the ZX Spectrum is thirty years old today, you can see how far we’ve come in a generation. The cloud is making it easier to do business on a global stage, without leaving the comforts of your office.

One of the greatest aspects of cloud technology, and the impact it is having on business practice, is the idea of it being bespoke. Orange says there video services are designed for companies to adopt different options so that they can choose the solution that best suits their business. It’s available in 21 different countries. It means that a company wanting to expend into different markets across the globe can keep in touch with their offices and staff face to face, as well as email to email.

If you combine the video services with an Exchange hosting service, it means that geography becomes less of a hindrance to working effectively. You can share contacts, tasks, calendars and documents via Hosted Exchange 2010 making your desktops around the globe look as similar as possible. With Microsoft’s SharePoint you can share information across different sites, managing documents from start to finish in different locations as well as publishing reports.  Everything is done securely over the web so the only important factor is bandwidth. Team meetings can be over a video service, meaning you can still have that all important face to face interaction which makes communication run more smoothly.

If you want to expand into new markets and still offer the same service to clients abroad as you do on the ground then the video services could help you make a presentation from Manchester with a prospective client in Sydney. Your only problem would be the time difference.

It is all thanks to the Cloud reinvigorating working practices and letting us have an even greater level of control in how we work. The technology and infrastructure expanding around the Cloud is making it easier for businesses to grow and play on the international stage, without having to worry about a great outlay in terms of cost.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2012 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Laura Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Are You Afraid of the Cloud?


Like with many discussions, there are two sides of the fence when it comes to the Cloud.

On one side are the advocates. They might be IT-re-sellers introducing their clients to the software and practice; they might be SME owners who have made the jump to streamline their business and cut IT costs.

However there is another camp who aren’t engaged at all. The Cloud isn’t a solution, they say. Too stressful, too much work, too much hassle.

Are they right?

Or, is there dismissal of the new technology motivated by fear?

Let’s be honest, there aren’t many of us that wholeheartedly embrace change, particularly in work. Uncertain times, and up and down economy, fear over our jobs, our businesses, our colleagues and staff. Fear can be totally immobilising and can make us sceptical of exploring opportunities when they come up.

Those critical of the Cloud aren’t all frightened of it, of course. But are those of us who can see its potential and the difference it can make to the workplace from an IT perspective doing enough to allay those fears?

Security issues, data protection, loss of power; these are the concerns you will hear from people who think the Cloud not only will not work for them, but won’t work for anyone. Often these people are already sharing a calendar with their family via Gmail, or have explored how they can link up their iPhone with the iPad and the MAC with iCloud, or watch their kids using Skype or Facebook.

The truth is they are already using the Cloud, are already seeing its benefits but are doing it at home and leisure and haven’t yet made the leap to business.

For those who work with clients and could become IT re-sellers – who could work with a Cloud provider to offer services such as exchange hosting or hosted SharePoint to their own clients and generate a new source of income – the fact that they can enjoy the Cloud at home but not in work perhaps suggests it is our fault, the advocates of the Cloud, who aren’t holding their hands and helping them make the leap.

PC World magazine has recently conducted a poll on Cloud Computing. 80% say they use it or plan to. Under 20% say they won’t. The risk, of course, is about competition. The Cloud offers a more streamlined IT approach, sharing content and securely backing work up remotely. It saves money and also helps business shape their IT around their needs and practices. Save a bit of money in one area and you’re able to invest it somewhere else.

Businesses and individuals afraid of exploring the benefits of the Cloud, those that dismiss it out of hand without exploring or asking what it can really do could lose their edge to the competition.

The potential of the Cloud for reducing costs while improving productivity is embraced by its advocates. The risks are all those who fear the Cloud can see. But rather than separating ourselves into two camps perhaps we can help reduce their fear by talking more about how the Cloud works and how providers reduce the risks. Any new technology has an element of risk. It’s only through explaining and challenging that we help to minimise them.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2012 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Laura Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Could You Sell Hosted Exchange?


It’s changing how we work and this is set to be the year of the Cloud but is that making it any easier for people selling Hosted Exchange?

Becoming a Hosted Exchange reseller is an attractive proposition for many an IT business. Whether selling it as a standalone product or with your own web-hosting it can offer your clients a cost-effective solution as well as making you some money. It is about diversification; many online businesses trade on their knowledge of how the internet works and how it can benefit business. Taking the next step and reselling Hosted Exchange to provide clients with hosted email, contacts, calendars and work places is a logical jump. It is also one that needs an element of planning.

If this is a viable route for your business, what do you need to know?

First, know what you’re reselling. The most successful sales teams pride themselves on knowing their industry and business inside out. What is the best way to do that? Try it yourself and have a go. We can read all the T and C’s, blogs and articles we like but for the majority of us we only truly learn the benefits of a new tool or technique or how something works by having a go ourselves. Remember if you’re pitching Hosted Exchange to a client you’re putting your expertise on the line. If you can’t answer a client’s questions clearly or communicate to them exactly the benefits they could be receiving, or more fundamentally exactly how Hosted Exchange works then they might begin to question how much you really know. At MessageStream, our resellers can sign up for our exchange free of charge – if they sign up just after our billing period they’re able t0 trial our service for up to a month without paying a penny. That means they can sign up and try the service for themselves before they start looking for their own clients.

Understanding how Hosted Exchange works means understanding its unique selling point. It is cost-effective, often cheaper than having an office installed server, is easy to set-up with minimum fuss and interference and a dedicated handover strategy that shouldn’t mean you lost any business-time. These are things that clients really care about. They know they need to upgrade and to put in place and IT solution that makes it easier and more streamlined to run their business but they worry it will distract them from actually doing the job. Emphasising how easy it is to adopt Hosted Exchange, and how much easier it will make it for them to run their business is key. As a reseller the ease of Hosted exchange means you can take on more clients and get a more diverse and sound business model and successful revenue stream.

An important step is making business work is knowing your competition. The same goes if you are a Hosted Exchange reseller. Know your local market; know who is offering the same thing. That way you will be best placed to emphasise and sell the attributes you have that they might not. If you want to become a reseller you need to work with a provider that suits your needs, and those you are hoping in turn to sell. Every provider around the country is different, and every pocket of industry is equally diverse. You don’t want a provider that dictates what you can and can’t do. You need the freedom to make it work for yourself.

Understanding the product will show you that there are tiers in technology. You want to find a provider that sells the very best product and uses the most up-to-date services. Technology changes and develops so rapidly that you can often find yourself signing up to a deal that really will be obsolete in a matter of months. Your research will help you get an overview of where the Cloud industry is at, and what tools you’ll need to sell it.

Becoming a Hosted Exchange reseller requires real perseverance but it can be a successful and potentially lucrative option for those who want to offer their clients the very best. Doing the ground work and understanding what you’ll be offering to clients will help you build your name and reputation within the industry. Researching the latest technology as well as knowing what the competition is offering will help give you the edge.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Laura Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Carry the Cloud in Your Pocket


Over the past generation, technology has changed faster and altered our lives and working practices more than at any time since the industrial revolution.

Not convinced?

Ring your dad or granddad and ask them what used to be on their desk and then tell them what’s on yours. If in fact you even use a desk. You might be holed up in a coffee shop down your local high street using their free Wi-Fi with your tablet in front of you and your smartphone at arm’s length contacting colleagues and clients from all over the world.

We have more control over how and when we work that we used to and it’s largely down to cloud computing. The practice is growing as more and more individuals and businesses realise it’s easier to rely on external remote server to back-up and store their email, work, contacts and calendars in a safe and private way but that removes the stranglehold of the day to day maintenance from our hands.

This has made how we work much more flexible and technology manufacturers are increasingly looking for ways to help. Synching our smartphone email accounts with our desktop has made it easier to stay connected while we’re on the move. The same goes for our contacts and calendar. Largely we have the same information in our pocket as we do on our PC or Mac, making it much easier to give clients that seamless approach whether we’re at a desk or on the train.

Increasingly though, smartphone manufacturers are going one step further. It used to be that the BlackBerry was the only smartphone you would use if you were doing business. It made it easy to email while on the move.

However look at the latest Apple iPhone 4S, the new HTC One X and Nokia’s Lumia range to see that more manufacturers are designing their smartphones with the business market at their heart.

With the latest iPhone came the new iOS update and the iCloud. No matter the device you were working on, be it iPhone, iPad or Mac you could get the same document, email, video or information as the iCloud synched updates and progress across each device. This is great if you are just downloading a song or TV show and you want it on every Apple product you own but think about it from a work perspective. Start a bit of work on the bus on the way home on your smartphone, pick the same thread up on your iPad in front of the TV that evening and then put the finishing touches to it on your Mac the following morning. You are in charge of the technology at your fingertips.

Nokia and Microsoft have the same ambition for the Lumia range. It is the Finnish manufacturer’s first Windows Phone products and a key focus has been the ability to share word documents from device to device. Start a spreadsheet at the office. Email it across to a colleague on your way home. Make amends to it that evening based on his recommendations and forward it to the client before the end of the day.

As well as sharing information across devices one of the biggest jumps has been making devices even more powerful. 2012 is the year of the quad-core processor in a smartphone. One of the first to launch has been the HTC One X. Not only is it fast but it also comes with 25 GB of free cloud memory on DropBox for two years. DropBox is just one of those programmes that is increasingly illustrating to firms the easiness of cloud computing. Sharing designs, pitches, projects, workloads it makes it much easier to work across a variety of sites.

As more and more SME’s start using the cloud then more and more manufacturers will want to get in on the act. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; the consumer decides they like a new bit of kit, manufacturer recognises a new trend and starts to make the new technology even easier to use, more consumers get on-board and the cycle expands. Now the cloud is in your pocket it’s much easier to get it into your business.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2012 at 1:20 pm and is filed under Laura Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Solve your Email Problems!


Stop me if this sounds familiar.

You and your colleagues are up against a deadline. You’re a small to medium business but your real selling point is that you give each client close attention and undivided support. The pitch you’re working on is a new firm that’s interested in your approach. Every member of the team is excited and enthused but also busy, juggling their side of the pitch with the usual client demands. Suddenly the server goes down. Work and productivity grinds to a halt. Not only can your existing clients not get hold of you but now you’re worried your pitch might not get sent through on time.

How about this? You set up your own business three years ago. It’s been going well and your goal for this year was to improve your infrastructure. You want to invest in the latest technology that will help streamline your IT demands and mean you can work leaner, faster and be up to date with the latest technology. Your staff is only small but you’d like each of them to have a work device, like a smartphone, so they can still be in touch while they are in between meetings. The problem is you’ve done the sums and sought advice. An IT specialist has been in suggesting the kit you’d need including new servers as well as up to date software and it just seems like a huge investment. Now you’re starting to wonder if you will need to get a few new clients sooner rather than later to ensure the new technology pays off.

For small to medium businesses technology and IT can be the difference between succeeding and not. If your email goes down, whether it is because of a server crash, a slow grinding performance because you need an upgrade, too much spam slowing you down or the high cost of IT support meaning your service is back in the dark ages, you don’t just lose a day’s work, you can lose your good name.

It is predicted that within the next ten years, one in five of us will work for an SME. If a fifth of the working population is struggling with these kinds of technology issues then we’re going to have to start looking for an alternative.

Hosted Exchange 2010 could well be that alternative for a lot of small firms. Hosted elsewhere, it means you don’t have the high cost and responsibility of constant maintenance on your own shoulders. There is a guarantee of high performance and it is more secure because of anti-virus and anti-spam software that comes as standard.

So what makes it better?

You don’t need huge servers on site. Many firms like MessageStream use external servers which removes the cost of maintenance and hardware. Because companies like MessageStream work with a lot of different clients, it means costs are very low, resulting in a reduced monthly fee at a basic level. Even if your in-house server goes down, you’ll still be able to work and get your email and other information from MessageStream.

A remote server also provides the benefit of back-up and added security. If your in-house server were to crash how much work would you lose right now? A remote server provides added peace of mind.

No one is going to tell you how to use your email. There isn’t going to be an IT expert sitting in the office carefully explaining to you and your staff why and how you have to change your work patterns. Instead, Hosted Exchange can be developed into a package that suits how you work already. Want email on the go? That can be arranged for all your staff. Want to be able to share tasks and calendars so you can keep up to date with what your staff is doing? Easily sorted.

Hosted Exchange means that everyone who uses it gets the same level of service when it comes to anti-spam and anti-virus software. Checking and screening every email, removing those that could harm your inbox this is a vital part of securing your business which helps keep you safe.

More and more people are turning to Hosted Exchange because they are finding it easier to run their business smoothly and efficiently. Technology and IT should be there to make it easier to do a day’s work, not make it harder. The reason Hosted Exchange is becoming more popular is because it puts the power back in the hands of the business owner.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2012 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Laura Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

How Does Hosted Exchange Stay Secure?


Is the worry of security making you think twice about adopting Hosted Exchange? It’s only natural when any new technology comes on the market that it takes a little time for people to understand how it works. Not all of us can be IT gurus and it’s inevitable that if you aren’t sure how the security features of Hosted Exchange work, then you’re not going to sign on the dotted line until you get a clearer picture.

Safety and security are two of the most important elements of Hosted Exchange, and there probably isn’t a provider in the world who doesn’t think them to be central to their offer. Why? Because if you can’t prove Hosted Exchange is safe, why would anyone use it? The fact that millions already have indicates that many trust it.

If you sign up it means that when someone sends you an email instead of coming directly to your servers and then the right email account in your office it comes first to a provider’s servers, goes through a filtering process and is then sent to you. It is this filtering service that makes Hosted Exchange more secure. Think of bottled water. We want it to be as natural as possible but let’s be honest, even spring water can have germs and bacteria in it that could harm us. The cleansing process removes these impurities making the water safer and healthier to drink. That’s exactly what Hosted Exchange does.

Let me illustrate the process with how MessageStream works Hosted Exchange 2010. Your emails come through our servers. We run around 90 tests to make sure they are safe including testing the sender email, making sure the email address it is coming to is correct and exists, scanning the content and any attachments for possible viruses. This is the basic service you get but you can also add additional features like setting up your own white and black lists to safeguard email addresses and remove harmful ones. You can also control whether the spam email is deleted before it gets to you, or if it appears in your inbox where you can check it before it is discarded. MessageStream also offers different archiving features for all messages from as little as an extra £1.25 a month.

Once a message has been tested and is OK it receives a badge meaning it is safe to be sent to you. MessageStream has won over ten awards for its anti-spam and anti-virus technology.

Messatream is just one provider but it’s important to make sure you understand the benefits you receive via Hosted Exchange. In fact it can make it a more secure system for sending and receiving email. Spam works in different ways, there can be a heavy influx one week and your servers can take a battering. Working with a remote provider means the pressure goes on their servers (which are usually bigger than those of a small firm and can take it) rather than hitting yours and causing them to crash or can slow legitimate messages getting in and thus hamper you from operating your business.

The same goes for virus and malware which need someone on the team to keep up to date with changes and adaptations in technology to ensure that you stay one step ahead of those trying to break in and damage your email system.

It is understandable that if you haven’t had your questions answered about Hosted Exchange that you might be reluctant to sign up. That’s why it is so important to ask. Chances are, the reason your business is a success is that you bring in the right people for the right projects. Maximising different skills and outsourcing work when you need to helps to stay lean and competitive. Email security and safety is just another area of expertise. If you want to stay safe, perhaps bringing in experts who are used to working to protect your business from spam and viruses could help you focus on what you do best; your business.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2012 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Laura Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

What Made Technology Easier to Use?


There was a time when knowledge was power.

Those that understood the nuances of technology, how it worked, how to optimise performance, how to do the most simple tasks without having someone to hold their hand performed better in the workplace.

Often there would be one desk with a few of the “IT guys” who would be the people we’d call when our computer didn’t behave how we wanted to it to. They would rush over, blind us with jargon and ask questions we didn’t understand let alone know the answers to, click a few keys and hey presto! Fixed.

Technology has changed. Increasingly, the whole process has become simplified – from the language used, the user interface itself to even the setup to install new software. Technology is no longer a barrier, it’s now a tool all of us can use be they a novice, layman or experimenter.

Everything from editing software, to word processing even web-page design. Set-up and user interface – OK, OK, what you see on the screen and the navigation system – and yes, even the language that’s being used to talk about technology; it’s all so much clearer and easier.

Cloud Computing is a major reason for this and it feeds in to the same ideas that are about making the whole technology sector more accessible. In particular, Hosted Exchange provides a good “in” that helps identify how the Cloud works and what benefits it can have.

For business, Hosted Exchange will probably be the first type of cloud computing an individual will work with. Hosting their data via an email box with a little space on a central server shows how you can continue to access your emails, your address book and tasks, stay in touch with the rest of the team and most importantly do it anywhere – be it via PC, Mac, laptop, iPhone or Android device. The flexibility feels like a huge jump forward and more importantly it feels intuitive. Using Hosted Exchange allows us to do business the way we want to, not being restricted to working the way our technology allows us. This is free-ing and it also makes us more engaged with the technology on offer; rather than seeing it as a barrier, we see it as an opportunity.

Using servers and backing up data might not be a sexy topic of conversation. It isn’t about big glamorous pitches, dizzying highs of client and accounts wins and awards dos which are some of the nicer parts of business but it is fundamental nonetheless. Failures, poor connections, a loss of data; these are things we need to be aware of and know that they could be the biggest threats to our ability to do our job. As more and more businesses realise that cloud computing helps to minimise the risk, whether it is through Hosted Exchange at first or by exploring how they can manage their own data remotely and securely, it becomes less about jargon and more about sound business-practice.

Technology is now less of a fringe concern and more accessible to all of us. The way it has changed has made it simpler to use and understand which has freed us up to start thinking less about how we can get around the problems of technology, and more about how we can use it to our advantage.

 

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2012 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Laura Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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