At an early morning networking meeting today I was one of the audience receiving a 10 minutes presentation from the owner of a local computer business. Glassgoraman Computers is run by John Timmons, a native of Dublin and living near Gorey for the past 13 years or so. John has a background computer hardware, broadband and software suites such as Lotus Notes etc.
So this morning John told us about the history of the “cloud”, where it came from and where it’s going. He started off by explaining that it has been there all along, we use it everyday. Its really another name for the Internet. It has many different shapes/forms/definitions but to the average small to medium sized business it a place to centralise your company information.
From basic tools as Dropbox and Google Apps to enterprise systems to run complete businesses online using dedicated servers in Data Centres, such as the one this Blog is stored on.
The choices of Cloud Solutions or Web Solutions vary from business to business and it can be said that they all have one factor in common, They reduce costs.
No longer needed are the costly inhouse servers that require onsite expertise and daily backups etc. Now simply use your website hosting to host your
- Website
- Applications
- Accounts
The web is not just WWW.
Nowadays it is common for businesses like ourselves to offer customers the full service web solutions that allow you to operate your business remotely. John spoke about the business with only 1 person to companies with thousands can take advantage of the cloud.
It is common to now see web address such as
docs.companyname.ie
private.companyname.ie
billing.companyname.ie
This is where a company has put their business online and used their website to be more than a brochure and staff can login and access company files, reports and even do the accounts from any remote location. It suits one-man-bands to large organisation like GAA who have thousands of users in a Cloud enviroment.
“Pay As You Go Internet”
John mentioned that it is like “pay as you go” on the mobile phones and if you think of it like that then being billed for a service by the amount you use it is a better method of charging for usage. Removing the need to expensive hardware and the in-house support needed means that companies can just use the Internet to save their files and know that they are also secure and backed up at the same time. And speaking of phones, most cloud solutions are capable of being used on a Mobile Phone, Laptop, Pc, iPad, iPhone etc. Remember the information is stored on the Internet so if you loose your phone or laptop you dont loose your information!
Why Now?
Because it saves money, cut costs and is a fraction of the price of putting in alternatives such as an in-house server, backup-drive, server licence and support plans with a local IT crowd in your area.
Well done John on the presentation and lets hope that more businesses in Wexford move to the cloud.
www.glasgorman.com for more information about Glasgorman computers
So if you are interested in getting your business online then why not talk to John Timmons of glasgorman computers or myself Dave Jordan of Cada Media and see how we can help your business cut costs and take control of your IT systems
In the mean time, here’s a few links to get you thinking!
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud/default.aspx
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html
