For small IT businesses it's a pretty good setup. They are missing some tools though and their Google Documents is not as superior as Adobe Acrobat writer or Microsoft Office Word which causes a major problem for marketing material.
Zoho.com offers some very unique tools that in some cases are far superior to Google's apps. The advantage of Google Apps is that their Email application and Google Talk is far superior then outlook in a lot of ways. We also uses Google Spreadsheets to gather leads by creating a Google Form that inserts to the Google Spreadsheets. This is much cheaper than using other SaaS CRM tools for a small business IT shop to manage a small limited amount of customers. The ending result is
They are getting there and with chrome if they could improve their overall applications and make them more robust they would definitely give microsoft office a run for their money.
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My Team uses it all of the time.
For small IT businesses its a pretty good setup. They are missing some tools though and their Google Documents is not as superior as Adobe Acrobat writer or Microsoft Office Word which causes a major problem for marketing material.
Zoho.com offers some very unique tools that in some cases are far superior to Google's apps. The advantage of Google Apps is that their Email application and Google Talk is far superior then outlook in a lot of ways. We also uses Google Spreadsheets to gather leads by creating a Google Form that inserts to the Google Spreadsheets. This is much cheaper than using other SaaS CRM tools for a small business IT shop to manage a small limited amount of customers. The ending result is
They are getting there and with chrome if they could improve their overall applications and make them more robust they would definitely give microsoft office a run for their money.
500,000 companies and 10 million users...
OK, it's not Microsoft Office numbers, but it's getting there. I'm a big fan of Google Apps and other types of cloud computing.
For those that still haven't gotten on the Google Apps bandwagon, Google offers an online video, Google Apps: Quick Tour, that provides an excellent introduction to the entire suite of tools.
The trouble with SaaS
The issues with running your business outside of your business are:
1) Reliability
2) Security
3) Control
Reliability. There are LOTS of pieces of technology between you and your bits. They all have to work in concert or no bits. If no bits, no business. Don't know that I'd want to go there as one major outage could offset any savings accumulated by using the service.
Security. Do you trust Google to keep your private bits private? Do you believe that all Google employees are honest and are overflowing with personal integrity? (No offense to anyone at Google intended but employee personal integrity issues do happen).
Control. How much control are you willing to give up in order to save some money? How do you get things into this that your business needs and are special to your business? Are you okay with being just like everyone else? If you are, where are your business' differentiators?
Just things to consider and think about before taking the plunge.
Re: The Trouble with SaaS
Reliability is an issue with all technology, and broadband is getting more reliable. Google has dropped the ball, or at least juggled the ball, with some minor access and uptime issues, but not for a while.
Control seems a huge deal until people remember all our money is held by third parties - banks. We still have access to our money, but they manage it for us. I think of SaaS like that with our data. As far as business processes, can a business today make a difference in their product by using Office rather than Google Docs? Only rarely. Do you care if your doctor's office uses Windows, Linux, OpenOffice, or Google Docs? Not if you get good care and your insurance handled properly.
Security remains an issue for many, and you'll see more about this topic in my newsletter tomorrow about QuickBooks Enterprise and their new Web-based modules. However, I don't remember any data leaks from any major SaaS vendor: not Google, SalesForce, QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, etc. If you have some references about any of these or other SaaS companies leaking data, let me know.
James
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