As a Small Business, have you given thought to Google Apps?
Most of you have probably heard about “cloud computing” – where the applications and services are available through the Internet, not installed locally.
Google Apps is one of the best known services available in this space. Google Apps offers email, shared documents (spreadsheets, drawings, presentations), shared calendar, and groups.
At $50 per user, per year it is significantly cheaper than Microsoft or other licensing.
ZDNet has an interesting article that discusses the City of Los Angelos moving to Google Apps, their cost savings on a large scale, and some of their reasons for the move.
Think about it – do you really need all your applications locally? Could you collaborate better with partners and even customers if at least some of your data was shared? In an office of 25 staff you’d spend $1,250 on licensing rather than $8,125 for Microsoft.
What stops you from moving to cloud-based computing?