Alberta Business Marketing

A full onslaught war is brewing online between Google and Microsoft.  For those military friends…forces are assembling and loading the mags.  As a career Microsoft Partner (Ulistic is a Microsoft Partner) who wandered away from the mother ship for a while I am starting to slowly move some of my day-to-day technology use back my colleagues from Redmond.  I am very excited about the upcoming Microsoft Office 2011 for the Mac and interested in learning more about what Microsoft has to offer online through there Office Cloud.

My friends at CRN Canada recently reported that the new Microsoft Office Cloud (get Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote online) has been opened up to Microsoft SkyDrive clients as a response to Google slamming the Redmond software powerhouse a few weeks ago urging Office users to switch to Google Apps.  Microsoft Office Cloud solutions is a  free Web-based Office applications, dubbed Web Apps, gives users access to Web version so Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Web Apps has been in beta for roughly nine months but no Outlook or email client.  Maybe Microsoft still wants people to use Windows Mail or some other mail solution.  Microsoft claims that Office online will work exactly like the desktop version…looking forward to testing it out on June 15, 2010.

Prepare the forces, a war is brewing on another front between Microsoft and Google.

I wonder how it will work with Safari on the iPad?

I am sure readers of this blog can go and find examples of where I praised Google and their Apps solution as a suitable replacement to Office.  I gave Google Apps and Google Doc an honest attempt in my early days at Ulistic but since those days I really missed the functionality Microsoft’s productivity solutions and I recently moved back to Office.  Electing to go with Office 2008 on my MacBook and now I rarely use Google’s online apps.  The move back was brought on simply by a lack of simple and common features that Microsoft offers that are nowhere to be seen in Google Apps.  Simple features that may not mean much to the average user but this power user who requires basic functionality to work noticed.

Sure my email is hosted with Google on the back-end, as a mail platform Google is pretty good for $50 per year.  However you really need a mail client.  I have elected to go back to my MacMail which is a good mail platform on the MacBook.  But nothing beats the look and feel of a robust email client (something I miss by not having Microsoft Outlook) and with Office 2011 bringing in the powerful Outlook application that will be a wonderful upgrade from Entourage.

But, who should you trust with your data.  Do you trust Google or Microsoft?  You will get a chance on June 15 to test drive Microsoft Web Apps and compare to Google.  Both solutions are free for you to test out or use.  Give it a chance…but keep in mind where the data is housed.  Web solutions normally offer storage and the Microsoft offering with SkyDrive or Google both supply a limited amount of data storage as part of the free offering.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

For those who are concerned on what is missing:

1.  Booking meetings across multiple time zones (calendaring)

2.  Page breaks (Google Docs vs. Word)

3.  Smart Art (Google Docs vs. PowerPoint)

For the record…I still love my MacBook..but need Office to survive!

Tags: apps, Apps solution, Cloud applications, cloud computing, Computing, day-to-day technology use, Everything as a service, File hosting, free Web-based Office applications, google, google apps, Google Docs, Google Inc., mail solution, microsoft, Microsoft Corporation, microsoft office, microsoft outlook, Microsoft Windows, online apps, presentation software, productivity solutions, software powerhouse, Technology/Internet, USD, web 2.0, Web Apps, Web solutions, Web version, Windows Live SkyDrive
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Have you considered Google Docs for your small business? You may want to revisit Google’s online cloud strategy if did in the past and just didn’t like what you saw.  Google announced on Monday via their blog some great new enhancements coming soon to their cloud-based document and spreadsheet programs.  Here are some of the highlights from their blog which you can read in depth at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/next-generation-of-google-docs.html.  You can find examples and a pretty cool video (see below as well) on how Google Docs work.

New document and spreadsheet features
We’ve responded to many of your requests for features you’re used to in desktop software. In documents, we’ve added a margin ruler, better numbering and bullets and easier image placement options. And in spreadsheets, you’ll now find a formula editing bar, cell auto-complete, drag-and-drop columns and other features not possible with older browser technologies.

Stuart’s note – still no page break though…disappointing

Higher fidelity document import
We’ve made big improvements to our document upload feature so moving files from your computer to the cloud is easier now. Imported documents retain their original structure more accurately, so you can hit the ground running editing in the browser without having to fix formatting like bullets and text alignment.

Speed and responsiveness
New browser technologies like faster JavaScript processing have made it possible for us to speed up Google Docs significantly. Even very large spreadsheets are fast to work with in your browser now. Applications that run this fast feel like desktop applications but have the unique advantages of being in the cloud.

Faster collaboration
We’ve extended Google Docs’ collaboration capabilities too, with support for up to 50 people working together at once, and in documents, you can now see other people’s edits as they happen character-by-character. And now you can also collaborate on flow charts, diagrams and other schematics in real time with a new editor for drawings on Google Docs.

Tags: Ajax, Blogger, browser technologies, Business IT, collaboration, Computing, desktop applications, desktop software, Editor, google, Google Docs, Google Inc., JavaScript, online cloud strategy, Online spreadsheets, Spreadsheet, Technology/Internet, web 2.0, Web applications, web development, World Wide Web
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If you have missed out on cloud computing, then one application of this may be coming to a city near you. Perhaps without realizing it, you may be using a cloud computing application such as Google Docs. Many may also be using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system such as that provided by SalesForce.com which is also on the cloud.

Now you can see some further cloud computing applications when VMware Takes Virtualization on the Road With VMware Express.

VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud, today announced that VMware Express will hit the road this week. VMware Express is a state-of-the-art mobile datacenter, demo lab and briefing center designed to bring desktop virtualization and cloud computing solutions from VMware directly to customers and partners across the United States and Canada. VMware Express Virtualization Tour 2010 will stop in 150 cities and is sponsored by AMD, Cisco, Dell, EMC, MDS Micro, NetApp and Xsigo.

VMware desktop and server virtualization solutions decouple business-critical applications from the underlying hardware and provide unprecedented flexibility and reliability. VMware backup systems are available to ensure complete security and robustness.

The Vsphere brings you your own private cloud with datacenter virtualization. Through this, you can optimize IT service delivery and deliver the highest levels of application service agreements with the lowest total cost per application. You can get up to speed on this by following some of the Vmware vsphere training videos that are available.

To give you a full grounding in all these applications, Vmware training courses can expand your horizons on what is possible. As you might say, the sky’s the limit.

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Cloud Computing Takes To The Road

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Tags: cloud computing, customer relationship management, Google Docs, Internet, VMware
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Got this email from Google today.  Do we still have people using Internet Explorer 6 out there?  If so, why? Dear Google Apps admin, In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology.  This includes faster JavaScript processing and [...]

Tags: California, Cloud applications, cloud computing, collaboration products, Computing, Cross-platform software, Gmail, google, google chrome, Google Docs, Google Inc., Google Sites editor, internet explorer, microsoft, Mountain View, Mozilla Firefox, Online Solutions, small business technology, Technology/Internet, web 2.0, Web applications, World Wide Web
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