Alberta Business Marketing

Welcome to the age of the Internet.  I think it is pretty safe to claim this now.  Just look around you and there is no doubt that our online world is just as important as the face-to-face relationships we have.  For some, online is more important.

Cloud Computing For Business

One of the biggest shifts has been in business.  Business is now starting to embrace “the cloud” and the power of online applications.  Need proof, next time you fly, how many printed boarding passes do you notice?  How many people are using the smart phone to store their boarding pass?  More and more everyday.  Big business and small business are leveraging the power of the Internet to run their day-to-day business applications.

Even Microsoft has started to take notice. Well, they have been for a long time, at least 4 years since the first time I heard “Software + Services”.  Businesses across North America are flocking to Microsoft’s Online Solutions.  Many of them are turning to the Microsoft BPOS solution or solutions delivered by Microsoft Partners each day.  The online solutions market is heating up and taking off at an extremely fast pace.

The reality of the market today is that many small businesses are turning to Microsoft BPOS now versus having a server sitting in the back room doing nothing but email.  The next versions of the Microsoft Small Business Server will have a version that is cloud-equipped.  My understanding is that it will do nothing but authenticate your users and store files.  Sounds like a Foundation Server.

Join us for a free webinar

Ulistic is hosting a free webinar on Tuesday to help you get answers to hosting your business applications on the Internet.

Join us on Tuesday, July 20th at Noon Eastern/9 AM Pacific for a no charge 60 minute webinar that is geared to help you get some answers on what online service you should turn to.  Is it Google?  How about Microsoft Office Web Apps? Do you need a CRM?  What sort of backup strategy should I have?

Lots of questions and our goal on Tuesday is to help you get some answers.  Real world answers and the facts about the best online solution for your business.  For the past 6 months, I have been doing my own research, testing out many different online platforms.  We have also installed many different solutions ranging from Google Apps, Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite and Hosted Exchange through one of our partners.  I have had my frustrations to say the least.

I will have these real life stories plus intelligence on what some Calgary business owners have been quoted recently and what you should expect to pay the service you choose.  The truth is this, everyone has an opinion, everyone has a favourite and everyone’s needs and tolerance for techy stuff is different.  What works for some, doesn’t work for others.

It is your decision, I can only share with you what I know.

Register for Is Your Business Ready For The Internet webinar on Tuesday.

Tags: Business IT, Business/Finance, Calgary, Cloud applications, cloud computing, Computing, day-to-day business applications, Everything as a service, Google Inc., Human Interest, Internet culture, microsoft, Microsoft Corporation, microsoft office, Microsoft Partners, North America, Office Web Apps, online applications, online platforms, online solution, Online Solutions, Online Suite, online world, smart phone, smartphone, Software plus services, Technology/Internet, web 2.0, Web applications, Web Apps, Web conferencing, Windows Server, Windows Small Business Server
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Thanks to my good friend Marcia Johnson for sharing this with me.

Microsoft Tag!

I have been sharing with a number of the small business clients that we work with at Ulistic about the day when tagging comes into play.  Now, it is here with Microsoft Tag.

What do I mean by tagging?  If you check out the Microsoft Tag website you will learn a tonne about what they have to offer.

In a nutshell a Microsoft Tag is something similar to a bar code that you see on any product we purchase at the supermarket.  Traditionally bar codes were used for internal inventory or other systems that a store would use.  Now this is all going to change!

Microsoft Tag now takes what was traditionally an internal mechanism and puts power into the hands of the consumer.  Many restaurant owners, small business managers and those who run hotels may be shaking in their boots or jumping up and down in celebration.

What Microsoft Tag offers now is something like this bar code that a web designer can use on a website, a restaurant owner can post on their menu or a hotel owner can share on the front door of the hotel.  Consumers, readers, information gatherers now with their smart phone or mobile phone can use a special Microsoft Tag Reader to scan the image (see near the bottom of my blog for a functional example) and they ar directed to a mobile website that offers additional information or where you can leave a review or share your feedback.

Where I see this playing a major role in business?  The opportunities are endless..really.  Need to solicit reviews from those who come to your restaurant..put a Microsoft Tag on your credit card bill.  Want to keep in touch with those who purchased products and services from you, get a Microsoft Tag and email the tag to your visitors.  Imagine the potential this can have for small business.

Microsoft Tags are where the fax machines were in the early days….remember what happened with fax machines…now everyone has one.

Over the next few weeks I will learn more about practical uses for Microsoft Tag.  This is so new the exact impact on business is still to be determined but I think it will be huge!  Almost as big as video.  Want to chat about Microsoft Tag, give me a shout at 403.775.2205.

Tags: 403.775.2205, bar code, Barcodes, Business/Finance, cellular telephone, Computing, Criticism of Microsoft, High Capacity Color Barcode, Hospitality/Recreation, Marcia Johnson, microsoft, Microsoft Corporation, microsoft office, small business technology, smart phone, Tag, Technology/Internet, web designer
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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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