Google Apps - the best solution for a small office with remote employees

Recently, in our office, whose work is based on Microsoft Exchange, the question arose about the staff that advise his friend, who owns a small online business, for workflow, correspondence, etc. within domain.

. On this question, I overloaded with information on any Lotus, Ekschenzhah and Co, went into the tank, and the administrator, who was building a system to Exchange without hesitation blurted out - "so well established google Apps». The solution is ideal approached each.

The following is the proposed transfer of the article from ReadWriteWeb that Google Apps - a solution to many problems.

If you are interested in this topic, the take a look at Google Apps through the eyes of Microsoft.

1. Low cost of usage. Google Apps Premier Edition costs $ 50 / year per user. For this modest sum you can save on software licenses and on a number of system administrators.

2. Saving on the "hardware". Google Apps - a cloud system and you do not need to host your server. You do not need to impose standards on the PC (for example, put all of Windows, antivirus, Outlook, ...), because the use of internal tools can and Windows user, and the Mac, and Linux.

3. Reduction of security costs. This follows from claim 1. and p.2.

4. unified communication. To Google Apps today implemented Google Voice services (in the US), Google Wave, Google Buzz, Google Talk and Gmail, which provides remote employees a wide range of communication channels.

5. Control of online presence. The easy to use interface you will constantly know who is available to communicate in real time.

6. collaboration. Google Docs can simultaneously work on documents and keep a copy of the document, not the fruit of his many incarnations. For the US, you can use Google Voice phone number for communication with employees working from home.

7. videoconferencing. Install the plug-in to Gmail or Google Wave from Extention Library, and you can organize a videoconference.

8. Mobility. Google Apps application All have convenient mobile versions, and Gmail supports the IMAP protocol, so that mail can be read BlackBerry mobile clients, WM, iPhone and Android.

9. A large number of third-party applications. Today at Google Apps Marketplace A wide range of add-ons for the platform. Be sure to look at how much everything is already there.

But before you make a decision in favor of Google Apps for your company, remember the story of the famous American newspaper, which did not come in one day due to unavailability of the cloud from Google. No one is saying that it will happen to you, but no one really does not advertise disruptions due to failures of servers with Exchange.