There has been a huge push in the last 12 months towards 'Cloud Technology'. What this means is that organisations large and small are moving more of the their data and core infrastructure requirements to hosted solutions.
I have to admit that adopting this technology has made a huge difference to how I run my own company, and I am of the opinion that most small businesses would do well to consider some of the benefits.

• Generally, 99.9% SLA with all the services running on fully redundant hardware.
• A more flexible way to make access to core business services easier for end users.
• Lower cost of ownership as you have predicatable seat costs without the hardware overhead.
• Scale up and down as needed.

I am not saying that we don't need any internal resources anymore, Microsoft Active Directory is still an excellent tool in managing, configuring and securing your systems as well as creating a consistent desktop experience..but a network is only as good as the resources it provides and most of the time this is access to email and documents. Microsoft are certainly embracing this idea with Microsoft365, which is essentially a hosted version of all the main staple products, ie Exchange and Sharepoint. More and more we are seeing SAAS (Software As A Service) becoming affordable and main stream.
I don't have too much info on 365 yet as it is still very fresh, but I understand it is web apps versions of the office suite, with all the power of Exchange and Sharepoint for collaboration. Very impressive stuff, and at a recent meeting I attended, Microsoft reps where presenting the platform which looked great. I was especially impressed by the Data Centres, which are essentially racks of servers inside Cargo containers with power feeds and air con feed into them. The small space means it is easier to control, it is secure as there is never a need to enter these containers with all configuration via remote admin, and completely modular as they just stack another Cargo container ontop to expand capacity. Genius ideas in action.

You might have guessed from previous posts that I am a fan of Google and their alternative cloud solutions, Google Apps. I think it is great for business and offers interesting ideas such as 'extending' your platform to add in services from other places. With the addition of tools like Outlook Sync and Cloud Connect, you can use the tools you are used to and have the same experience (almost) as if you where in a native environment.

Some parts of the Google Apps platform aren't fully cooked yet. The contact solution is poor and really should follow the same rules as the calendar or docs does, essentially allowing you to share with anyone. At present, you can only create a central list of all the people in the same domain although there are options to create shared contacts list through Python API's but you really need to geek out to make this work - and then it is only visible from the gmail interface not outlook. Other companies such as www.setupmadeeasy.com have addressed this shortfall but it is a shame that something that should be part of it, is a bolt on.
The same is true of the Cloud tool whcih adds a ribbon iinto Outlook 2007/2010 and a menu in 2003 to allow you open files stored in Google Docs from Word, Powerpoint and Excel to make changes. Once you are finished you can save them back again, but I often wonder where the common sense goes in these development stints. For example, at present, you can create a file using cloud connect but cannot choose which collection (similar to folders) it goes into from the interface. You have to use the mini chrome wrapper browser to organise the files and when you open files, you just see the list and not the structure of collections you created which makes it hard to use. From reading between the lines, this is planned for a future update, but it would have made more sense to get it right from the start. As with the contacts, another company called www.offisync.com has developed a much more efficient solution that addresses all the shortfalls mentioned at $12 per user per year. To make it work you would want to add in these costs.
However, the pace of development is so fast that it won't be long before these are common place.

Tools for synchronising your internal directory exist already so it could be a real money saver for those looking at IT development plans. the ability to add a user on your internal structure and they are automatically accessing your private cloud has to be a bonus.

Overall, both solutions have merit and it will be interesting to see how things move as both parties clearly understand the need to continue offering new products and solutions for our changing computing habits. Both Google and Microsoft offer these services to schools....for free so it is certainly worth looking at.

Ultimately it is a careful balance between what is safe enough to have online and what is on your own disks, it is probably not a good idea to store your accounts files on line or confidential reports. However, routine email and documents are as secure in the cloud as they would be on your own servers so it is definately worth looking at....even more so if you are a school.