When your run your apps and data in the cloud, you will find that they are always available, they are available from anywhere and the cost is usually less than trying to run the same services under your own roof. The Cloud is as reliable as the dial tone.
When you run your business in the cloud, everything works, your information is always available, and the cost is usually lower than housing your business data onsite. The best way to explain the cloud is with a story. Let’s discuss how the cloud works for my fiend Pam’s e-mail.
Everything just works. Pam’s company was running their e-mail and SPAM filtering in-house. They were receiving more than 5,000 SPAM messages per day. I kid you not. This far outweighed the number of legitimate messages. They needed a separate server just to filter and store the SPAM messages. If they didn’t have this additional box for SPAM filtering and storage, their e-mail server would have run out of storage space and stopped working.
I migrated them to a hosted Exchange provider in Texas with a 100% uptime Service Level Guarantee and 46 of the Fortune 100 as customers. Pam no longer has to think about SPAM filtering—her company now enjoys enterprise-level SPAM filtering. Pam no longer has to think about storage space—her company has infinite storage space. Pam no longer has to think about e-mail working if her building suffers a fire, flood, theft, or power outage. Her e-mail is in Texas.
The Exchange provider’s facility has high-security, redundant power and reliable HVAC equipment. They also have multiple high-speed Internet connections. If one of them happens to go down, another would take its place almost immediately. Pam no longer pays anybody hourly to keep e-mail working. Her company now pays a fixed monthly fee per mailbox. Everything just works for Pam.
It’s available from anywhere. Hosted Exchange is a database that Pam and her staff can get to from anywhere with Internet access. She can be at her desk and use Microsoft Outlook to get her e-mail. She can power up her notebook computer from anywhere with Internet access, launch Microsoft Outlook, and get her e-mail. She can be at home, launch Internet Explorer, log into her mailbox and get her e-mail. She can also check her e-mail from her smartphone. It is always available. This applies to contact info. Suppose a customer calls Pam from his new cell phone and says, “Pam, I have a new cell phone number. Please update your records with the number you see on the caller ID.” Pam can make that change once.
This applies to calendar info too. Suppose a one-hour visit to a customer’s office ends up running four hours. Pam can update her calendar on her smartphone and type in some notes from the four-hour visit. When she returns to the office and launches Outlook, her calendar will reflect four hours at that customer, complete with the notes she typed into the smartphone.
The cost is usually less. Pam’s company has 15 mailboxes and uses Exchange’s Public Folders. They pay less than $200 per month for their hosted Exchange with Public Folders. That annualizes to $2,400 per year. Had they purchase a new server and run Exchange in-house, they would have incurred a very long list of expenses, including:
Pam's five-year cost with an on-site server would be $17,500 before adding the electricity consumption and extra load on her air conditioner to keep the server room chilled. With the cloud solution, the five-year cost is only $12,000.
3 big misperceptions about SEO (and why they’re wrong)
SEO can be a valuable marketing tool. But first, you have to overcome the misperceptions and make sure your SEO campaigns stay on track. The three big misperceptions, and responses, are in this article. If you think SEO is a waste, read on…Why you need to understand personalized results
Google has implemented personalized results in your web searches. In layman’s terms, Google is recording your Internet surfing habits and striving to make search results very attractive to you. This works to your benefit. You get search results that more closely fit your habits and interests. You are more likely to click one of these links.How quickly will it take for my company to see results from my SEO campaign?
You can wait months for any visible SEO gains. This would happen if you are new to SEO and have no Google credibility. You start by posting to a blog or tweeting twice a day. Google may need months before finding you and then deciding you have authority in your field. If you have Google credibility, you may see results within days. The sooner you start your SEO campaign, the sooner you will enjoy visible results.