Google Sites

A few posts ago I chatted about SaaS. Today I came across this article that is talking about Google Sites. Another example of a Software as a Service application. I am curious to see how it works, so I may give it a try. We use Microsoft SharePoint at work and although I was a little reluctant at first, I have really come to like it. It kind of follows the SaaS idea, although it is hosted locally. It has become our internal collaboration tool. We can (very easily) set up a 'web-page' that people can use to store documents, create surveys, create simple project plans, create issue logs, create discussion boards, blog and wet up wiki sites. There is also a feature where you can have your own 'page', similar to Facebook or other social networking sites. The cool part is that you don't need a technologist to walk you through every step. With minimal training, you can create and maintain your own site. It is starting to become more of a standard for how we collaborate internally. The downside is that is that it is hard for us to let outside users have access to information that they may need to help us on specific projects. I am thinking that maybe Google Sites would be a potential solution for this.

Frozen Grand Central

A friend sent this video to me today. Thought it was worthy of the rant. Enjoy!!

SaaS

OK - I haven't posted in a bit. Sorry about that. I ran across a cool site last week that I wanted to share with all (all 2 of them) my readers. A little background first. Since I work in the IT industry it is part of my job to keep up on different technologies. Part of that includes watching for different paradigm shifts when they happen and seeing if it makes sense for us to move in the direction of the shifts. One of those shifts has been the concept of 'Software as a Service'. From a business perspective I love this idea. My favorite part of this shift is that it lets the folks who are really good at server maintenance do what they do best, and it let's the customers (us) focus on our business as opposed to spending time maintaining servers etc (I know of a certain blogger who might be wishing his Apple server was a SaaS...). Anyway, another part of this rant is the fact that it really is starting to annoy me that I have to run all my own backups for my (and more importantly - my wife's) stuff. When there is all this space on the internet, why can't there be a little bit of space that is easily accesable for us to use. Enter ideas like Google docs and (one that I thnk has the potential to be way better) Zoho. I ran across Zoho last week and thought to myself, man, we are getting close. (I think that Google docs is a little bit sterile and clunky). Not only would we have a place to store all the data we create, but the on-line apps to create and edit them too. there is an on-line word processor, spreadsheet, calendar, database app, etc. I love this idea since I use three or four different computers (Lenovo/Vista, Dell/XP, IBM/XP, Macbook Pro/Leopard) and this solves the 'where is my data' issue that I seem to have. I like the thought of 'anywhere - anyhow'. As I was checking out the stuff on Zoho, I was thinking to myself, all they really need is some sort of email program, like 'gmail'. To my suprise, they are coming out with one Q2. Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think.

Along those same lines, here is an article about SaaS. More from an enterprise level, but the thoughts are still the same. As we move forward we are becoming increasingly mobile and we don't want to have to have our laptop or files with us, but rather be able to get to them 'anywhere - anyhow'.

Enjoy!

The Great Up-North

Occasionally I travel to Quebec for business. I had another opportunity to go up there this week and I thought I would share a picture to give a little taste as to the amount of snow they have up there right now. I did not take this, one of my collegues snapped it as a warning to what we were going to enjoy once we arrived. They don't use plows up there, they use blowers, big blowers. The snow banks were so high, a lot of the street signs were covered up. I actually thought it was awesome, but I love snow. Anyway, if I hear anyone complaining about the weather in Kalamazoo, I will let them know that we have it pretty good. It could be worse, way worse.

Enjoy!!

Microsoft bidding on Yahoo

Looks like Microsoft wants a bigger piece of the internet pie and is shoring up for it's war against Google. At a price of $44 billion. Check out the article here. Interesting...