Cloud computing is all the rage. Everyone’s talking about it. Every day there’s a new story about the cloud and all the economic and operational benefits it will bring:
• Reduced infrastructure costs
• Increased deployment flexibility and speed
• Decreased overhead
Early adopter companies are placing some of their IT services in the cloud: mail, accounting, backup, collaboration systems like SharePoint, and e-commerce.
BUT…
In a recent industry wide survey, 45% of IT pros believe the risks of cloud computing do not outweigh the benefits today due to concerns in three crucial areas:
1. Security
2. Reliability
3. Availability
Is cloud ready for companies to go “all-in”, in the words of Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer? We aren’t ready to bet the farm on cloud computing just yet because frankly, with cybercriminals finding new ways to compromise PC security on local networks every day, what’s going to stop them from setting their sights on stealing the vast quantities of data in untested cloud servers? And as for being constantly reliable and available, going all-in on the cloud means putting the day to day operations of your business into the hands of a technology only a matter of months old and placing your data on a server that could be down the street or halfway around the world.
Bottom line: moving services to the cloud makes sense for some applications, but still involves risk. It may represent the future of IT, but it may be a dangerous fad. If you are interested in experimenting with the cloud, your Responza IT Manager will be happy to brief you on the cloud and help explore what it can and can’t do.

Email archiving is a stand-alone IT application or service that integrates with an enterprise email server. In addition to archiving email messages, these applications index and provide access to archived messages independent of the users. Reasons to implement email archiving include protection of mission critical data, record retention for regulatory requirements or litigation, and reducing production email server load.
The core function of an archiving application is to capture and preserve all email traffic flowing into and out of the server so it can be accessed at a later date from a centrally-managed location. In addition to email and attachments, archiving applications can also archive additional aspects of a mailbox including public folders, offline PST files, calendars, contacts, notes, and associated data. Archiving applications accomplish the capture of email content on disk storage in one of two methods:
• Capture email directly from the email application itself
• Capture email during transport via an agent installed at a network gateway
At a business mission level there are two key approaches to using EAM (Email Archiving and Management) technology:
• As a part of your messaging infrastructure and storage
• As an essential compliance and legal business application
Specific objectives of an archiving system most often include
• E-mail backup and disaster recovery
• Messaging system & storage optimization
• Building a corporate archive
• Regulatory compliance
• Litigation and Legal Discovery
• Spooling messages for later delivery during maintenance and downtime
Messaging system & storage optimization
As the size of messages taking up space on a business’s permanent storage increases, simple operations such as retrieving, searching, indexing, backup, etc take up a larger portion of information system resources. At some point, older data must be removed from the production email system to maintain a level of performance for their primary use. Email archiving solutions improve server performance and storage efficiency by removing email and attachments from the messaging server based on administrator defined policies. Archived mail and attachments remain accessible to end users via the existing email client applications.

Microsoft Office SharePoint is a suite of software that helps improve business productivity by making daily tasks like collaborating on projects, sharing documents, managing schedules, and searching your network an easier and more unified process. The benefits of SharePoint are available in two forms: Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), a free add-on to Windows Server 2003 and 2008, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS), which requires its own set of servers for storage and operations. MOSS does everything WSS does, then adds stronger capabilities to search and index content and data from networks with especially high storage needs. Here are a few of the applications you’ll find in either version:

• Content Management system
• Collaboration tools
• Shared calendars and contact lists
• Discussion boards
• Blogs and Wikis
• A central repository for shared documents
• Web-based document collaboration
• Browser-based management and administration
• Physical Asset Tracking
• Customizable web pages
• Firewall support

The cost of Sharepoint varies depending on the size and needs of your organization, but if you’re already running Windows Server 2003 or higher, taking advantage of the free advantages gained through WSS should be hard to pass up. Whatever software and hardware you choose to help your company improve the way it does business, Responza will always be at the ready to provide advice, formulate strategies, and help put your plans into action.

PowerPoint is full of special effects, and with a little thought you can get more than you might expect. For instance: using the Crawl In animation, you can turn an ordinary text box into a ticker tape readout just like cable news! There’s a bit of a trick to the technique, but it’s an easy one — position an ordinary text box in an unconventional manner:

1. Add a text box to the slide and type the message you want to scroll.

2. Here’s the trick: Move the text box off the left bottom edge of the slide. You want just the right edge left on the slide. By moving most of the text box off the slide, you allow the text to fully scroll off the left edge.

3. Right-click the text box and choose Custom Animation.

4. Choose Entrance from the Add Effect drop-down list and choose More Effects.

5. Select Crawl In from the list of Basic effects and click OK.

6. Change the Start setting to After Previous.

7. Change the Direction setting to From Right.

8. Change the Speed setting to Very Slow.

9. From the effect’s drop-down list, choose Timing.

10. From the Repeat drop-down list, choose Until End Of Slide.

11. Click OK.

Press [F5] and watch the message you entered into the text box in step 1, enter the screen from the right…scroll across the bottom edge…and off the left edge.

You might want to tweak the timing. The scroll should be slow enough to read, but not so slow that readers lose interest. Add the ticker tape effect to the Master Slide if you want it to appear on all the slides in the presentation. This is a fun and eye catching way to enhance your next presentation and will surely make for a captive audience!

Buying “big” software like an ERP package, salesforce automation or CRM can be a harrowing process. Your offices are besieged by software and implementation providers, business stakeholders offer conflicting requirements, and you are rarely sure if the budgeted time, money, or both are adequate. Further complicating matters is the fact that you will likely have to live with the software for years, potentially struggling through a multiyear implementation process and then enhancing and maintaining a technology that may be with you for decades. With the long road ahead in mind, these tips can help ease the process:

1. Buy based on the business case

Big software vendors are experts at flashy pitch sessions, where neat features are spotlighted and amazing efficiencies are promised. While these are all well and good, most big software implementations fail due to adopting the software to meet one specific business requirement. Evaluate your software decision in light of the business case that triggers its purchase, and demand the vendor demonstrate how their software will support your other key business processes. Even the most compelling feature will be worthless if tens of thousands must be spent to adapt the software to your needs.

2. Factor in all the costs

Perhaps the most pressing pain of big software is its costs. The best way to get a handle on cost is investigating past large implementations at your company. Look at the amount of customization that was required versus what was expected, and use that to extrapolate implementation costs. Failing that, multiply your expected implementation costs by two, especially if they seem incredibly low or rely on some newfangled methodology the vendor is pitching that they claim will make implementation nearly painless. Usually these “best-practices” methodologies are not all they are cracked up to be, and the promised benefits evaporate almost as quickly as the vendor sales staff once the contract is signed.

3. Get “real” references

It is certainly expected that you will ask vendors for references, and most will provide you with glossy “case studies” riddled with compelling quotes, with a “company just like yours” detailing how the package went in “on time and under budget, and brought about world peace in our time.” These should be regarded as marketing copy rather than references, and you should insist on talking with current and past customers of the provider. Past customers that the vendor provides were likely successful implementations, but currently implementing customers represent more valuable feedback, since the jury is still out.

Don’t shy away from trolling the Web for “horror stories” about that particular package. Assuming you are in noncompeting industries, most companies would be more than happy to talk with you and detail their experiences with the software and provide some caveats. Even across industries, sales, logistics, and back-office functions are remarkably similar, and with a sample of three to five businesses you can quickly discern if there is one area of the software that presents a frequent problem.

While this is just a sample of the many facets of implementing a massive enterprise software package, it will serve as a high-level guideline as you embark on the long journey of “big software.” These types of implementations have made or broken many a company, so proceed with careful consideration, keep the business case in mind at all times, don’t fear bringing in impartial advocates, and stack the deck in your favor.

You can already find lots of reviews of the Apple iPad. The device hasn’t been out for very long, so most reviewers are still in the honeymoon period and most of their observations and conclusions are speculative. Opinions may change once the novelty wears off, but here are some first impressions of why businesses should keep an eye on the iPad, as well as the top reasons why it’s safe for the corporate world to ignore it at this point:

Three reasons to love it

1. Great battery life

The iPad has even better battery life than last year’s much hyped netbooks. Apple claims 10 hours of battery life, but The Wall Street Journal reported 11 hours and 28 minutes of power, even during a period of heavy use.

2. It’s a briefcase, a whiteboard, and a dashboard

While most demos and commercials for the iPad focus on playing games and watching videos, don’t think for a second that this device is irrelevant for business users. The iPad allows you to skip paper copies of newspapers and magazines and avoid the pile of reports and other long documents in your briefcase. Between specific apps like USA Today and the open Internet, the iPad is a great business reading device. And with third-party apps, the device is also great for reading documents such as PDFs and DOCX files. Business professionals will also appreciate apps such as Ideate, which allows you to sketch ideas on a virtual whiteboard, save them as images, and then email them to your colleagues.

Another way for users to take advantage of the iPad’s great LCD screen is to use it for checking business dashboards. Before long we’ll see more apps that help display specific data, but for now you can open Microsoft Excel files and pull up Web-based data such as Google Analytics in the Safari browser.

3. You’ve seen Star Trek, right?

At this point, the iPad is primarily a device for early adopters. By the third generation, Apple will likely have something far more useful and functional. Nevertheless, using an iPad today feels like touching the technology of tomorrow. It is satisfyingly futuristic. If you’re a business leader, using the iPad could help you get a jump on the next stage of the evolution of computing. That could give you a competitive advantage by enabling you to better organize and consume important data.

Three reasons to ignore it

1. Imprisonment in the Apple ecosystem

While Apple’s integration of hardware, software, and e-commerce is one of the things that makes it so easy to use, that simplicity comes at the price of being locked into the most draconian ecosystem in the technology world. While some consumers are willing to give up a little freedom in return for a system that “just works,” that’s a much more difficult proposition for businesses. There are times when a business may need to do something — e.g. build a custom app, tweak a payment system, change configuration settings — for a business reason. However if you’re locked into Apple, the system can be extremely rigid and inflexible. Businesses don’t like that. It’s one of the things that has kept Macs out of many organizations. Apple is making strides to accommodate iPad deployment scenarios in business, but so far the company appears unlikely to open up.

2. Only one app at a time? Seriously?

Like the iPhone and the iPod Touch, the iPad can only run one application at a time. This approach makes some sense on the iPhone, which struggles with processing power and battery life at times. However, it doesn’t make sense with the iPad, which is surprisingly speedy and has plenty of battery life to spare, as mentioned above. Most business people need to multitask when they’re getting serious work done, so this aspect of the iPad definitely limits it as a laptop replacement. One thing to keep in mind is that the upcoming iPhone 4.0 operating system will finally add multitasking, but it won’t be iPad ready until this fall.

3. It doesn’t replace anything, yet

Despite all the hype for this long-anticipated device, the tablet itself remains an unproven factor, with the failure of the Tablet PC over the past decade as proof positive. Tablets have only found usefulness and acceptance in a few vertical markets such as health care. Despite that, users still remain keenly interested in the possibility of a great tablet, even if they’re not quite sure what they would do with it. The iPad certainly won’t replace a smartphone for any business professionals. In rare cases, it may replace a laptop for people with light computing needs centered around the Web and email. However, the most likely scenario is that the iPad will become an add-on device in the same category as netbooks. People will still carry a smartphone and will still have a primary desktop or laptop. That leaves the iPad to become a more convenient computer used for light computing tasks that don’t involve creating much content. This tablet would have to succeed where others have failed.

When most users launch Outlook, it displays Outlook Today. This view shows calendar entries and tasks for the current day, but if you’re like most users, you don’t pay much attention to this and would rather jump right in to your Inbox or Calendar. If that’s what you prefer, you can customize Outlook’s launch pattern by changing one simple setting:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Options.
2. Click the Other tab.
3. Click the Advanced Options button in the General section.
4. In the General Settings, click the Browse button, to the right of the Startup In This Folder option.
5. In the Select Folder dialog box, select the folder you want Outlook to default to when launched. You can choose any of Outlook’s folders.
6. Click OK three times.

If you start to miss Outlook Today, reclaim the old view simply by choosing Personal Folders in step 5. Enjoy the freedom of choice!

Cloud computing is one of the hottest topics in IT these days, with Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and other big players joining in the fray. However, the technology brings with it new terminology that can be confusing. Here are some common cloud-related terms and their meanings.

Cloud
A metaphor for a global network, first used in reference to the telephone network and now commonly used to represent the Internet.

Cloud operating system
A computer operating system that is specially designed to run in a provider’s datacenter and be delivered to the user over the Internet or another network. Windows Azure is an example of a cloud operating system or “cloud layer” that runs on Windows Server 2008. The term is also sometimes used to refer to cloud-based client operating systems such as Google’s Chrome OS.

Cloud portability
The ability to move applications and data from one cloud provider to another.

Cloud provider
A company that provides cloud-based platform, infrastructure, application, or storage services to other organizations and/or individuals, usually for a fee.

Cloud storage
A service that allows customers to save data by transferring it over the Internet or another network to an offsite storage system maintained by a third party.

Cloudsourcing
Replacing traditional IT services with cloud services.

Cloudstorming
Connecting multiple cloud computing environments.

Cloudware
Software that enables creating, deploying, running, or managing applications in the cloud.

Cluster
A group of linked computers that work together as if they were one.

External cloud
Public or private cloud services that are provided by a third party outside the organization.

Hosted application
An Internet-based or Web-based application software program that runs on a remote server and can be accessed via an Internet-connected PC or thin client.

Internal cloud
A type of private cloud whose services are provided by an IT department to those in its own organization.

SaaS
Software as a service — Cloud application services, whereby applications are delivered over the Internet by the provider, so that the applications don’t have to be purchased, installed, and run on the customer’s computers.
Vertical cloud
A cloud computing environment that is optimized for use in a particular industry, such as health care or financial services.

Are you curious about how cloud computing can add value to your business? Stay tuned—later this year, we will provide a strategic guide on this emerging trend.

Computing is in a state of constant change: systems are migrating toward cloud technology, mobile devices are changing the way we interact with machines and networks, and real-time information has become increasingly important. But along with these positive changes, cyber crime threats are changing too. Defending against such threats requires a proactive investment in security, but that’s preferable to receiving e-mail from a hacker that reads, “IM IN UR PC STEALIN UR DATA.” While it’s impossible to determine exactly where the bad guys will strike next, here are a few of the danger zones:

1. Spam & Scams Go Social
Security researchers concur that cybercriminals will escalate attacks on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and on real-time social sites like Twitter. With Google and Bing integrating realtime features, scammers know that time is increasingly on their side: It usually takes a while to recognize a malicious file or link and unless countermeasures are immediate, there will always be victims.
2. Hijacking Trusted Sites For Malware
Experts predict innovation in efforts to compromise trusted sites and load them up with malware. For criminals, it almost always makes more sense to trick a trusted third-party into distributing their viruses, spambots, trojans, and trackers.
3. Macs Compromised In Significant Numbers
Hackers have begun to pay increased attention to the Mac platform. Threats have been minimal in the past, and users haven’t gotten into the habit of paying for antivirus software. But Apple’s increasingly high profile will force the company and its fans to invest more in security as their devices come under more sustained attack.
4. More Poisoned Search Results
Again, exploiting trust works. Cybercriminals will use popular search engines like Google & Bing to infect the unprotected. Experts anticipate continued efforts to subvert search results and exploit interest in breaking news and events. A cybercriminal could even create a fake malware outbreak story that draws attention and leads users astray into web sites that make the outbreak real.
5. Mobile Security Becomes Real Issue
Smartphones are essentially miniature personal computers, and in 2010 they will face the same types of attacks that target traditional computing. Practically every security vendor is developing a mobile security product or service, since it is yet to be seen which devices and services will be the biggest target of mobile malware.

Awareness is good, protection is better. If you have any questions about your security situation, just give Responza a call and we’ll do all we can to provide answers and assistance!

There are now over 175,000 mobile apps available across the three leading smartphone platforms: iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android. With that many options, it is becoming hard pick out the good ones, especially for business users. Here are a few apps to help you succeed when you’re out of the office.

Evernote

The Swiss Army knife of note taking, Evernote allows you to snap a photo, take a screenshot, type in text, or speak your note to capture information on the go. And once the information is captured, Evernote helps you organize and find it by making all text in your photos or notes searchable!
Click here to visit their official site

Documents to Go

Documents To Go is an all-in-one application with support for Office, PDF, Apple iWork, and many other file types. If someone e-mails you a PowerPoint presentation, you can now view and edit the file on your mobile device. It’s especially useful in meetings when you forget to bring the hard copy of a file. Also great for prepping documents during travel since it’s always handier to whip out an Blackberry than a laptop.
Click here to visit their official site

LinkedIn

Whether or not you’re a fan of social networking in your personal life, having a LinkedIn account is a great way to keep track of business contacts online. Their mobile app brings many of the Web features, such as your Connections and Status Updates, to your phone. Their best mobile-specific feature is InPerson, which allows you to quickly share contact information with another smartphone user via Bluetooth.
Click here to login from your mobile phone

BusinessWeek Mobile

The BusinessWeek app allows you to create a personal watchlist of companies, giving you quick access to the stories that matter most to you. The app is customizable and allows you to organize the news by topic. You can also easily share BusinessWeek content right from your phone via email.
Click here to download the app

What business apps would you recommend? Did we miss a great one, or did we include one that you think is overrated? Leave a comment and let us know.