With the launch of Microsoft Office 365 in June, your options for providing your employees with advanced email and collaboration services improved. As promised, Microsoft has responded to Google’s lead in this space with their Google Apps for Business.  Office 365 is now out of beta and generally available and supported.

There are service packages for every taste. The upside to that is that there is an opportunity to optimize the service level and associated costs for each user. The downside is added complexity in selecting and administering plans and the potential for hurdles when migrating between plans in the future.

Microsoft Office 365 plans start with a $4 per user per month for a K1 “Kiosk Worker Plan” for those that need email but spend little time on a PC. It’s also an inexpensive way for people that have Microsoft Office and Outlook on their PC and want to take advantage of Exchange capabilities like push email to mobile devices and Outlook integration. With cloud based Microsoft Exchange, there’s no need for the otherwise significant infrastructure investment, IT administration and complexity associated with setting up Exchange on-premise. This is a breakthrough for SMBs that have longed for Microsoft Exchange email on a small scale at the cheapest possible price. The closest Google Apps equivalent is free Gmail, which doesn’t support push email although you can use Gmail with your Microsoft Outlook client.

For enterprise users, or more accurately knowledge workers that need more storage, features and collaboration capabilities, there are services between $10 and $27 per user per month. At the high end of the spectrum is the E4 Enterprise Plan loaded with features like Office Professional Plus, advanced administration capabilities, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and the ability to use Lync Server on-premises. Google Apps offers a simple $5 per user per month, or $50 per user per year, and includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Cloud Connect, Sites and Apps Marketplace. With Cloud Connect a plug-in permits Office documents to be shared, and Outlook supports Gmail.

For many, the options are clear as, well, mud. Beyond the features and price points, also take into consideration preferences and soft costs when factoring in your ROI. If you are just getting started and don’t need to migrate Exchange email, comfortable with a self-service approach, and not Microsoft centric on your desktop or your mobile devices, Google Apps gives you a simple, fast and cheap way to take advantage of cloud based services. If, on the other hand, you have Exchange email that you need to migrate, like Microsoft Office apps, maybe have Outlook, and either want to add Exchange email to your mix or add killer apps like Lync to your arsenal then the Microsoft services may provide you with more continuity.

Speaking of continuity, if you or your staff is familiar with Office applications, the cost of ramping up on Google Apps is something to account for. If they tend to be Gmail users and walk in with Android and iOS devices, that might tell you something else. It’s expensive enough to get a new hire up to speed on the business, it’s more so if they need to learn a new set of GUIs and applications and email paradigm. I love labeling and archiving my Gmail email in the browser and powering through high Gmail volume in Outlook. I like to collaborate in shared spaces and interactive sessions. Others prefer sorting by folder in Outlook Web App (OWA) and iterating documents by email. Know the preferences of your employees and it will help you know what email and collaboration system will be a hit.

If you foresee a desire or need to get onto the latest and greatest Microsoft services, including Lync and SharePoint, maybe even looking to avoid or replace a traditional phone system, consider the value of starting off with or continuing with the Microsoft suite and avoiding disruption now or in the future.

Both Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365 are cloud based offerings. They both allow you to leverage great email and collaboration services. Google Apps has the edge in platform independence, supporting Microsoft Office document collaboration with Google Cloud Connect and similar treatment for all the major mobile platforms. Microsoft Office 365 goes broader and deeper with enterprise proven services and more seamless integration with ubiquitous Microsoft Office applications and Exchange email.

For the increasing number of SMBs that are fending for themselves in the IT department, you have options galore. And your choice extends to the vendor from whom you buy your cloud based services. If you are self-reliant or driven by cost savings, or just plain brave, you’ll be drawn to the Google and Microsoft websites to choose your services à la cart. If you already purchase from a cloud service provider or you value higher levels of customer support and a single throat to choke, you would do well to acquire or expand your services with your existing hoster or reseller, whose entire business is based on your satisfaction and recurring purchases. When purchasing from hosters, you also have the ability to single source a spectrum of services, such as virtual servers, storage and other SaaS applications.

Related posts:

1. Can Microsoft Office 365 show your Business the love?
2. myhosting.com Mobile Email Solution Awarded for Excellence @ Parallels Summit 2011 Awards
3. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: More Than Just Document Sharing

The Parallels Summit continues and SoftCom is delighted to have been awarded for excellence in Parallels Automation in one of seven categories that recognize Parallels partners that have achieved outstanding success using Parallels solutions.

During the awards presentation at Parallels Summit 2011, SoftCom Inc. was Awarded Excellence in Messaging & Collaboration Services and Parallels Automation for its Exchange based Email and Sharepoint Solution as implemented and integrated into Parallels Automation; myhosting.com onCloud.

“SoftCom continues to be a leader in the hosting industry by providing reliable and fast cloud service delivery through Parallels Automation,” said Celal Ulgen our Chief Marketing Officer “We are excited about winning this award and look forward to partnering with Parallels to bring new messaging and collaboration services to market like Microsoft Exchange 2010, Microsoft Lync 2010 and Hosted PBX/VOIP.”

You can safely bet we won’t stop there. As the conference continues stay tuned to myhosting.com and softcom.com blogs for updates and details on your favourite web host!

Learn more about our Microsoft Exchange Hosted Business Email Solution or our Sharepoint Services offering.

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1. Hosted Exchange Email now available from myhosting.com
2. myhosting.com Speaks on Billing as a Service (BaaS)
3. myhosting.com At Affiliate Summit 2010 Las Vegas

Data loss is the digital house fire.

After far too many tragedies, we’ve learned a few things about fire prevention. Every home is now required, by law, to have a working fire alarm on each floor. You wouldn’t leave a candle burning overnight, or flick a cigarette butt between the couch cushions, would you?

But what about your data?

A fire can destroy lives in mere minutes. Minutes? Hard drive failure is instant. Years of personal photos, music and movie collections, and project files can be wiped out in one heart-sickening click.

It’s easy to forget the risk when your data is enclosed in bulletproof metallic enclosures, or tucked away invisibly inside your solid aluminum laptop case to be bumped around on the go. But never forget — Hard disks are a remarkable delicate feat of engineering. Whirring at an average speed of 5,400 revolutions per minute to access over 2,199,023,255,552 bytes of data, it’s actually quite amazing things don’t go wrong more often than they do. Even so, nothing is perfect. Hard drive failure is an inevitable statistical probability. Sure, you can always buy a new drive… But your data is irreplaceable.

Data recovery? It’s complicated, never guaranteed, and really, really, really expensive. External drives and laptops can be lost, stolen or damaged. Recordable media (CDRs, DVDRs) notoriously degrades over time, making it extremely unreliable as an archive format. Prevention is the only strategy that really works against data loss.

Here’s what you can do to protect yourself:

1. Automate backups.

Online backup services, like mail2web.com for your mobile phone and Dropbox, Mozy and CrashPlan for your computer, can be set up to automatically backup and sync your data online. To find the service that’s right for you, I always recomend checking forums of online backup services. As more and more of your data storage goes online, chances are less you will lose any of it to a single point of failure. For the truly concerned, services like Backupify can even back up your backup data.

2. Use solid state media on the go.

Flash memory cards, external hard drives, USB keys, DVDRWs and other media with no moving parts are generally an easy way to move data. Some smartphones can also be used for mobile data storage, though you may still lose your phone. If you work with very large files, there’s still hope for safe transfer — the world’s largest USB key has now topped an impressive 250GB, making it larger than many common hard drives.

3. Access your files by virtual and remote networking.

Chances are, your employer has a VNC-enabled network to allow you to login remotely and access your files from home or elsewhere. You can set up your own virtual network for remote access without the risk of physically moving (and losing) your files. All you’ll need is a persistent Internet connection at home (by cable or DSL) and the right software.

4. Email yourself.

Emailing files to yourself through your own personal webmail can be a quick and dirty backup solution. A copy of your message will be stored on the server should you need it.

5. Invest in RAID setups.

RAID drive enclosures can be set up to mirror data across multiple drives in case one fails. It doesn’t protect against user error (deleting files by mistake), but it’s a great start. RAID combines several hard disks into one unit, for either speed or data redundancy. RAID 0 mirrors an exact copy of your data instantly to two physical drives. If one fails, your data survives. RAID 0 requires exactly twice the disk space for redundant protection. With more drives, RAID 5 and RAID 10 can increase the ratio of usable disk space. Don’t fret about the extra cost. Disk space is cheap — losing data is not.

6. Backup your full system.

Data is important, but so is your time. Should something happen, you don’t want to lose productivity to reinstalling your OS, resorting your settings, and re-registering all your programs. A full system backup should be done every few days to restore in case of the catastrophe of a complete system failure or loss (this is doubly important for laptops and phone, which can be easily lost, stolen or damaged). There is a ton of backup software that can be scheduled to automatically backup your system at a convenient time (most likely, in the middle of the night when you aren’t using the system).

7. Remember good habits!

There’s no substitute for a well-planned backup routine in your workflow:

- Don’t work on external drives.
- Copy working files as new revisions.
- Backup your work regularly.
- Save your data off-site or online.
- Use a combination of automatic and manual backup strategies.
- Assume the worst and plan for it.

As Benjamin Franklin wisely noted, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Start protecting your data today.

No related posts.

Social Media for Small Business

Part II: Tools and resources for your small business

This is a three-part special blog series that begins by answering: what is social media and how to get started? The second part outlines the various tools available and how you can utilize them for your business. We will finish with the infamous what not to do in a segment I call The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media.

Social Media For Small Business Part Two: Various tools available and how you can utilize them for your business

Now that you know a little more about what social media is and isn’t, how to use it and what to consider, it’s time to decide whether it’s right for you and your brand.

As online media is a fairly new outlet for targeting your audience, you must be aware of the change in communication flow and equipped with the right resources to, as Gary Vaynerchuk would say, Crush It.

James Bishop, Manager, Consumer Product Marketing for TELUS, warns you must be prepared, “What happens with the feedback loop? If I tweet to Burton Snowboards, who is responding? Who is following up on a complaint? Or on praise? Marketers are typically geared to one-way messages as are business people, but with Social Media, businesses have to be just as prepared to listen.”

At myhosting.com, we have set a two-week to two-month probationary period on our marketing initiatives. If, after sufficient research and due diligence we decide to embark on realizing a marketing tactic via a social media tools, we give it up to two months before cutting our losses and moving onto other initiatives.

Through this tactic we’ve learned a lot – the good, bad and ugly in online marketing. But overall, we can say we’re constantly learning. We don’t blindly set up a Facebook Group simply because everyone’s doing it. We find value in some of these tools and not in others, we are quick to identify what is working and what isn’t, and we adjust from there. Everyone, even the so-called gurus, are learning as they go – so don’t feel bad about a few failures; after all, they are nothing if not a learning experience. Also, social media is not for everyone and that’s also okay.

Before you dive in to social media, let’s start with the basics: a website.
The most important thing you can do for your small business is set up a professionally designed website. DIY might be great for projects around the house, but in 2010 there is no excuse to have a novice site that looks as though you created it yourself. You have no idea how important it is. Think of your site as the ambassador of your company – what image do you want to communicate? “Professional and delivers the best possible product and experience possible” – OR – “Doesn’t really care, cuts corners and doesn’t believe in offering quality”? It’s easy to get started: hop over to a hosting company, like myhosting.com, register a domain and pick between one of the templates or opt to use one of their professional designers.

Do you have your professional looking site, have you read the cautionary fine-print and do you still feel as though you would like to pursue social media for your business? Here are some tips, tricks and resources that may be useful to you.

Meetup: If you need to create an event or meet up, there are tons of online resources to help sell tickets and manage your RSVPs, one of my favorites is meetup. Host a conference, media event, or special promotion for charity and share with the world with this tool.

Foursquare: A lot of small businesses have been creating huge success with this tool, especially in large urban centers like San Francisco. Basically, people login and tell their friends where they are and what their favorite spots in their city are. There are great opportunities for businesses to reward their establishment’s Foursquare Mayors with freebies and promos to thank them for representing you online and helping to spread positive word-of-mouth.

Twitter: A great tool to grow your community and engage followers, Twitter is also one of my personal faves. It’s easy – in 140 characters or less, let the world know what’s happening, show your personality and promote special offers.

Yelp: Building on the concept of what others have to say about a company or brand, Yelp is a seriously popular free tool used to find, promote and review local businesses.

Blog: Blogs are an important tool in creating an online brand, spreading news and commenting on your industry. You can provide original content or source free articles and simply copy and paste them. Your original copy can be written by you or you can pay someone to write original content for you, or you can ditch writing and instead create an audio podcast or video blog. The best part: it’s really easy to set up a blog on your site – myhosting.com for example offers a free WordPress installation to get you started.

Flickr: Sharing pictures could be a great tool for some businesses, especially if used in a creative way. You can put up pictures of new menu items and stock, favorite customers, charity initiatives, and the fun had by people who work there.

Facebook: You can create a fan Page and/or related group and connect with your audience here. One of the most valuable parts of Facebook is that once someone is your friend/fan/group member, all of your updates show up on their feeds, keeping you top-of-mind.

Wiki: Great for crowd sourcing and offering tips and answers to frequently asked questions. It’s really easy to set up a wiki on your site – myhosting.com for example offers a free media wiki plug-in to get you started.

Buttons: Making your content easy to share is possibly one of the most important aspects of social media. Adding buttons that allow users to easily bookmark and submit your articles to sites like Delicious, StumbleUpon and Digg helps get new eyes on your material, and to build awareness and communities.

Analytics: There are lots of different tracking tools for your site to tell you who visited, what search term they used, what they clicked on in your site, and what site/who directed the visitors to your site. Google offers a free analytics tracking tool, but there are also many options of paid tracking tools that offer more extensive data collection.

Additionally, I’m a huge fan of having an optimization company on retainer to strategically position web sites as far to the top of related search results as possible.

Please look out for Part III of our Social Media for Small Business, to be posted later this week. Miss Part I? Check it out Here.

Part I: What Is Social Media and Why Your Small Business Needs It
Part II: Tools and resources for your small business
Part III: Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media

Please comment below, or follow us on twitter

Related posts:

1. Social Media for Small Business Part I
2. Social Media for Small Business Part III: Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media
3. Using Social Media to Build Traffic for Your Website

Social Media for Small Business

Part I: What Is Social Media and Why Your Small Business Needs It

The number of active users on Facebook could make up the equivalent to the fourth largest country in the world. What’s more? Twitter was named the number one word of 2009. At the same time, countless print media outlets are dying and closing their doors for good, proving there has been a drastic shift in marketing and communications. This is no longer a space solely for the early adaptors, quite the contrary – this space has become infiltrated by the mainstream. You probably already know this and have no idea where to start. I must say, time is of the essence – you want an established presence when this reaches its tipping point and becomes oversaturated with your competition.

This is a three-part special blog series that begins by answering: what is social media and how to get started? The second part outlines the various tools available and how you can utilize them for your business. We will finish with the infamous what not to do in a segment I call The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media.

Let’s get started: What is social media?

Social media is a tool for web2.0. Basically, it’s a way to communicate with your audience and, more importantly, have them communicate back. Stimulating this conversation can encourage positive word-of-mouth marketing. The interactive web is so popular because of two very dominating concepts: PeLiMe (People Like Me) and collaboration. Both promote online community building, crowd sourcing, sharing, and connecting with those who reflect you and your interests. No one wants to be told what’s good for them – especially not from advertisers, corporations, or traditional media. We are bombarded with thousands of ads a day, it’s no wonder we are desensitized by them and the shift has been made to reflect more influence in real, unpaid, online reviews.

Quick game of Who’d You Rather: If you were a hiker looking into new shoes, how would you make your decision?

1) Scour each hiking equipment company’s site and see what they had to say about their own shoes?

2) Perhaps you’d casually wander into a sporting goods store only to encounter a pushy sales clerk who, unbeknownst to you, receives a kickback for each sale a certain brand of shoes that month?

3) Would you go onto the hiking community sites, forums and blogs to see what your peers can vouch for as tried, tested and true?

Alternatively, you can always hang out on the trails, wait for other hikers to pass by, approach them with the intention to poll them on equipment, and hope not to get mistaken for a Ted Bundy copy cat. Just as you don’t ask your dentist about his/her opinion on real estate decisions, or ask your realtor about the strange sound your car’s making, or your mechanic about your tooth ache – you should also be selective about the online communities you join. Consider it your online real estate – location is everything, so invest based on your needs, habits, lifestyle, and the message you want to convey to your family and friends.

Best of all – its free! For small businesses, this is a great addition to your marketing initiatives as it doesn’t take a lot of time. You mainly want to stimulate your existing community, create new communities, and add value through great conversation. At myhosting.com, we like to think there are three key strategies to utilizing social media for marketing, they are as follows:

Stimulating: Proactively listen, chit chat, ask questions and start conversations. Also, don’t forget to engage with your community by answering questions, replying to direct communication, responding to comments, finding conversation on similar subjects and adding your two cents (without spamming), and overall, increasing word-of-mouth and staying top of mind

Monitoring: This means everything from trend hunting to damage control. Find what people are saying about you, your brands, products and industry. Also, deliver customer service when people offer inquiries or shoot comments about their level of satisfaction. This could be a great tool to gauge with your customers, find out who your audience is and what they want.

Positioning: You know about your brand and industry, you are passionate about it – now what? Let the world know and let them consider you a thought leader by offering tips, advice and answers. Don’t just make this an opportunity to provide a hard sell on your brand – think of your audience and provide the answer to What’s In It For Me. A great way to do this is by offering unique content relative to your brand and industry through a blog.

Please look out for parts two and three of Social Media for Small Business

Part II: Tools and resources for your small business

Part III: Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media

Please comment below, or follow us on twitter

Related posts:

1. Social Media for Small Business Part III: Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media
2. Social Media For Small Business – Part II: Tools and Resources For Your Small Business
3. Using Social Media to Build Traffic for Your Website

The Joomla CMS has earned a reputation online as both powerful and well-supported by its community of users, making it great tool for SEO optimization. Although the CRM alone does have a number of features that can help to increase the SEO value of your Web page, it’s worth knowing about some of the most popular free plugins available you can use to improve the effectiveness of your search engine optimization. By no means an exhaustive list, here are ten of the most popular plugins among Joomla users.

1. Set Generator Tag
This plugin allows you to modify the default Joomla CMS generator meta tag and make it whatever you want. Using this plugin means you will not have to change templates or the core Joomla files, and your changes will remain even if a new version of the CMS is downloaded since the changes reside in the Set Generator plugin, not Joomla itself.

2. SEOSimple
As the name states, this Joomla SEO plugin is meant to be simple, and its function is to take the starting portion of a page’s text content and apply it to the meta description at the head of the page. Since search engines will often use meta descriptions for SERPS, it is crucial that they have relevant content.

3. SEO Pagination
This easy-to-use plugin lets you give every page on your Web site a unique title, which is great if you have multiple categories, and can help give each page greater strength in overall SEO rankings.

4. JoomSEF
The JoomSEF plugin lets you rewrite your Joomla URLs so that they are more search engine friendly (SEF). These custom URLs can make for a better browsing experience for users and can lead to higher rankings from search engines.

5. J!Redirect 301
This Joomla SEO plugin allows you to easily create 301 redirects so that the only page indexed by search engines will be your main page. All other access requests will be directed to your main site, and 301 is the only type of redirect considered to be search engine friendly.

6. SiteVerify Plugin
SiteVerify adds a simple way to insert HTML Meta tags so that your site can be verified with Google, Live and Yahoo.

7. Website Name
This compact plugin gives you the ability to display your Web site name on the front end, letting you choose if you want it before or after the page title.

8. SEO-Generator
This does what it says – generates SEO keywords and description automatically from text and content.

9. Auto Backlinks
A simple plugin, this automatically pings high-ranking pages for auto backlinks directly to your site.

10. Unicode Slugs SEF
This is a great plugin allowing you to add special characters, accents and capitals in URLs that Google and other sites have no problem searching for.

Honorable Mentions: Easyping, SEO Canonicalisation, Title Manager

An active development environment means Joomla SEO is always evolving, and used correctly, these ten popular plugins can help you get high-quality traffic to your Web site.

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Over the last few months we’ve seen support for Microsoft Exchange grow further and further, being adopted on more and more smartphones and being extended to new desktop applications. We’ve talked about a few of these new releases on our mail2web.com Blog.

Part of the growth of Exchange support is thanks to an Exchange Server 2007 update, which provides the new Exchange Web Services Edition, which allowed Microsoft to extend Entourage 2008 further.

With the release of OS X Snow Leopard by Apple, they also added Exchange support within Mail, Address Book and iCal by taking advantage of EWS. This allows Mac users to get full email, contact, calendar and even task synchronization from their Hosted Exchange account to the native applications on their Mac. This gives Mac users multiple options for handing their Microsoft Exchange Account.

We’ve also seen the launch of a number of new Google Android devices in North America and Europe. The HTC Android devices in particular include support for Exchange ActiveSync. Even better, they can AutoDiscover your account settings, making it easy to get set up in mere seconds.

The Palm Pre was also launched and also comes with support for Exchange. And even though it doesn’t use AutoDiscover, is also fairly easy to get set up.

There are also tons of other new devices to look forward to, including new Android devices such as the LG Etna and the next generation of Windows Mobile 6.5 devices, including the HTC Touch 2.

How far will the Exchange revolution extend? And what new devices are you looking forward to? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Microsoft Exchange support arrives for T-Mobile G1
2. Hosted Exchange Email now available from myhosting.com
3. Entourage Update for Hosted Exchange Email users

For some time now we have been running a SharePoint Designer promotion which provided a free boxed copy of Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007 for free along with 1 year Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hosting for $19.95/month with 1 year commitment. And we were getting ready to wind the promotion down, as our supplies of SharePoint Designer have been dwindling recently.

However as some of you may already know, Microsoft has recently made SharePoint Designer 2007 a free download. Now everyone is free to try SharePoint Designer with their SharePoint site and see what all the talk is about. If you you have a SharePoint 3.0 account with us, but haven’t yet tried SharePoint Designer, we recommend you give it a whirl. You can visit the SharePoint Designer site for more information, or proceed directly to the SharePoint Designer 2007 download page.

And even though we will no longer be mailing boxed software, we have decided to keep our SharePoint Designer promotion running. So if you haven’t tried SharePoint already, now is the perfect time to get started.

Thanks,

Tim Attwood
Product Manager
SoftCom Technology Consulting Inc.

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The first Google Android OS cell phone, the T-Mobile G1, is considered a best seller by anyone’s standards, with 1 million devices sold in just 61 days (a faster pace than the first iteration of the Apple iPhone). While I’ve personally been pleased with its performance during my long-term testing of the device, I’ve noticed that many people I talk to are instantly dismissive of the the G1 – considering it a flawed first effort.

Commonly, this criticism traces back to the lack of proper Microsoft Exchange support on the device. Sure, you could always have your G1 log in and poll your Exchange mailbox using the standard IMAP4 e-mail protocol, but then you’ve sacrificed all the features that make consumers and corporations choose Exchange over simple e-mail: The integrated contacts list, the terrific calendar functionality, extra e-mail features, built-in security, and a first-class desktop application for when you are at your desk.

And who’s to say that criticism isn’t well warranted? With its full QWERTY keyboard rounding out the input options aside from the clickable trackball and touchscreen, the G1 was immediately considered to be a potential competitor to Research In Motion’s BlackBerry line of devices, which currently serve as the default mobile communicator for today’s workforce. A lack of Exchange support out of the gate soured many on the notion that their BlackBerries could finally be replaced with a new, more multimedia-capable, “fun” device. (Apple’s iPhone, while delivering “fun” in spades, never got more than a moment’s consideration due to its lack of a physical QWERTY keyboard.)

I’d like to say that the original reason I began to delve so deeply into this topic is that one of the key services we offer here at myhosting.com is Hosted Exchange Email, but that’s not true. The truth is, like most developers, I carry a device that allows me instant access to my work e-mail on the occasion that system issues arise that require a developer to resolve. For years a BlackBerry device served this decidedly unsexy purpose, but when on day one of the T-Mobile G1′s release we managed to snag one (despite our headquarters being located in Toronto, Canada), I was an immediate convert. I set my G1 to log in to my work e-mail every 30 minutes and attempted to wean myself off depending on my BlackBerry 8700g.

At first, I was only partially successful: The “pull” method of checking e-mail, coupled with the lack of access to my calendar and contacts, required me to hold on to both devices, even if the BlackBerry mostly resided on a desk at home. But as I began to explore the inroads on Exchange support for the Google Android OS via various web forums (Android Community being a standout), a solution emerged: NitroDesk’s TouchDown For Android and Exchange.

For starters, let me allow the people at NitroDesk to make their introduction in their own words:

TouchDown lets you access your corporate Email, Contacts and Calendar right from your Android-powered phone. Works with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003/2007 SP1 and with most online Exchange hosting providers.

With TouchDown, your office email, calendar and contacts are available right at your fingertips. You can choose how long to retain your email on your phone. You can choose to download ALL your Exchange contacts to TouchDown any time you want, but get all changes automatically every time you check your email.

You get quick access to your day’s agenda, optimized for viewing on your phone. You can choose to dismiss past events to simplify the view.

My first use of TouchDown left me with a conflicted view, as via it basic Exchange functionality did exist but was hugely limited. Today, however, a preview version TouchDown made available to paid customers (yes, TouchDown is not free, but we’ll get to that later) boasts the key feature that truly turns the T-Mobile G1 into a corporate-friendly device: Push e-mail via Microsoft ActiveSync. In layman’s terms, new e-mail is displayed on your G1 as soon as it’s received by your mail system. In my case, this meant that I no longer was made aware of important e-mail a half hour after its arrival in my mailbox.

My quibbles with the latest version of TouchDown are minimal: The user interface for the account configuration screens have a few buttons that are uncomfortably small to be pressed using the touchscreen. The lack of a “Select All” function on the e-mail view means I have to individually highlight each message I want to delete if I have a number of messages arrive at once. Lastly, the cost of the application, which I’ll discuss separately.

NitroDesk offers two flavours of TouchDown:

1. A free version, whose limitations are an Inbox-only view of e-mail with a history of one day, and read-only access to your contacts and calendar. You can download and install this version by searching for “touchdown” in the Android Market.
2. A paid version of the software, which costs $29.99 USD. This version gives you access to all of e-mail folders with a message history of as long as you’d like, full read/write access to your contacts and calendar items, and as of this writing, push e-mail via ActiveSync in the 2.0.000 preview copy of the software.

My customer support experience as a paying customer has, to date, been excellent, with even a mixup with billing on my end taken care of quickly (we mistakenly ordered two copies of the software while only needing one). NitroDesk’s developers also seem to be extremely open to input on bugs and features to be included in future releases.

As push e-mail functionality becomes official for TouchDown, I expect that more consumers and organizations that at first turned away from the T-Mobile G1 as an enterprise-ready mobile device to get on board – especially with the release of the G1 outside of the United States (1, 2) and more cell phone providers and developers get behind the platform.

To prove I’m putting my money where my mouth is, I’ll be saying goodbye to my BlackBerry for good as of today. I encourage other tech workers stuck with unsexy mobile devices to follow suit.

Sully Syed
Software Developer
SoftCom Technology Consulting Inc.

Related posts:

1. Exchange Support in Snow Leopard, Palm Prē, Android and more
2. Hosted Exchange Email now available from myhosting.com
3. Hosted Exchange vs. Email: Elevate your Experience

Last week I discussed the launch of myhosting.com Hosted Exchange Email and some of the outsourcing advantages, especially for small and medium sized businesses. And at the same time that we launched Hosted Exchange Email, we also launched Windows SharePoint Services. These two services go together like two peas in a pod and offer some of the same outsourcing advantages.

At myhosting.com we first started offering hosted SharePoint in 2001, back when it was still called SharePoint Team Services. With the launch of our mail2web.com Business Exchange service, we also launched the second version of SharePoint, relabeled as Windows SharePoint Services 2.0. And when version 3.0 came out, we were also on board at mail2web.com.

Despite SharePoint’s longevity, it hasn’t been a very well understood application over the years and is only now becoming more visible and better understood and utilized. Simply put, SharePoint is the application that takes Microsoft Office beyond your desktop and brings it online, allowing you to collaborate and share more easily and effectively, while still using the tools you are used to. You might even say that Exchange is to Outlook as SharePoint is to the rest of the Office Suite. Within your favorite Office Applications you can publish and synchronize various types of data directly to your SharePoint site. This integration supports Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Access, Groove, OneNote and InfoPath.

SharePoint allows you to create lists and libraries of many different types, be it a document storage library with version control and check-in/check-out capabilities, or a list of tasks assigned to various individuals who are all part of one team. And this extends past document libraries and tasks to include calendars, contacts, links, forums, announcements and more. Your SharePoint site also contains various web-parts that can display sorted or filtered information in various ways, or include some kind of custom functionality. You can even run your own Blog or Wiki website within SharePoint!

In addition to the default installation, there are also 40 different application templates available which you can apply to your SharePoint site which help provide you with a solution that is more specifically tailored to your business, your goal, or even your industry. For example:

• Project Managers may find the Project Tracking workspace useful for keeping track of the goals, tasks and timelines associated with a specific project.
• Human Resources professionals may find the Job Requisition and Interview Management workspace helpful for sharing and organizing resumes, interview schedules and job openings.
• Teachers may find the Classroom Management workspace helpful in organizing their lesson plans and classes.

And even if these application templates aren’t perfect for you, they serve to highlight the customization options that are available. Many features are customizable using only the web-based administration interface. And there are many more customizable options which you can use with the SharePoint Designer application. In addition to the built-in design tools, there are also features for building automation and workflow, creating reporting and tracking and additional advanced customization features.

We’re  now offering 1 year of Windows SharePoint Services hosting with your own download of SharePoint Designer 2007 for $19.95 per month!

And for those of you who aren’t already familiar with SharePoint, you might find some these Demos and Tutorials useful in demonstrating some of the features and options that are available with a Windows SharePoint Services website.

Thanks,

Tim Attwood
Product Manager
SoftCom Technology Consulting Inc.

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