Three Essential Cloud Services for Small Businesses

Apr 26th, 2011 Joseph Simuro

A small business is always looking for ways to improve their services and increase the efficiency within their office. A small business thrives on productivity because their scaled down size enables them to produce higher quality results for their smaller client base. However, while small businesses have certain advantages, they must pay careful attention to being cost effective. It is especially important in the start up phase of a business that costs are keep at a minimum, while still providing all of the necessary services to thrive as a growing company.

With this in mind, small businesses have begun taking advantage of the services offered via cloud computing, which enable them to increase their effectiveness while making operational expenses more manageable. Cloud computing is a new trend in IT services that allows individuals and businesses to take advantage of data storage and other hosted services from a third party provider.. For this reason, many small businesses pay a fee to their cloud provider for many services that allow them to be more productive at an affordable, predictable, and manageable rate. There are three major services that many small businesses are now gaining access to thanks to cloud computing: mail. portal, and hosted voice.

Small businesses around the globe are now depending on cloud computing for their e-mail. This is effective because the company does not need to use an internal network and hire information technology employees to manage their e-mail, an indispensable communication tool. Businesses simply sign a contract with a provider and can then take advantage of the cloud computing e-mail server. An additional benefit of this is that the service provider will typically have a trained IT staff, ensuring near-100% uptime of email servers.

Many small businesses are also taking advantage of the portal feature offered through a cloud provider. A portal is a dashboard where employees can go to access all of their daily information. Under a typical model, users are able to access e-mail, their calendar, shared data, and any other web based platforms used by the company. This one-stop shop allows an employee to remain both organized and productive, and allows the company to bundle all of their services in one intuitive, easy to use, and inexpensive platform, helping to streamline access to oft-used computer applications and data.

A third popular service that small businesses use cloud computing for is hosted voice. This means that the small business uses a third party service for their voice mail and other phone system features. This negates the need for a small business to pay for expensive voice recording hardware and software. Instead, the company offering this service provides and maintains all of the necessary software at a fraction of the price. Small businesses can get all of these services for an amazing low monthly payment. Furthermore, as these businesses begin to grow, cloud services are easily scalable, meaning business owners never have to worry about outgrowing the tools available.

About the Author:


Since 2004, The-Data-Pros have provided scalable and affordable IT solutions, specializing in real-time monitoring, patch management, technical system maintenance, and other services that keep businesses running efficiently and productively.http://the-data-pros.net/

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