Many small biz owners are still on the fence about taking their biz operations to the clouds. In a recent interview with Michal Lev-Ram for CnnMoney.com, Google’s enterprise chief Dave Girouard provides some compelling reasons for small biz owners to reconsider their stance. Most small biz owners cite security and uptime as their biggest resistance to the cloud here’s what Girouard had to say about both issues:
“Our belief is that your data is safer inside Google than it is inside your own computers. But we are doing all sorts of things to make sure our user data is protected.”
In regards to cloud system’s uptime, Girouard stated:
“There's no system that's prefect and no company that's perfect and we certainly aren't. In 2010 Gmail had 99.984% uptime.”
His statements got me wondering if those small biz owners that were resisting the cloud had procedures in place to protect their data and if their procedures had a 100% uptime. I posed the question of the cloud in one of my accounting discussion boards to get small biz accountants’ take on the matter and many of them were still resisting the cloud. One accountant even said that she used a portable hard drive that she took back and forth with her to the office.
Although the portable drive is a great way to save and backup your mission critical data, it should only be a small step in your backup and data warehousing plan. Which brings me to another point Girouard made in the article that cloud based companies are more agile than their “old school” counterparts. When asked about the advantages of Google’s cloud services versus those of other major software vendors, Girouard stated that since they are a 100% web company it is easier for them to adapt to the changes in the marketplace as they happen.
This is true for any business. Even a small business can be more nimble than their competitors if they build their business infrastructure in the cloud. Feel free to read the CNNMoney.com article and draw your own conclusions and opinions and post them as a response to this blog post. Would love to hear your thoughts.
The Tech Accountant
Showing posts with label Data Protection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Data Protection. Show all posts
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Monday, November 22, 2010
The New Smart Vault
Cloud vendor SmartVault has come out with some great new features in their update release that are sure to be on the holiday list for small biz owners. Be sure to view the video below to see the new features in action.
I will be testing the new feature this week (since this will be a slow week) and will be sure to post some feedback regarding them. I will say that I am glad to see the product expanding more into other markets and not just the QuickBooks market. Smart....very SmartVault.
The Tech Accountant
I will be testing the new feature this week (since this will be a slow week) and will be sure to post some feedback regarding them. I will say that I am glad to see the product expanding more into other markets and not just the QuickBooks market. Smart....very SmartVault.
The Tech Accountant
Thursday, October 28, 2010
10 Signs Your Small Biz may be ready for the clouds
Cloud computing continues to make inroads into our everyday lives as indicated by many surveys taken recently. That got me wondering if small business owners were also embracing the cloud more for the coming year. There are still quite a few small businesses out there that feel the need to continue to use on premise software for their operations feeling that if it ain’t broke…well you know the rest. The importance of using the cloud finally came to a head when I was recently on an engagement and before I could start to work, I had to update the software. So I came up with a brief list of 10 signs that your small business is ready for the clouds:
1. You receive a CD to load the software
2. You have to go thru a registration/renewal process
3. A new version comes out every year
4. Software has to be updated
5. You have to call tech support for problems
6. You spend time being tech support researching your own problem
7. Support contract expires every 3-4 years
8. Corrupted data issues
9. Desktop has too many version icons
10. Your PC runs slower
Listen to me elaborate a bit more about the list here:
This is just a quick list of things I see when working with clients why the cloud would help them lower their costs, increase productivity and efficiency and let them focus on growing their businesses. If anyone can think of any more or even why a small business owner should stay with on premise software feel free to post a comment to the post.
The Tech Accountant
1. You receive a CD to load the software
2. You have to go thru a registration/renewal process
3. A new version comes out every year
4. Software has to be updated
5. You have to call tech support for problems
6. You spend time being tech support researching your own problem
7. Support contract expires every 3-4 years
8. Corrupted data issues
9. Desktop has too many version icons
10. Your PC runs slower
Listen to me elaborate a bit more about the list here:
This is just a quick list of things I see when working with clients why the cloud would help them lower their costs, increase productivity and efficiency and let them focus on growing their businesses. If anyone can think of any more or even why a small business owner should stay with on premise software feel free to post a comment to the post.
The Tech Accountant
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
A Win for Small Businesses
Not too long ago our friends over at Microsoft released a very robust product called Microsoft Security Essentials, an antivirus product. The cool thing about this release is that the antivirus software is one of the highest rated products on the market and it is a free download. The only downside was that the End User License Agreement (EULA) only allowed for personal use (although I wonder how a sole proprietor with a single computer case would apply to the situation but that’s a whole other topic).
Well Microsoft has in a sense thrown small business owners a bone this month by amending their EULA to allow the software to be used by small businesses with 10 or fewer PC’s. This is a great way for a small business to save money by reducing their technology expenses, become more productive since the software is less of a resource hog on the computer, and protect their PC’s and whatever is on those PC’s.
Here is a video with the details:
When tested the software ran smoothly in the background and did not slow the computer down at any point (like when running scans or updates). There may be a chance that the software is not a good fit for your small business, so be sure to speak to a technology consultant to accurately assess your needs.
The Tech Accountant
Well Microsoft has in a sense thrown small business owners a bone this month by amending their EULA to allow the software to be used by small businesses with 10 or fewer PC’s. This is a great way for a small business to save money by reducing their technology expenses, become more productive since the software is less of a resource hog on the computer, and protect their PC’s and whatever is on those PC’s.
Here is a video with the details:
When tested the software ran smoothly in the background and did not slow the computer down at any point (like when running scans or updates). There may be a chance that the software is not a good fit for your small business, so be sure to speak to a technology consultant to accurately assess your needs.
The Tech Accountant
Monday, June 21, 2010
Using your “INTUITion”
Well one of the worst weeks for Intuit the makers of QuickBooks software is behind them (not without another “outage” on Saturday)and although I did get a chance to read all the comments from various media and social media outlets I will not provide an opinion regarding what happen. I will only provide questions/comments on how Intuit can possibly use their Intuition in the future to create better transparency and show that they actually care about their customers.
According to Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit in a statement from their website:
“I want to share with you what we know at this time about what happened. The disruption occurred during a routine maintenance procedure. An accidental but severe power failure during that procedure affected our primary and backup systems, taking a number of Intuit’s websites and services offline.”
Question Mr. Smith, would your intuition tell you not to setup redundant servers in the same location as your primary server? This is still the main question that is on everyone’s mind.
Some also feel that Intuit did not handle the outage in a manner befitting a large corporation. Specifically many individuals felt that they were left to find out information on their own since calls and e-mails to Intuit only provided canned statements that they were “working on” the problem. Personally from what I saw on social media, there was more “support” there than via taking the corporate route. Again intuition would tell one to handle P/R in a more efficient manner.
Well those are some of the issues that Intuit has to deal with at the present time. All in all their products work for most small businesses owners but as for recommending their cloud based offerings at the present time would require more research. Bottom line….cloud computing is here to stay. Small business owners interested in moving to the clouds should do their due diligence before selecting a cloud vendor.
Be sure to voice your opinion or check out the comments on Intuit’s website.
The Tech Accountant
According to Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit in a statement from their website:
“I want to share with you what we know at this time about what happened. The disruption occurred during a routine maintenance procedure. An accidental but severe power failure during that procedure affected our primary and backup systems, taking a number of Intuit’s websites and services offline.”
Question Mr. Smith, would your intuition tell you not to setup redundant servers in the same location as your primary server? This is still the main question that is on everyone’s mind.
Some also feel that Intuit did not handle the outage in a manner befitting a large corporation. Specifically many individuals felt that they were left to find out information on their own since calls and e-mails to Intuit only provided canned statements that they were “working on” the problem. Personally from what I saw on social media, there was more “support” there than via taking the corporate route. Again intuition would tell one to handle P/R in a more efficient manner.
Well those are some of the issues that Intuit has to deal with at the present time. All in all their products work for most small businesses owners but as for recommending their cloud based offerings at the present time would require more research. Bottom line….cloud computing is here to stay. Small business owners interested in moving to the clouds should do their due diligence before selecting a cloud vendor.
Be sure to voice your opinion or check out the comments on Intuit’s website.
The Tech Accountant
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Intuit and Sage not ready for SaaS?
I was initially going to post a video today about ways to use Sage’s Peachtree small business accounting software for your small business, but their rival Intuit and their problems will put that post to the back burner for awhile. Now back to Intuit’s problems. Today I received an e-mail from Intuit that stated the following:
“I wanted to make you aware that there is currently a large outage in the San Diego Data Center and as a result many of our sites such as Intuit.com, Quickbooks.com, Intuitwebsites.com, Payroll.com, Payments, TurboTax, etc. are down. Intuit is actively working the problem. I'll send out an update when I hear about a resolution.”
The outage is surely affecting millions of small business owners (since QB has the largest share of the small biz market) who can’t have their businesses grind to a halt. The question is when will Intuit have the problem resolved and is this something we can expect from Intuit in the future?
Earlier in the month Sage (the makers of Peachtree) also had an outage of their online systems that affected their e-mail, order entry system and customer relationship management (CRM) software. The outage lasted 22hrs and according to the e-mail that I received they isolated the issue and are working to fix the problem. You can find more information here.
With a vast majority of small business vendors taking their products/services to the clouds (online) via software as a service (SaaS) will these “outages” make small businesses push away from using cloud based solutions?
Feel free to let us know if you are losing time and money due to the Intuit's or Sage's outages.
The Tech Accountant
“I wanted to make you aware that there is currently a large outage in the San Diego Data Center and as a result many of our sites such as Intuit.com, Quickbooks.com, Intuitwebsites.com, Payroll.com, Payments, TurboTax, etc. are down. Intuit is actively working the problem. I'll send out an update when I hear about a resolution.”
The outage is surely affecting millions of small business owners (since QB has the largest share of the small biz market) who can’t have their businesses grind to a halt. The question is when will Intuit have the problem resolved and is this something we can expect from Intuit in the future?
Earlier in the month Sage (the makers of Peachtree) also had an outage of their online systems that affected their e-mail, order entry system and customer relationship management (CRM) software. The outage lasted 22hrs and according to the e-mail that I received they isolated the issue and are working to fix the problem. You can find more information here.
With a vast majority of small business vendors taking their products/services to the clouds (online) via software as a service (SaaS) will these “outages” make small businesses push away from using cloud based solutions?
Feel free to let us know if you are losing time and money due to the Intuit's or Sage's outages.
The Tech Accountant
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Protecting Your Business
According to a recent report by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) occupational fraud continues to be on the rise in the US and countries abroad. The 2010 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud and Abuse provides a wealth of information on workplace crimes, how much they cost businesses and how they were detected. The charts and graphs outlined on this link revealed some surprising statistics:
• Financial statement fraud schemes made up only a small percentage of cases, they were the most costly
• Most fraud perpetrators were from the accounting department
• Anonymous tips were used the most to detect fraud as opposed to audits
So what is a company to do to prevent fraud? One of the most important things to do is to closely monitor your business and keep an eye on all aspects of operations. For small business owners it may be difficult to implement the more traditional control functions (such as separation of duties in the accounting department) but the use of technology can assist the small business owner with controlling fraud. Just recently JP Morgan Chase Bank has released a free fraud protection service for small business account holders that will:
• Control check payments and returns with Reverse Positive Pay
• Keep tabs on your account activity with Security Alerts
• Get Paperless Statements to keep your statements from being intercepted in the mail
Check with your bank to see if they offer similar protection services so that you can make you small business more secure.
The Tech Accountant
• Financial statement fraud schemes made up only a small percentage of cases, they were the most costly
• Most fraud perpetrators were from the accounting department
• Anonymous tips were used the most to detect fraud as opposed to audits
So what is a company to do to prevent fraud? One of the most important things to do is to closely monitor your business and keep an eye on all aspects of operations. For small business owners it may be difficult to implement the more traditional control functions (such as separation of duties in the accounting department) but the use of technology can assist the small business owner with controlling fraud. Just recently JP Morgan Chase Bank has released a free fraud protection service for small business account holders that will:
• Control check payments and returns with Reverse Positive Pay
• Keep tabs on your account activity with Security Alerts
• Get Paperless Statements to keep your statements from being intercepted in the mail
Check with your bank to see if they offer similar protection services so that you can make you small business more secure.
The Tech Accountant
Monday, March 15, 2010
Fire and the Clouds- A Client Story
As many of you out there in blog land know, I am a supporter of using technology to make life a bit easier for myself and my clients. One of the more common technology products that I currently use is a cloud (online) backup and data storage solution. We have been using it for quite some time now and since it has been integrated within my firm’s daily processes, we think nothing of it. At least until recently…
A client of mine had a house fire back in 2009 and is still in the process of putting their life back together. As I met with him and his wife recently, we were all trying to piece back their businesses and personal financial information only to find out that the majority of their statements and contracts were destroyed. Luckily this client was having us scan all of their important financial data since 2004. I was able to pull out my trusty smartphone and login to our data storage and pull up everything we needed to get their taxes completed and provide them copies to recreate their records.
As I was leaving, the client told me that from now on he wanted to have me scan every piece of paper her ever receives. That way he would have no worries.
Just another example of how cloud data storage can save you and your small business. Stop by our website for more information on how you can protect you and your business.
The Tech Accountant
A client of mine had a house fire back in 2009 and is still in the process of putting their life back together. As I met with him and his wife recently, we were all trying to piece back their businesses and personal financial information only to find out that the majority of their statements and contracts were destroyed. Luckily this client was having us scan all of their important financial data since 2004. I was able to pull out my trusty smartphone and login to our data storage and pull up everything we needed to get their taxes completed and provide them copies to recreate their records.
As I was leaving, the client told me that from now on he wanted to have me scan every piece of paper her ever receives. That way he would have no worries.
Just another example of how cloud data storage can save you and your small business. Stop by our website for more information on how you can protect you and your business.
The Tech Accountant
Monday, March 01, 2010
Your Data Can Be Hacked
As I sit in the office starting off my Monday, I overheard an interview on our local news morning show with a gentleman name Greg Evans of Ligatt Security discussing how most computer data is not secure. This got me thinking about how small business owners secure their data and what measures they need to take to ensure that their data is difficult to hack. Mr. Evans did make some very good points regarding how one should go about protecting their data and computers. The first is to ensure that you have spyware and malware detection software loaded on your computer in addition to antivirus software. He also mentioned ensuring that your firewall is enabled as a precaution too.
What really caught my attention in the interview was the following link that was given to check and see if your computers are hacker proof. Be sure to stop by and enter your computer vitals to find out if there are any additional measures you need to take to protect your computer and data. Finally I need to check on a new iPhone app that has been introduced recently that will maybe help protect some of the shortcomings of the iPhone.
Enjoy your week
The Tech Accountant
What really caught my attention in the interview was the following link that was given to check and see if your computers are hacker proof. Be sure to stop by and enter your computer vitals to find out if there are any additional measures you need to take to protect your computer and data. Finally I need to check on a new iPhone app that has been introduced recently that will maybe help protect some of the shortcomings of the iPhone.
Enjoy your week
The Tech Accountant
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