Cloud Apps for Microbusinesses

I've spoken at a couple of networking meetings recently about how small businesses can use Cloud software to make dramatic improvements in the way they manage their information. My rather stretched analogy is: "The difference between a diamond and a lump of coal is just a matter of arrangement".

The idea is that if you think of your business information like carbon atoms, which arrangement would you prefer? The right software can help you manage your business information better, and Cloud software puts some extremely powerful functionality into the hands of very small businesses. So here's a quick, non-exhaustive introduction to a few tools you might find useful.

But first...

What is The Cloud

Diagrams of computer networks always used a cloud shape to represent the internet. As web and internet based systems started to develop, marketers wanted a good term to describe the new paradigm. So was born a marketing buzzword...

The Cloud is a way of delivering computing where you connect remotely to an online service. In the 70s, computers were massive mainframes, accessed with a 'dumb terminal' which stored nothing and did no processing, it just sent and received data. During the 80s and 90s, things moved towards PCs on the desktop, which run programs and store data. Since the likes of Hotmail launched in the late 90s, move has been back to dumb terminals, i.e. web browsers where all the data is stored remotely.

Benefits of Cloud

• easy to access and use, from anywhere across different devices
• easy to collaborate with remote colleagues
• backup and business continuity built in
• pay for what you use, as you use it, OpEx not CapEx (some services are free)
• data security

Drawbacks

• if you have no internet, you have a problem, although this can be mitigated with backup internet connections (such as a wireless dongle or mobile phone), and with apps which make their data available offline
• be careful with security - consider location of data (especially in regulated industries), who might have access to your data

Examples of Cloud applications for business

The following tools are ones I've either used personally or have been recommended to me. They are particularly suited to 'microbusinesses' and many are available free or at minimal cost.

• IMAP email, which your hosting provider will supply, which allows you to synchronise your email program on your computer or mobile with a server, meaning that messages that you read on your PC also appear as read on your phone
• GMail - the contacts module will sync with mobile devices and your desktop email program (Outlook, Thunderbird, MacMail etc)
• Google Calendar - syncs with mobile devices and desktop email, and you can share calendars with co-workers, associates, family members etc
• Google Docs / Google Drive - great for working collaboratively on documents, spreadsheets and presentations
• Dropbox - file synchronisation between computers and website, allows you to share documents with others quickly and easily
• Microsoft LiveDrive - similar service to Dropbox and Google Drive
• ToodleDo - great web-based to do list with notebook, based on Getting Things Done methodology. Syncs with mobile devices
• EverNote - advanced web/desktop/mobile notebook app
• Feng Office - web based project management and collaboration application
• Xero and AccountsPortal - web based, easy to use accountancy software
• Nuvola CRM - watch this space!
• Skype - great for collaboration but also can be used to provide a business landline phone number

What to do next

• Think about what information you have in your business that is disorganised
• How could you organise that information better?
• What sort of tools would you need to help you do it?
• Check out the above tools and services, some of them will almost certainly help you
• Read my book (which is aimed at business people, not techies) for more information.

Thoughts from TechTalks 4

This week, I went along to the fourth TechTalks event, hosted in Bristol by SpiderGroup, a local cloud solutions company. The event combines business networking with talks on how changes in technology are affecting the way we live and do business, and are well worth going along to even if you aren't technical.

Two of the speakers presented very contrasting views on the impact technology is having on society. Javier Marti (@javiermarti) focused on the ability of technology to allow us to share information anywhere with anyone and to access and analyse massive amounts of data. This, he argued, makes the world a more free and open place - this is also the view of the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and one I agree with.

Vipul Patel (@socialspaice) meanwhile concentrated on the demands that technology is placing on the planet's resources. He pointed out that each kilogram of tech product produces 8.5kg of (mostly toxic) waste, that 5 million people were killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a war over control of valuable minerals essential to the tech industry (not to mention the use of rape as a weapon of war), that we use 35% more resources each year than the planet can actually provide. This is with only half our population having access to the latest gadgets!

Both of these presenters were right, and it was fascinating that none of the questions at the end were directed to Vipul Patel, but mostly to the (also fascinating) talk given on the story of Xero by MD Gary Turner (@garyturner). Is this because the audience didn't want to address the uncomfortable issues Vipul raised?

Certainly, our consumer-driven society has led to technology manufacturers adopting a two year (or less) product lifespan, and we are driven to be constantly upgrading to the latest and best version of everything. Part of the blame must lie with our own behaviour, but when mobile phones begin to break down after 18 months and our providers offer us a free upgrade is it any wonder we don't think about where those raw materials have come from?

Like Javier Marti, I am passionate about the benefits that technology can bring to society. But we need to find a way of bringing about those benefits without increasing harm to the planet, and while using technology as a lever to decrease inequality, not increase it.

Where do we start? Perhaps by forcing manufacturers to design products that last, maybe by requiring 3 or 5 year warranties on tech goods, or preventing mobile phone companies subsidising handset sales. Let's face it, most of us want the latest phone, camera, computer, MP3 player or whatever and with the best will in the world behaviour isn't going to change overnight, so maybe this is where legislation can help.

Anyway, gotta go, need to call my mobile operator about an upgrade...

The ZX Spectrum is 30!

So today, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum turns 30. Apart from making me feel my age, this seems like quite a milestone because I, like many others in the UK software industry, learnt to program by messing around with that little black box.

The machine was designed to keep cost to a minimum, and also to allow people to write their own programs very quickly and simply. When you switched the machine on, you got a flashing cursor which you could instantly use to start writing a program and electrical stores were constantly filled with screens where some spotty kid (like me) had gone and typed in variants of:

10 PRINT "James woz ere"

20 GOTO 10

Computer magazines in the 80s came with programs you could type in (it was only later that they started sticking a cassette to the front so you could bypass the typing), and even if you were just in it for the games you had to type a BASIC command, LOAD "", to get going.

In 2012, we have computers several times more powerful than a Spectrum in each of our credit cards, and our desktop computers have around 100,000 times more memory. It would take about 100 Spectrums just to hold a single 4 minute MP3. And yet, we are completely dependent on stuff other people have built. Gone are the days when the curious kid could open their Christmas present and within 10 minutes be making it say rude things about their siblings in flashing letters. I suspect that for my children and most of their peers, the first computer they actually own will be a cheap Android tablet or an iPod Touch. Fantastic machines of course, but to even begin to program them you need to hook them up to a desktop machine on which you've installed a development environment. Not exactly conducive to casual tinkering is it?

If we want, as a nation, to stay near the forefront of software as it becomes all-pervasive, rather than just consume the stuff as we do with many other things, we need to find a way of inspiring children to program. It's great to see projects such as the Raspberry Pi, and a recognition within government that ICT in schools needs to be about more than learning to use Word and Excel. But as parents, we also need to do our bit.

I've written code since the age of 10 so it's easy for me to get excited about it. As with anything where you create something from nothing, from painting to house-building to cooking to engineering, programming is fantastically rewarding because you are making something which no one has made before. It also requires and encourages you to be both analytical and creative at the same time, things I certainly want to encourage in my own kids.

So, with this in mind, here are a couple of useful links:
Scratch, kids' programming language
Alice, "an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation..."
This book for kids (and adults!) who want to learn to program

It's great to see that my generation who grew up with their Spectrums (yes and the C64, BBC Micro and so on as well) is beginning to realise that in the search for usability we've lost something along the way and is beginning to do something about it.

Reform patents for the modern world

I've blogged about this before I know, but this article outlining how a patent troll is now exhorting taxpayers' money from US transit authorities really shows how broken the patent system is, especially in the USA but also elsewhere.

So, here are my three proposals to make it better. I'm sure no one will act on any of them, but it makes me feel better to post them online!

1. Exclude Patent Trolls
This is the most important, and will stop people buying up patents cheaply (from liquidations for example) and then making money off them without contributing anything to the wider economy. The way to do it is that if you create a new patent, you have 3 years to bring a product to market before the patent lapses. If you buy a patent from someone else, you have 18 months. If you bought the patent then you cannot claim compensation for patent infringement until you have brought a product to market.

This would still protect innovators by giving them ample time to bring a product to market to validate their patent, but immediately shut out those who only have patents for the purposes of extracting money from others.

2. Narrow the scope of what can be patented
You should not be able to patent an idea, only a way of implementing it. Or to put it another way, you should only be able to patent algorithms or mechanical/technical solutions, not the way they might look. So Amazon would not be able to patent one-click purchases per se, only the way of implementing them. But Dyson would be able to patent its cyclone technology. It would also prevent the ridiculous situation like where one of the biggest beneficiaries of the success of Android smartphones is Microsoft, due to patent claims, despite their historical hostility to and attempts to undermine its Linux/open source foundations.

3. Put a limit on the revenue you can generate from a patent before it becomes unenforceable
This is probably more controversial and difficult to implement, but my argument is that a company of the size of Apple or Samsung should be competing on its ability to innovate and produce designs that consumers want quicker then it's competitors, and that it should not be able to lock others out because it has a patent for a rectangular computing device based on touch input. The patent wars these companies fight mean higher prices for consumers and they make it much harder for smaller companies to enter the market.

Anyone really have any objections to this? I think the only people who stand to lose are intellectual property lawyers and patent trolls.

Mobile Web Apps

Nuvola has been doing some interesting work recently with mobile web applications, and thought I'd share some of the benefits we're helping our clients see from this approach.

Firstly, I'm talking here about business software rather than mobile websites aimed at consumers, although mobile websites are certainly a growth area which I'll be blogging about in the near future no doubt. But this article is about how to use mobile web applications to enable field staff to keep up to date, and most importantly keep the rest of the business up to date on what they are doing.

Today, we launched version 2 of a mobile web application for our long standing client, AzteQ Solutions. AzteQ does IT maintenance and installation, one of whose largest customers provides point of sale services to retailers - they subcontract their installation and maintenance to AzteQ.

Previously, Nuvola had built a solution where engineers received and accepted job details by SMS, but the new mobile app takes things one step further. It provides full features to accept and close jobs, and to log movements of stock. Basically it puts the full power of AzteQ's job management system literally in the hands of engineers in the field - I guess it's pretty obvious how beneficial that can be in terms of operational efficiency.

But the really interesting thing about this is that because it is a web application, it really doesn't matter what sort of smartphone the engineer has, and there is no installation or maintenance of the device necessary - just a URL. It has all the security measures in place for a traditional web app, and it can also be used easily by subcontractors without having to supply them with expensive equipment. We used the jQuery Mobile framework to build it, which gives you the easy look and feel of an iPhone or Android app, but as a set of web pages that are a natural part of their existing system.

For me, this really is the way forward in terms of mobile development. But of course the one drawback is that it only works if you have an internet connection, and this is why the other mobile web app we're working on is really exciting. It will allow engineers for another field service business to take readings when they're in plant rooms and the like with no mobile coverage, and then sync them back to a main server where anything out of the ordinary can automatically be flagged back to the customer. All from just a URL sent to their smartphones.

With some mobile field service systems selling at well over £1000 per handset (and that's before you've bought software and services), it's great that there is now a real way of bringing some of this functionality within the reach of the smaller business.

Insurance of the virtual kind

I was having a very interesting conversation with my hosting partner, Dudobi, a couple of weeks ago about how some of the stuff they're doing now around cloud and virtual services can be really beneficial to SMEs.

One of the things that I found really interesting is virualised disaster recovery, which admittedly sounds like something from a Stephen Spielberg movie, but is actually far more mundane. The idea behind disaster recovery (DR) is that if your office burns down (for example), you have an alternative location where you can decamp en masse and fire up desktop computers and servers which have a copy of your data and installations and carry on as normal.

Sounds like the sort of 'insurance policy' every business should have, but in reality the cost is prohibitive to smaller companies. Also it doesn't really help when people are stuck in the snow outside their homes! This is where virtualised DR is such a great concept. The idea is the you set up virtual servers which have a copy of your business information, and virtual desktop computers which have all of the software you use. Then you turn them off, just doing some low-cost regular data replication. As they aren't physical machines, they cost very little to have switched off.

Then the disaster happens, which could be something nasty like fire, theft or flood, or something mundane like the British inability to deal with snow. Rather than the business stopping, one call to the hosting company and your virtual DR is brought online. Your employees then just have to connect to them from their home PCs, and away you go.

Why this is so good is that you pay a charge to set everything up, and then a small annual cost (a few hundred pounds) to store the virtual machines and keep the data up to date. And then you pay by the hour when you have to use them.

This is another great example of how cloud computing is bringing some of the technological benefits that were previously only available to really big companies to those with as few as five or ten staff. And that has to be a good thing.

January Blues?

I thought it was really time, now that we're well into January, that I wrote some ramblings on my thoughts for 2012. Apparently this is the most depressing week of the year, so I'll try to be a bit more positive!

One of the really exciting things from my perspective is that a lot of commentators are predicting that this will be the year when Cloud Computing really takes off. 2011 I guess was the time where it entered the mainstream consciousness, so will 2012 see everyone moving their business systems to The Cloud?

Well, here's the thing. There is still a lot of scepticism out there around whether putting all of your key business information systems in a data centre somewhere is a sensible thing to do. The worry is that if your internet connection goes down, you lose access to everything. If you have a server in your office and you lose access to the internet, you can still open documents, schedule jobs etc. Not only that, but you need fast internet for things to work.

Well now this is true, and certainly for those with unreliable or slow internet connections (which is still quite a problem in rural areas), it would certainly be a worry. But for the rest of us, network speeds are improving and BT's rollout of their 21CN (21st Century Network) is leading to a national broadband network that is much more reliable and fault tolerant. When did your internet last go down, and how long for?

The other concern is often cost, because people compare the cost of a hosted office server, for example, with a bit of physical kit in their office and in some cases find the hosted option costs more. These costs are coming down of course, and you should also be considering what exactly you need. The benefit of a Cloud server is that you should be able to pay just for what you use, rather than having a whole powerful machine sitting idle most of the time. So it's up to hosting companies and consultants like me to help our customers make the right choices.

Also never underestimate the value of not having to worry about things like backup, and being able to access everything from anywhere if you can't get to your office. I was recently talking to our hosting partner, Dudobi, about virtual disaster recovery sites. While traditionally having a DR solution meant having real hardware and desks on standby at prohibitive costs, you can now have your data sync'd to a virtual backup server, with virtual desktop computers ready to be brought online for staff forced to work from home or serviced offices. Since you're really only paying for storage and a little data sync (which is pretty cheap), this can work out at just a few hundred pounds a year, and then an hourly charge if you have to use it.

So I think it's very exciting that these facilities are within the reach of even very small businesses, and I do think that 2012 will be the year where business people start to see the benefits from them.

I am optimistic then. And yes, it's cold and grey now, but in a few weeks the daffodils will start coming out and we'll all start to feel like spring!