Taking your office to the clouds

Every business requires basic softwares such as an office suite for productivity work, project management tools and backup services.

When it comes to office suite application, there is one name we often associate with and that is Microsoft office. Others in this business include; IBM Lotus, GNOME office, KOffice, OpenOffice and iWork for Apple computers.  A typical office suite component is made up of a Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Presentation program, Email client, Contact Manager and a Database. 

Office Suite - Google Apps

Whiles these applications are very useful, the proprietary suites are often expensive to acquire and that is when the Open source and some free suites become very helpful. If you are looking at streamlining productivity costs on office suites as a small company with flexibility then Google Apps is a must have.

Here are some of the few benefits you can gain from the free version of Google Apps;

• Maximum of 50 accounts
• Messaging in apps
• Real time collaboration / sharing. 
• Integration with more Google Applications
• Enough of storage space
• 24 / 7 access to documents and emails from any location. All you need is a computer with internet access to login to your account to access all your files, mails and photos. 
• Intranet capabilities. 
• Many apps from the App market. Manymoon, which I would be discussing in a bit is one of the many apps available  and installable on your Google Apps account.  Apps from the market makes it easy to centralize and bring some of the applications you are used to on your traditional desktop applications. 
• Efficient, useful and secured
• Good Mobile Interface

If I have done a good job of convincing you to jump to Google Apps, follow this link for a brief tutorials on how to setup your domain on Google Apps, either ways still follow the link to be more convinced. 

Project / Task Management (ManyMoon)

Manymoon is a great app for organizing all your projects and tasks. If you are not happy with your current task / project management tool then give manymoon a try. It is clean and simple to setup. It helps you stay focused on large and complex projects. There is a version for linkedin called Projects and Teamspaces app. It is a a very productive application and helps you know exactly what you want to work on and check off on your to do list whiles having the flexibility to organize your documents associated with daily tasks and integrate with Google Calendar and Docs. 

Setup is quick and painless.

Backup with DropBox

So you now have your office suite setup in the cloud on Google's reliable servers and collaborating with your team on maymoon. You probably have some files you cannot do without anywhere you go provided you cannot share them or upload them on Google Apps. DropBox is an online backup webservice similar to MobileMe which automatically syncs with selected files on your computer. It comes with an app for both Android and the iPhone, making it easier to have access to any of your documents and files any where you go on your smart phone. 

You can sign up  for free on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Mobile