PointStar's posterous http://pointstar.posterous.com Most recent posts at PointStar's posterous posterous.com Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:09:14 -0700 Open Cloud Manifesto http://pointstar.posterous.com/open-cloud-manifesto http://pointstar.posterous.com/open-cloud-manifesto We've just thrown in our support for the Open Cloud Manifesto.

http://opencloudmanifesto.org/supporters.htm

We believe that the cloud should be open and interoperable.

As with any newly emerging area of technology, systems always begin as proprietary.

We hope that over time there will be inter-connectivity amongst the various players such that switching costs can be lowered and the industry can continue to throw up more competitive offerings.

Please support the Open Cloud Manifesto if this is in your interest.

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Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:15:00 -0700 The Top 10 Reasons To Outsource Your Enterprise Email To Gmail Now http://pointstar.posterous.com/the-top-10-reasons-to-outsourc http://pointstar.posterous.com/the-top-10-reasons-to-outsourc
David Berlind of The Information Week expressed his top 10 reasons why you should outsource your enterprise email to Gmail now! He even threw in a bonus reason!

The Top 10 Reasons To Outsource Your Enterprise Email To Gmail Now

1. Your e-mail domain: Contrary to what many believe, when an organization embraces Gmail as its corporate e-mail solution, everyone in that organization gets to to keep their existing e-mail address. In other words, they don't have to accept a new address that's something like davidberlind@gmail.com.

In order to keep your existing e-mail addresses, your organization must become a subscriber to Google Apps.

2. Who said "Ain't nuthin' for free"? There are two primary Google Apps offerings: Standard and Premier (Google also has special offerings for educational institutions, nonprofits, and ISPs). The Standard Edition (what I call GASE) is free. The Premier Edition (GAPE) costs $50 per user per year. Here is a chart that compares the two offerings.

  • Millions of businesses can make do with the free version. Yes, the free version comes with advertising, but the ads are relatively unobtrusive and living with them in exchange for getting a free service is worth the trade-off. Users of GASE get more than 7 GB of storage (25 GB for GAPE users). Providing that sort of e-mail storage to users (many of whom would kill to have it) is inconceivable to most organizations because of the time, effort, and gear required to keep such a storage infrastructure up, running, fault-tolerant, and backed up.

  • Even at $50 per user per year, most organizations will find that subscribing to Google Apps just for its e-mail and group calendaring compares favorably with the total cost of running any in-sourced solution (people, gear, software, add-ons for backup, mobility, etc.). Ask your CFO. What would s/he prefer (particularly in tough economic times where staffing levels are constantly in flux?)? An annual cost, some component of which must be written down and some of which may go to waste during downsizing cycles? Or subscription costs that hit the books differently (and more predictably) and that bypass the care and feeding associated with the people, gear, and software that are necessary to keep those in-sourced systems running?

3. "No way. You get that, too?" I'm hearing more and more about knowledge workers who, in lieu of the officially sanctioned Office Suite, use Google Docs (mainly word processing and spreadsheets, but sometimes presentations, too) to effectively collaborate on some document first. Once that document is complete, they must begrudgingly move it into the officially sanctioned legacy solution that requires local software to open the document and, in many cases, requires that the document be inefficiently passed around as an e-mail attachment (that constantly has to be stored locally, attached, and detached).

That was a round-about way of saying that for the same free price or $50 per user per year, you get an Office Suite, too -- one that will likely satisfy 99% of users 99% of the time. Never mind that those documents are accessible from almost anywhere and to almost any device because they're Web-based (see point #8).

To sweeten the deal, that Office Suite has collaboration so baked-in that there's no checking-out and checking-in of documents or additional infrastructure (servers, software, experts, etc.) that must be added to the equation to fudge collaboration. With Google Apps, when two or more people are looking at the same document at the same time, they can see the changes that everyone is making, in real time (you can also see who else is viewing and editing the document). Whenever people actually experience this for the first time, they usually have that "ah hah moment." It's sort of like "Where has this been my whole life?"

4. Hands-free upgrades and patches: OK, I'm lying. I was going to write that neither you nor your users will have to lift a finger to take advantage of the lastest bug fix or new "release" of the service.

But the truth is that, effectively, you may end up lifting a finger. For example, if at 11:59, you're using the "old" version of Google Apps, and at 12:00, Google updates the Google Apps codebase, your browser will inherit that new codebase the next time you refresh the page (finger required) or Gmail's Ajax-based code does it for you (no finger required).

No downloads are necessary. No regression testing of patches to make sure they're not going to destabilize your desktops. No checking up on all your desktops to make sure they received and installed the latest patch. No reboots. No deskside visits. And this doesn't even take into account the patch/upgrade cycle for your e-mail servers.

In the bigger scheme of total cost of ownership, you probably don't have a dollar-value assigned to this "line-item" since, technically, it's a soft-dollar cost. It's hard to pinpoint the real cost. But given the comparative complexity and number of potential points where things can go wrong when upgrading desktops and servers, companies need to ask themselves whether the additional value they're sure they're getting by insourcing their e-mail systems is worth the headaches associated with maintaining them.

In the case of Gmail (and I'm sure other cloud-based services, but I know this to be true of Gmail), Google has engineers that are monitoring the health of the application 24/7. Behind the scenes, Gmail traps the problems that are encountered by users and, depending on the criticality of the bug, a fix can be made (and pushed to the user base) within hours if need be. So, not only can bugs be dealt with by the solution provider in a matter of hours, applying the fix generally requires a click of the refresh button (and sometimes, not even that).

5. Great anti-spam at no additional cost: So bad is the spam problem that it has spawned an entire industry of solutions that companies must go out and buy (read: pay extra for) in order to have the industrial strength anti-spam police on your side.

Or, with Google Apps (and even standalone Gmail), you can get the industrial strength stuff for free (it's also included in the $50 per user per month package). Part of an anti-spam system's effectiveness lies in its all-seeing, all-knowing capability. The more e-mail an e-mail server sees, the better the odds are that it will spot the spam. For example, if you were the Gmail server (yes, I know people cannot be servers, but play along with me on this one), you would see a lot of e-mail passing through you; far more than if you were the e-mail server for one company. The more e-mail you see, the more you get to see how many copies of the same e-mail are going out to the world and who is sending those e-mails.

I'm greatly oversimplifying what happens behind Google anti-spam curtains. But to help you understand the importance of this one technique alone, consider this: The providers of other expensive commercial anti-spam systems use the number of customer installations and the fact that they get to analyze a lot of e-mail across all those installations as a selling point.

6. Break the chains that have bound you: Forgetting for a moment that we're talking about Gmail and Google Apps here. If there's one thing that we've learned from any of the major Web-based e-mail operators, it's that the Web is truly the great desktop platform playing field leveler.

Once you move to a Web-based e-mail system like Gmail, everyone, regardless of platform, gets the same user interface in such a way that it's one major step toward not just the sort of platform independence that your users should be entitled to, but also the sort of platform independence that your entire company should be entitled to because of the way it lowers the barrier to switching. Hence, moving to Web-based applications helps to break chains that deserve to be broken.

Finally (on this point, #6), keep in mind that most major e-mail systems that you'd insource have Web interfaces as well. So, there's that option as well. But Gmail's ability to go offline (point #9) without requiring anything more than the Gears plug-in (available for Firefox, IE, and Safari) should give you pause for thought.

7. Go mobile without the BS: I took some liberties there. I'm referring to the Blackberry Server (normally known as BES or BlackBerry Enterprise Server). The market for smartphone platforms that, one way or another, end up getting connected to corporate e-mail systems is crowded and is only going to get worse.

But even with some brilliant competition in the market, the BlackBerry platform is still king of the corporate hill. The only problem is that integrating it with the prevailing enterprise e-mail systems costs extra. For example, according to Research in Motion's Web site, if you were to go out today and add a BlackBerry Enterprise Server to your system for 101 users, the cost would be $2,999 (for the BES with one client license) plus $5,999 (for an additional 100 client licenses). That's approximately $89 per user, which is $39 more than the total cost per user per year for the Premier Edition of Google Apps itself.

Right now, you're saying "But David, you're comparing apples and oranges! The licensing terms are different for shrink-wrapped software than they are for subscription services!" Fair point. But consider this; like a lot of shrink-wrapped software, there's an additional fee for support. How much? It's not entirely clear because RIM doesn't publish the pricing for its five different levels of support the way it publishes the retail pricing for its servers and client license fees. But I did find a reseller's price sheet for the third level of support.

Meanwhile, to get Google Apps Gmail (and Calendar) on a BlackBerry, Google offers a free download. Updates to Google's BlackBerry software are free as well. Google charges no additional support fees. For $50 per user per year, Google includes 24/7 support (listed on the bottom of this page).

Just as important, though, going back to my last point (#6) about breaking the chains that deserve to be broken, you don't necessarily need a download to read your Gmail on a mobile device. Provided the mobile device has a robust-enough Web platform, Gmail's mobile Web interface gets the job done.

8. Any time. Anywhere. Pretty much any device: Given the other points that were listed already, maybe this point goes without saying. But then again, it's such a powerful point that it deserves to be listed separately in the top 10. Since becoming a Google Apps convert, I can't tell you how many times I have checked my mail from a device other than my own.

In fairness, before I moved to Google Apps, I was able to do this with my corporate e-mail account because it was available through Outlook Web Access (a.k.a. OWA).

But the question IT departments need to ask themselves is whether they want to be responsible for providing and supporting a Web interface to the enterprise e-mail system at whatever expense it ends up costing (in hard and soft dollars). Or, would they rather that a reputable provider be on the hook for providing the service. Keep in mind that Google isn't the only company that offers hosted Web-based e-mail using your domain. Microsoft offers a service called Exchange Online starting at $10 per user per month and even though it's more expensive than Google Apps, it will still be worth it in the long run to let Microsoft instead of you worry about running your e-mail systems.

9. They (the Google Engineers) pulled a rabbit out of their hat: Dating back to May 2006 when Sun's Francois Orsini was showing off JavaDB, I have very publicly been an optimist about the idea that, one day, someone would figure out how to make browser-based applications work offline. Plenty of people told me I was dreaming. They said it couldn't be done and that the offline problem (aka "the airplane problem") will always hold browser-based applications at bay.

If that's the case, then will someone please wake me up? Because, if I'm not mistaken, Gmail can now be accessed offline from the comfort of my browser (Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer all supported). If you haven't tried this, here's a ScreenCast that shows how easy it is to set up (text continued below the screencast):

I'll concede that right now, the offline functionality is currently in an experimental mode (Google calls these experimental features "Labs") and that it lacks one very important capability to some -- the ability to attach a file to an e-mail while working offine. The problem is easily worked around.

But, for an experimental feature, it works pretty darn good. Good enough that I've finally been able to give up my installation of Outlook (that ran on a Windows Vista-based virtual machine using VMware's Fusion). The only reason I had that copy of Outlook set up was so that I do integrated e-mail and calendaring while working offline (and in a way that both my e-mails and my appointments synced back to my Google Apps-based Gmail and Calendar).

10. Gmail account aggregation. We all have them -- those personal e-mail accounts that we use for personal business. The ones that we send our friends to because we know that those accounts may actually survive the e-mail address that's associated with our current job. Many people use regular Gmail for those accounts. But what many people don't know is that Gmail can be configured so that not only can all mail flowing through all of your Gmail accounts be funneled to one in-box, but from that one in-box, you also can send outbound mail from any one of those accounts.

The net net is that you can have a whole bunch of Gmail and Google Apps accounts. But to check them, or send mail from them, you only need to login to one of them. This is a killer feature that's hard to appreciate until you've actually experienced it.

Bonus Point #11. Google's Labs: Useful. Fun. As mentioned earlier, a "Lab" is Google's parlance for experimental feature. Some Labs are graduated into full-blown features. Others are decommissioned and never make it to the big leagues. Gmail's Offline Lab will very likely graduate to a production feature of Gmail.

One point the Labs really drive home is point #4 (the one about the hands-free upgrades). Technically, these aren't upgrades. They're sort of like plug-ins or add-ons. The only difference is that they're basically a radio-button away from being added to your Gmail account. When you think about what it would take to have similar functionality for locally installed shrink-wrapped software, having Labs takes all the complexity out of trying out new features and then either keeping them or leaving them behind.

Perhaps just as important is how the entire idea behind Labs draws the users of Gmail into the conversation about the technology. With previous generations of software, the idea that vendors would promote an open and public dialog with engineers was ridiculous. A suggestion box was practically unheard of. But, for every Lab that Google makes available to Gmail users, there's also an associated Google Group threaded discussion area where users of the Labs can comment on them, interact with the engineers, and suggest other useful Labs.

At last count, there were more than 35 Labs that, with the click of a radio button, could be added into any Gmail user's user experience. In addition to the offline functionality, there are Labs for rearranging Gmail's layout, creating canned responses, adding a task list to Gmail, adding keyboard shortcuts, the now infamous Mail Goggles, and, going back to Top Ten Point #10, there's a Lab for looking at multiple in-boxes simultaneously (if you'd rather not funnel them all into one).

Some Labs are incredibly useful. The Canned Response Lab is one of my favorites. I've created about 6 canned responses and they've increased my productivity because of how much faster re-usage of text allows me to respond to certain e-mails. There's another Lab that embeds access to Google Documents directly into the Gmail interface (very cool) and another one of my all-time favorites is the addition of a Send & Archive button that sends an e-mail and archives it (takes it out of your in-box) in one fell swoop (OK, guys, now give me a Send & Delete button and you're really talkin!).

But in addition to some of the more productive Labs, there are some that are just fun. For example, a random signature Lab that randomly picks famous quotes to append to the end of your e-mails. Or, the Old Snakey Lab that diverts you to a game of "Snake" when you could use a diversion. There's also a texting Lab that lets you text any phone in the United States without having to leave the Gmail interface.

No doubt, more labs will be on the way. For example, Gmail has an autocomplete feature for adding e-mail addresses to the TO:, CC:, and BCC: fields. Unfortunately, it doesn't work if all you can remember about someone's e-mail address is their domain (eg: techweb.com). So, I'd love to see a Lab that enhances the autocomplete feature in such a way that I only need to enter the domain name.

And, for that additional functionality that might never show up as a Lab, some of it may actually already be available from third parties who've created a library of paid add-ons that you can enhance Google Apps with.

Conclusion
If you've made it this far, then clearly, you're interested enough to give the idea some consideration. If that's all you do, it's a step in the right direction. Google Apps isn't for everybody. But, if you ask me, it's very worthy of a great many businesses who so far haven't given it much thought, if any at all.


Click here to read more about this article

Contact our sales department to outsource your enterprise email to Gmail now!

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Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:01:01 -0700 A Very Simple Explanation of Google AdWords System by Google's Economist http://pointstar.posterous.com/a-very-simple-explanation-of-g http://pointstar.posterous.com/a-very-simple-explanation-of-g Check out this video for a very simple explanation of how AdWords works:

Haha, it's like a high-school lecture.

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Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:18:49 -0700 Justin Lee's press mention in Today's Straits Time Article "Fly To Conferences, Now It's Via Video" http://pointstar.posterous.com/justin-lees-press-mention-in-t http://pointstar.posterous.com/justin-lees-press-mention-in-t Justin, our co-founder of PointStar, was interview by The Straits Times today to comment on conferencing applications that could help companies cut cost.

In trying times like these, he suggested companies should adopt free applications such as Google Video Chat to conduct business discussions with their partners or clients overseas.

He understands that traveling can get very disruptive, having to adjust to time and cultural differences.  Hence, he strongly advocates integrated tools such as Google Video Chat that seamlessly function across time and geographical locations.

Click on the link below to learn more about cost saving conferencing applications.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13205740/12Mar-ST-Fly-to-Conferences-Now-Its-Via-Video

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Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:54:25 -0800 SalesForce Delivers Over $1B of revenue last year despite crisis http://pointstar.posterous.com/salesforce-delivers-over-1b-of http://pointstar.posterous.com/salesforce-delivers-over-1b-of http://mis-asia.com/news/articles/cloud-computings-billion-dollar-success

It looks like cloud services are beginning to hit mainstream. With SalesForce pushing past the critical billion dollar sales mark, it signals that the market is now treating it seriously.

In Singapore for a company annual sales ‘kick off’, Lindsey Armstrong, Salesforce.com's executive vice president for international enterprise sales, said that cloud computing was now mainstream.

Indeed, as evidenced by what Armstrong shared, cloud services are relatively quick and painless to implement. Why bother with the headaches of massive deployments when simple cloud based deployments are much more manageable?

Armstrong said satisfied customers were Salesforce’s best salespeople � “one successful customer will tell 10 of its friends” - and CIOs usual found that the cloud services outperformed what they could do on-premise. The current banking crisis made it even more compelling for Asia Pacific enterprises to investigate innovative technologies.

She said, on average Salesforce customers enjoyed a 17 per cent profit margin improvement, their customer win rate goes up 27 per cent, and customer retention, key in this economy, on average increased by 30 per cent. Productivity, she said, went up 36 per cent. The average cloud project took two to six weeks to go live.

IT managers in this era need to seriously consider the time cost of implementing their IT services and cloud based services are looking really compelling due mainly to the lower TCO and easy rollout. What's more the "non-adaptable" perception of such services is no longer true with the likes of platforms as a service (i.e. Force.com) providing a market place for third-party services and even hosting them in the cloud.

Now on our end, we hope that Google Enterprise's collaboration SalesForce will really help it to yield improvements on the platform especially in the direction of a thriving market place for 3rd party services.

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Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:30:06 -0800 Migrating 3,000 Exchange Users to Google Apps http://pointstar.posterous.com/migrating-3000-exchange-users-0 http://pointstar.posterous.com/migrating-3000-exchange-users-0 The latest case study from the Google Enterprise team is out:

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Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:28:53 -0800 Hello World http://pointstar.posterous.com/hello-world-572 http://pointstar.posterous.com/hello-world-572 Hello

World

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Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:18:32 -0800 Welcome! http://pointstar.posterous.com/welcome-382 http://pointstar.posterous.com/welcome-382 To our blog

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