Life after Facebook

As a Google Apps user I was keen to try out Google Plus (G+ from here on) and felt frustrated that I as a paying customer had been left behind.


So a little over a week ago when Vic Gundotra threw the switch that opened the doors to another 40 million G+ users I was on it like a tramp on chips and am pleased to say it has been a great pleasure to use it. Every day.


Of course there is still that 'new social media' smell, and the number of photos I've uploaded barely number and dozen; but i really think this is where its at, at least for me.

Constant Improvements

One major benefit of 'cloud Computing' is the constant improvements. Traditional software improves only when you buy a new version, cloud computing though is radically different. its centralised nature allows for easy updating, keeping all users on the same version - e.g. the latest and greatest. 

This is very obvious with Google Chromebooks for instance. Regular incremental updates mean improved performance, usability and features and this really becomes noticable over a period of time.


The same can be said of Zoho's suite of online products and services. They are always getting tweaked, altered and improved.  A great benefit of this approach is that user feature requests that really add value can be implemented sooner rather than at the next release cycle.


Here are some recent Zoho improvements:


Zoho CRM:
Google Calendar/Contacts Sync for Zoho CRM Individual users
Zoho CRM for Google makes it easier for your business to collaborate, communicate and share information, all in one centralized place. If you are using Zoho  CRM with your Google email address, your Calendar and Contacts are all conveniently available in the same place.


Zoho Creator:
Build Order Forms, Increase Sales: Zoho Creator Payment Module
With the help of this module, users can set up a payment gateway using their PayPal account. Once this gateway is set up, users can build a variety of applications that involve collecting payments, donations, etc.

Zoho Creator - Zoho CRM Integration

Zoho Reports:

Conditional Formatting

Newly added Conditional formatting feature allows you to highlight cells of a column with different background color and font color to make them easily identifiable and unique. In conditional formatting, you have to specify the required conditions/criteria for formatting. When data in a cell meets the condition, Zoho Reports applies the corresponding formatting style that you have specified.


When did your software last improve?


Undoubtedly your business or enterprise uses mainstream or bespoke software. If you haven't yet evaluated the possibilities of replacing this software with an on-line version then may I suggest you give it some thought?


Many find they save money and acheive better performance with modern software built for today's connected world, especially when collaboration and sharing are important.


Don't feel too protective of these systems and software packages. They are NOT your business. Your products, services and customer experiences are the most important thing.

Zoho Creator as Middleware

So..., Credible Systems have been using the Zoho suite of tools now for about 2 and a half years. In that time we've seen a huge amount of improvement. Each app has grown in ability, with new features and usability improvements coming at regular intervals. Functionality is richer, deeper. Additionally the good people at Zoho have been digging tunnels sideways to connect many more applications, both with each other and with the ever present Google Apps.

This inter-connectedness, this integration has been beneficial for our customers and ourselves. Several of our internal applications now use data that is consumed by up to 3 Zoho services.


Why is this important?  Consider...

• The most common data held by a business relates to its customers (e.g. CRM)
• CRM data is (should be) clean, validated and regularly updated.
• Organisations perform various tasks and actions outside of CRM every day.
• Many of these are suitable for moving to Zoho Creator (simple yet unique)
• Each of these activities could benefit hugely from being related to CRM data.

Add value to existing business activities

Zoho Integration - Case Study

Integration means new possibilities

Skip straight to the case study here:


Zoho CRM customers keep all their account and contact information in one place. This makes adding new Potentials, Quotes, Invoices etc a breeze. As it should. This is best practice for many organisations.

So what happens when you need to do something unrelated to CRM tasks but want to tap into that CRM data silo because its verified, current and related to your everyday business activities?

e.g. You may have specific account management tasks that are performed based on variable criteria such as Quality control checks at periods that vary on a customer by customer basis.

Some Great Chrome Web Apps

I'm new to Chromebooks, as are most of us, but I am not new to Chrome and as such I am very familiar with the Chrome Web Store. More and more it is becoming my go to place for extending the functionality of the browser in my personal war on local storage.

Not that the Chromebook doesn't have some local storage, it does. (The fast SSD hard drive is 16Gb and it also supports SD cards and USB drives.) But my aim is to wean myself off it as much as possible. Less local data means more mobility and lower hardware requirements.

So here are a couple of my favourite Web Apps with more to come as I discover them

1. Kindle cloudreader

Read all your Kindle books in the browser thanks to good ole HTML5. Kindle is available on a variety of platforms and devices including IOS. Recently Apple decided in their way (read stupid) that they would demand 30% of all 'In-App' purchases that users make on the platform. This would have had the effect of increasing costs for customers or lowering profits publishers and authors... Sort of like a Troll under a bridge asking for payment...anyhoo...

Local Storage - Weaning myself off it.

World Wide Everthing

Most of my work is web based. The balance has shifted in the last 18 months from desktop work being the majority and I would bet all the money in my pocket right now that yours has shifted towards the web as well. Unless that is you are a heavy AutoCad user, in which case I have just lost £1.26. (I never said it was a lot of money)

This week the web as we know it turned 20 years old. And it certainly seems to have grown up. So what better time to evaluate the notion of a web centric life. My email, office and all my line of business apps are now all web based. Google Apps working in tandem with Zoho CRM, Zoho Reports and several bespoke Credible Systems applications written on Zoho Creator platform are pretty much all I need.

Samsung 3G Chromebook

The last step is to try doing all this on a device that embraces the web completely. Yep, a Chromebook, a device that doesn't just embrace the web, but gets down and dirty with it from the get go.

My friend Alex at Nerds-Central has been trying one on for size and has been pretty impressed. My old clunker of a laptop has failed me several times in the last week so I ordered one yesterday and it arrived today. This post is being written on it as I type.

First impressions are...lovely keyboard, good screen, and so easy my mum could use it. Scratch that, my dog could use this.

Highlights:

• Incredible boot time - typically 6-8 seconds
• Super simple set up, all my faves/passwords/apps were waiting for me.
• Instant on from standby
• Web focused keyboard with special keyboard functions

Lowlights:

• Still trying to overcome the urge to minimize and see my desktop
• No SIM in the box!

I went for a 3G enabled Samsung Chromebook in manly grey rather than a girlish white. Whilst I don't have a SIM for it (There should be a free SIM from Three with 3Gb of data allowance) I will tether this from my Nexus 1 Android phone until I really need anything else.

Three are doing a SIM only deal with data only (no voice) for £5.11/month providing 2Gb/month. Plenty I should think as this will mostly get used on my office wi-fi.

More to come....much more.

Musical Inspiration for Application Development

A darkened room, classical music
and buckets of tea please...

I do a lot of application development on the Zoho Creator platform. I've created a few simple applications that collect data from users in the manner of a feedback form.

The majority however are much more complex. At the moment I am working on two projects that integrate data across two platforms and contain a strong reporting element requiring integration with Zoho's Business Intelligence platform Zoho Reports

Featured Zoho Partner

As a Zoho partner for over 2 years I've created numerous applications for my clients using the web development platform of Zoho Creator. Apps for all sorts of uses, some simple, yet unique for my clients and some more generic, yet far more complex. Credible Systems uses a handful of these to help us run the business too. We eat our own dog food so to speak.

Recent advances in Zoho integration have allowed a new dynamic to these apps though. The integration between ZohoCRM and Zoho Creator allows us to easily build apps that expose and use CRM data. YOUR customers, YOUR contacts, YOUR opportunities.

This work recently culminated in a Zoho Case study. More details here: http://bit.ly/n6ziWu

Integration V's features

The comparison between on premises software (traditional) and cloud computing (emerging/maturing) are made on a variety of levels, with a primary element being cost.

The ROI of any technology is always far more than the price on the box. One needs to factor in the costs of administration, servicing, security, backup, training, availability, customisation and heck, the list is loooong.

Just hold that list in mind a moment and digest a comment made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the 2011 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference...

For every $1 Microsoft makes on its software, partners make $8.70 in additional revenue servicing and customizing these products

Raju Vegesna at Zoho summed this up very succinctly.

"If integration costs more than software it is a bug, not a feature."

With close to 30 products offered Zoho obviously understands the value of integration. Early products were developed and the effort seemed to be on digging deeper and deeper to make very full featured standalone products.

Zoho Creator - in House?

Zoho Creator is a Platform as a Service. (PasS) It allows people like me and you to create forms driven database applications with relative ease and access them via a browser.

Even better, sprinkle lightly with Zoho's Deluge script and the addition of logic and workflow transforms the app from data collection to a workflow driven tool that can solve many unique business problems.

Until now this has only been available via a subscription from Zoho. Many people, myself included have asked for either a Zoho device or a version of Zoho that will run behind a company firewall.

Well according to a post by the Zoho Creator team on Facebook today that might be happening.

Why the cloud?

When weighing up the decision of moving to Google Apps or an other cloud based solution it is worth remembering the changes seen during the industrial revolution. From the 18th to the 19th century, this revolution saw a tide of inventiveness and social change that left no part of the UK untouched before sweeping over the USA, Europe and many other distant lands.

New industries were forged and in their inception they tried to do or own all their subsequent processes. Manufacturers creating products required power, and sought the only solution available to them. They built their own power-plants that serviced their own factories.

Early steam and belt driven motors

TCO - with the emphasis on 'Total'

The TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of your IT equipment should be calculated so as to include the skills of any resource required to keep it up and running. If you leave this out then it is only PCO, partial cost of ownership.

If you run your email on an internal Exchange server or similar system then you need to factor in the cost of having those skills on hand. Emergencies can and will happen as this recent post on the tech website 'The Register' shows. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/18/microsoft_exchange_eseutil_recovery/

Email downtime is a terrible thing and can have a real impact on business, especially those involving multiple locations. Whilst web based email solutions aren't perfect, Google has an uptime for Gmail of 99.99% and proudly boasts 0% planned maintenance.

The skills required to administer and maintain Microsoft's Exchange Server don't come cheap, and are even more expensive if you have to buy them in to fix a specific problem on an ad-hoc basis.

Have you thought about how your organisation would function without its email systems for a day? or a week?

So when your current email system is up for replacement or upgrade remember to factor in the costs of the skills required to keep it up and running. Google provides a rough and ready cost comparison tool here. All figures are in $ but just substitute your local currency of choice and it will give you a close estimate.

Old browsers: Taking a stand.

Yes IE6, this means you!

Browsers are becoming more and more important to our on-line world. (So much so that Google have recently launched a browser based Operating system.) There was a time however when nearly all of us used internet Explorer to browse the web.

Yes, back in July 2003 IE6 held more than 98% of the browser market. That comforting blue 'e' would take us where we wanted to go. So much so that it formed a backbone of Microsoft advertising for the browser and even its wider products. Businesses loved IE6 and took to it in droves...and amazingly some still use it. Despite the hate campaigns of http://www.bringdownie6.com/ and http://www.ie6nomore.com/; and even the more subtle, humourous approach of http://www.saveie6.com people did stick with it. Heck even Microsoft admitted it had more security holes than a colander and had grown since its launch in 2001 to be 'more patch than browser'.

Consumerization + cloud = ?

con·sum·er·ize   
[kuhn-soo-muh-rahyz]
–verb (used with object), -ized, -iz·ing.

1. To make (goods or a product) suitable or available for mass consumption: to consumerize computers by making them cheaper.
   
2. To encourage or foster the widespread consumption of (goods or a product).

Essentially consumerization is where products aimed at the private consumer market make their presence felt in the corporate world. Often more powerful and yet cheaper as well, these devices end up crossing the boundary into the business landscape.

My first experience of this was seeing my old boss return form a a foreign business trip with a shiny new toy - A Palm Pilot. ( If this means nothing to you, check it out at the museum. )

Why consider cloud computing?

A poll I saw today on LinkedIn today was asking respondents for to select the main reason for considering a cloud productivity solution. Interestingly this was Sponsored by Microsoft:

This piqued my curiosity as I know what the drivers are for myself and most of my customers - its always cost! £$!

I realise that, mired as we are in the middle of a deep recession,  that is hardly a deduction that would make Sherlock Holmes brow bead with sweat.

Indeed the result of the poll so far (image only as a LinkedIn account is required to view) bear this out:

However what intrigues me is that once the initial cost savings are accepted they soon become secondary to other benefits that would fall under the second most popular option. 'Ability to get advanced functionality'. 

"Come for the savings - stay for the fringe benefits"

The warm fuzzy feeling of having battled the evil forces of operating costs and come out on top like some sort of Conan the Barbarian fades quickly and the mind looks at more ethereal benefits, namely easier and more advanced collaboration.

To work on a document or spreadsheet concurrently, giving little or no thought to the process is manna from heaven and a feeling that hangs around longer than the quick win of saving some moolah.

Then out of the blue, without so much as a 'by your leave' and certainly no install or invoice the software sprouts some new feature, widget or tool that make life easier. 

'It just arrived one day when I logged in' is something I hear a lot about. Its also something that makes consulting around any cloud suite of tools a challenge. The speed of involvement, especially with productivity tools is insane.

So where do you sit on that first question? If you have already transitioned to a cloud based productivity app is 'Cost Reductions' still the most important reason for staying in the cloud?

Zoho Reports - Don't let your Business Intelligence become a monster

If you own or run a business you will be creating data in some form or another. Hopefully, there are customers, and profits as well, but data will be there pretty much from the first sale you make.


If your business is small, or just getting off the ground then the sales and the customers are your number one priority right? Without them you don't even have a business right? The information behind those sales, whatever that may be, is of seemingly low importance right now, after all a small business makes demands on you. Those customers don't just walk in and empty their wallets. That pipeline won't just fill itself...no, it's a full time job.


But if your business begins to grow you will soon reach a point where you are faced with problem of understanding where those sales came from, how much they cost you to achieve, where your successes came from and what didn't work along the way. So what's your option at this point? And where is the data?

Share and Share Alike

Amongst the list of benefits for Cloud Computing solutions you will always find 'Collaboration'. People have been sharing and collaborating for years but it's rarely been efficient. Here is a quick run down of collaboration techniques and technologies through history.

And no, its not meant to be a concise guide...I have deliberately omitted telepathy, smoke-signals and those rare times when we hear voices in our heads.

Google Chromebooks - Gamechangers?

ChromeOS is a web only OS developed by Google as an alternative to Windows/Apple offerings. Its been developed over the last 2 years or so but does it have what it takes to change the way we approach computing?

Well Google certainly thinks so. At Google I/O 2011 they announced they are partnering with Samsung and Acer for the hardware and will be releasing 2 Chromebooks on June 15th across the US, UK and other major European markets.

The New 'Normal'

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer talks about the phrase – ‘The New Normal’ in his most recent executive email. The ‘New normal’ equates to the new economy and social baseline since the economy went down the toilet last year. People are generally spending less, saving more and being more cautious. He then follows by saying

I believe the new normal requires a new kind of efficiency built on technology innovations that enable businesses and organizations to simultaneously drive cost savings, improve productivity, and speed innovation.

No really? I am pretty sure that if I picked almost any press release at random from Microsoft in the last 10 years that these phrases in one guise or another would come wheedling out of the woodwork.