This made for a challenging event; how do we clearly demonstrate what it does without patronising those that know?

Well, the programme for the event was quite clearly aimed at those new to it, so we stuck with that…

The feedback was brilliant, in fact we even managed to persuade people to say so on video! Until we edit and publish that, here is some of what was said:

“James is a very consumate presenter. I would be keen to know how Spider used the cloud so that we could see it in action. Next one perhaps. Not a sales event but an opportunity to see how it can benefit an organisation”. (Rob Hook, The Business CoPilot)

“Just a quick thank you for yesterday’s Cloud session – It was really well organised and enjoyable.” (Catrin MacDonnell, The Accelerator Sessions )

“I really enjoyed yesterday.  I really warmed to James and I think he did a brilliant job of what was an incredibly difficult task: Presenting to an audience with such an extreme range of understanding of the cloud.” (Susie Newman Turner, Design Rock)

To view the full presentation, you can check it out on Slide Share:

Cloud computing for my business

At the end of last month Amazon had errors with it’s connectivity which affected other websites such as Foursquare & Reddit. Amazon have since blamed ‘Human error’ but this comes too late to prevent arousing fears toward the Cloud.

To top it off, Sony went and had a massive security breach, whereby 77 million users had their personal details and even credit card details jeopardised by hackers.

It seems there are massive lessons to be learned in terms of the Cloud and proves that businesses should be aware but not afraid. Simply be sure of the following:

• That you trust your provider
• That your provider has a recovery system in place
• That you are fully aware of how and where your data is stored

Although it has put a slightly murky Cloud above Cloud Computing, it has by no means destroyed the overall reputation. The silver lining in fact is an appeal toward Cloud services belonging to smaller company’s: Those that you can actually speak to; those who have a more personal approach when it comes to the Cloud.

Firstly it is still in Beta testing mode – this means you have no service level agreement with Google. They can take the whole system down without warning, meaning guess what…..none of your staff can work! They also state in the terms and conditions when you signup that they cannot guarantee the safety of your data and are free to use your data for marketing purposes if they please. Brilliant!

Once you are in, you’re locked in - People for years have complained that they are locked into Microsoft’s software stack. Well if you start using Google Apps you’re now in a similar situation! Any smart company should put in place a plan for the future. What if you come to realise you didn’t want to host your application on the Google App Engine anymore? Good luck, almost everything you are given access to is proprietary — that means all your data is locked into a format that isn’t like a traditional relational database. This could turn into a disaster for your business if you rely on a custom built app.

It’s free right? Errr…. - Well, ok so for a small business the attraction of a free suite of office applications and a way to stay your documents and collaborate with clients/colleagues can be very tempting. However what happens when something goes wrong? Do you think Google has a call centre full of support staff to help? Well the answer is NO. You can pay more for additional support but this was supposed to be free right? Check out this genuine response to a support request;

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to send us your message. This is an
auto-response with admin support resources. You won’t receive a response
from a member of our team.

To learn more about Google Apps, please visit the Help Center at
http://www.google.com/support/a, or by clicking ‘Help’ in your control
panel.

Many administrators are also finding quick and accurate information from
the Google Apps Help Discussion at http://groups.google.com/group/hosted.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

Thanks for that oh wonderful Google. Choosing a ‘Cloud’ IT provider like www.spidergroup.com means you have dedicated support staff waiting to fix any problem you might encounter. You get a defined service level agreement and the knowledge that you are as important as the next client, and will never be ignored!

Some of Google’s problems already;

http://www.macworld.com/article/57017/2007/03/googleapps.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/130187/google_apps_gmail_faces_downtime_problems.html