The Cloud We Use
Posted by Kevin Cearns on Sun, Jul 25, 2010 @ 09:15 AM
We are big proponents of utilizing Cloud services where it makes sense. I thought I'd take the time and list a few of the services we use daily.
These services form the foundation of our business giving us access to collaboration, help desk ticketing, customer and account management, community management, web site and blog administration and hardware/application infrastructure. Any small to medium sized business could utilize some or all of the services to advance their business with leading technology solutions using a no risk, capital free model.
Zimbra
At Entuit Enterprise Solutions Inc. we tend to "eat our own dog food". We provide hosted Zimbra Collaboration Suite services so it's only fitting we utilize it internally for all of our email, contacts and calendaring. We share calendars amongst ourselves and make use of the instant messaging functionality to keep in touch with each other throughout the day.
Google Docs
We use Google Docs for our documents, spreadsheets and presentations. We believe firmly in the web as a platform so living in the browser is a natural extension of ourselves. Google Docs gives us the ability to collaborate in real time on presentations and proposals. As a business that works in a virtual office, it's an invaluable tool for us.
Zendesk
Keeping ahead of issues and providing a timely response to support requests is critical to us. Zendesk provides us with a web based help desk ticketing system and gave us all of the tools we needed in a matter of minutes - as long as it took to create the account. With their web or email based system, coupled with iPhone and Android apps for mobile access, we are able to stay on top of customer support issues from anywhere.
Salesforce
Managing leads, contacts, accounts and opportunities is critical for any business. Salesforce provides us with these tools and much more. Using the Salesforce API and development environment we are able to extend their product to fit our specific needs. We are also able to develop applications outside of their environment utilizing their API to avoid duplicate entry and enhance our custom applications with customer information.
Hubspot
We just started using Hubspot to manage inbound marketing on our web site. We also use it for our blog (you're reading this on the Hubspot engine). Essentially, no leads equals no new business - it's that important.
AWS (Amazon Web Services)
Amazon gives us instant access to pay as you go infrastructure. Need a server, distributed storage or database, it's as easy as logging into your administration console and starting one up. Instant infrastructure with a credit card.
Google App Engine
Slightly different than AWS, Google App Engine provides a platform to deploy custom applications on without worrying about the hardware or network. It scales up and down to meet demand so you only need to focus on providing applications that satisfy yours, or your customers, needs.
Skype
We use Skype for a few things. I use it for making phone calls when I'm at my desk, we also use it for meetings using the video conferencing functionality. Sometimes we'll be on a skype video call editing a proposal in Google Docs - now that's 2010.
Facebook/Twitter
Some would argue these are not really Cloud services but they do provide a platform for application development and service. We have a large Facebook community and we utilize it for some of our advertising. Facebook is a critical way for us to communicate with our customer base. We use Twitter mostly for system status updates but blog and Facebook posts are fed to it as well.
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