Tuesday, March 27, 2007 Google Apps for SMEs By Oliver "Blogie" Robillo IT Talks!
MY COLUMN is back in Sun.Star once more! As before, IT Talks! will be a once-weekly affair, coming out every Monday or Tuesday. My more productive writing comes out 2 or 3 times per week on my various blogs. Check out www.robilloblog.com.
Recently, Google Philippines, represented by its country consultant Aileen Apolo, conducted a series of seminars in Davao. Ms. Apolo touched base with local IT professionals, schools and SMEs, from 17 to 20 March 2007. The core of the seminars was on Web marketing.
The seminar for Davao's SMEs was attended by more than 50 people, thanks to the efforts of the Department of Trade and Industry of Region 11. Ms Apolo presented Google's new Web-based service called Google Apps (www.google.com/a). This service allows businesses and organizations to quickly establish their Web presence, plus it comes with functionalities that make online collaboration possible. And these are all offered at no cost.
Let me clarify that. The Google Apps service and functionalities themselves are free. But there are a couple of considerations. First, your company will have to acquire its own domain name. Google Apps lets you do this right within its system, but this isn't free-of-charge. It's US$10 per year. Quite affordable.
Second consideration. While the system is user-friendly, it might seem daunting to the average businessman who has no skills in Web development at all. So, it would be a good idea for your company to retain the services of a webmaster.
Rates vary and there simply isn't a reliable benchmark when it comes to how much webmasters charge. Just make sure that your company receives what you and the webmaster have agreed on at the start. Tip: Ask for a documented timetable that details all, especially what and when the deliverables are.
To give you an idea of what Google Apps can offer your organization, here's a brief overview. Let's say you've registered the domain name mycompany.com. First off, you will be able to host your own Web-based email service (like GMail or Yahoo! Mail), and provide your colleagues, bosses and staff personalized email addresses (like username@mycompany.com). Memory, 2GB per user.
All registered members of your Google-powered website will also have access to personal calendars, plus other people's calendars that have been made public. In effect, a social calendar service. This is similar to Microsoft Outlook. Two more things similar to Microsoft Office are Google Apps's Docs & Spreadsheets.
This functionality will let you share and co-edit documents (Word, Excel, and similar formats), thus promoting productive collaboration within your organization. And if you enable document sharing outside the domain, then you will also be able to collaborate with, say, your clients or suppliers as well.
Of course you will also be able to host your company's Web pages by employing the Google Page Creator. I'm sure that more services and functionalities will be made available by Google in the near future.
In our aim to provide IT tools to Davao's SMEs, DTI 11 and the ICT Cluster are currently planning more seminars related to the one conducted by Google Philippines last 20 March 2007. For updates on this, please bookmark http://ittalks.robilloblog.com.
Oliver "Blogie" Robillo is the chairman of the ICT Cluster, which is under the Economic Development Council-Region 11. He is also a blogger, a Japanese-language instructor, and an IT consultant.
