Mobile Office Available Now Thanks to Cloud (Commentary)

We live in interesting times. As I write this, I’m sitting in a coffee shop and connected to the Internet. I have my work e-mail available both on my iPhone and my laptop. There’s nothing I need an office for today. Everything I need is here with me.

This particular coffee shop, like most coffee shops, offers free wireless. For many people, the coffee shops around Northwest Arkansas serve as office locations. People have meetings with potential customers or work on projects. Yet they stay connected with everyone in their world.

This morning on the radio the notion of free wireless being available nationwide was being discussed. It seems the transition to digital TV has opened up the huge band of “spectrum,” as it is called, that once was busy carrying TV signals. Now that this spectrum is available, businesses are making plans on how to fill it up with high-speed wireless Internet services. While I’m certain this won’t be free in most cases, it will certainly be something that many people will find affordable.

Affordable, reliable Internet connectivity is changing the way businesses can operate.

I’m writing this column on the Internet-based Google Apps word processing tool. I could be writing it on Microsoft Word, but I’m weaning myself off Microsoft desktop applications. As a long time spreadsheet user, I can’t quite imagine leaving Microsoft Excel, but I’ve managed to leave Word and PowerPoint quite easily.

In fact, my company, Accio.US, has left Microsoft Exchange for Google Premiere. For our purposes, we’ve recreated the environment we had previously in Exchange. I don’t know that it is for everyone, but it works for us.

To stretch matters even further, we are selling our Cisco Voice over Internet Protocol phone system and transitioning to an Internet-based hosted voice system that will fit the way we do business better.

My goals are very simple. If I have Internet connectivity, I’ll have my complete office. Actually, other than the phone system, I’ve been operating this way for years now.

Additionally, I want Accio.US to be a model in the use of “cloud computing” and non-Microsoft products. The technology phrase is, “Eat your own dog food.”

The benefit I like best about this mode of operation is that it saves me money.

I realize this mode of operation is not for everybody, but it does fit a lot of businesses. With wireless connectivity becoming more available, it will fit many more businesses in the near future.

In the technology business there is something called the “FUD factor.” Fear.  Uncertainty. Doubt. Information technology professionals once expressed by the saying, “No one gets fired for choosing IBM.”

Today’s version of the “FUD factor” is the saying that, “Microsoft is really the only game in town.” Choose anything else and you are in danger of being on the “bleeding edge.” Even if you step out too early and install new releases of Microsoft software you might be in danger of being on the “bleeding edge.”

Obviously, no on wants to be on the “bleeding edge.” It sounds like a painful and messy place to be.

But today, small- and mid-sized businesses are much more likely to buy their computers from Dell, Hewlett Packard or perhaps even Best Buy than they are from IBM. Things do change.

Large numbers of small- and mid-sized businesses are moving to Hosted Exchange or Google Apps. Huge Fortune 100 companies are migrating to Google Apps.

Businesses in need of new phone systems are taking a much harder look at hosted VoiP systems.

As more applications are being delivered via web-browser, more and more businesses are re-examining the need for Microsoft on the desktop.

While these ideas may seem radical, they actually are on the verge of becoming mainstream.

Why? What is really going on?

Businesses are fighting through the “FUD factor” and taking advantage of opportunities to lower their up-front technology spend and on-going cost structure while maintaining or improving the quality of their business applications.

Interesting times provide for interesting opportunities for businesses that are paying attention and willing to brave change.

Steve Hankins is CEO and co-founder of Accio.US, a technology company providing advisory and management services for small- to medium-sized businesses. He may be reached at [email protected].