A great solution to consider for content management in the cloud is Google Apps . If you are not familiar with this service, Google Apps includes document creation and collaboration (as well as email, calendaring, video chat and more) for a flat $50 a year charge per user. You’d be amazed to see the huge number of businesses, governments and educational institutions that have moved to Google Apps. The District of Columbia, City of Los Angeles , the New York and Oregon state school systems and Konica Minolta US are among many organizations that have made this move. The value proposition of consolidating email, calendaring, chat and document collaboration under one service for just $50.00 per user per year is an easy way to save some IT expense. With Google Apps, you can certainly author and collaborate on new documents in the cloud
At CloudShare , we use tools like Chatter, Zendesk, and Google Apps to try and cut down as much as possible. Chatter has created a social stream like Facebook; Zendesk allows us to track and respond to support queries; and Google Apps is our chosen platform for instant messaging and collaboration
If you were starting a business today for example, would you invest in servers and licenses, or sign up for a Google apps account? Organizations around the world are moving to services like Google Apps and Office 365 to liberate themselves from thick client applications and on-premise email hosting
(BTW, I am using “private cloud” in terms of someone signing up for and using a Google Apps type site using their own name and perhaps paying for it with their own personal credit card.)
I can see a startup using Google Apps, Salesforce.com, and other apps to get started quickly with a minimum investment
Vendors need to plan for access via mobile devices, and strategize around making the mobile user experience as solid as say, the Google app on the iphone
By now, you are probably aware of Google Apps, Microsoft OneDrive, Salesforce and the other big names
It works on top of Google Apps, which turned out to be very convenient – users can select, mix and match existing information from various documents / web pages without the need to re-enter it again
In the last year we’ve embraced Box.net, Google Apps, Batchbook, and even built our own apps in the Amazon cloud; all with great success