Current Services vs. the Cloud

Small businesses use many different kinds of online services. One-person shops often use free consumer email such as Google Mail or Hotmail. However, by the time you have five or more employees, you will need to better organize your digital assets, so your business might want to invest in file and email services provided by an ISP or Hosted Exchange. Some small businesses choose to purchase a server and host their own services on-premises by using the Microsoft Small Business Server line of products. Others simply piece together the services they need from different instant messaging, online meeting, document collaboration, and messaging providers.

The patchwork quilt of services used by small businesses creates an opportunity for large companies like Microsoft, Google, IBM, and others to offer service suites that unify the services your business needs in key areas. These companies have the funds, scale, expertise, and capital to build, market, and support the infrastructure needed to offer these services on a massive scale. The result is “The Cloud:” a set of core business services offered by trusted names and delivered at a very attractive price.