As the infographic shows, the UK economy has been losing up to 1.2 billion a day during the current bad weather as up to 1/5th of the workforce has been unable to get to work. Over half of all these workers have no access to their work systems or the ability to work from home using systems such as Microsoft BPOS or Microsoft Office 365. The price of provisioning such systems has been prohibitive in the past but with a Cloud IT System the provision would be automatically available and with added communication facilities such as Web Conferencing meaning you can reschedule meetings online whilst trapped in your home.
Gmail For Exchange
Google are introducing an email continuity option for users of Microsoft Exchange Server – the service will work only with Exchange 2003 and 2007. This is an interesting move on behalf of Google/Postini as when the exchange server goes down, users will be introduced to Gmail’s interface – thus making this a move which Google must be hoping will help Google partners move to Google Apps. In some ways it seems to me that they have come up with the perfect pilot scheme and the fact that its available for 2003 and 2007 users only is probably as much by design as anything else. Those who are running Exchange 2010 would have upgraded in the not too distant past and it would be fair to assume were receiving a more reliable service as a result. Google is sensible to target those who’s Exchange systems are older and, on the whole, less reliable.
Google Apps for Government win GSA contract
It has recently been announced in the US that Google Apps for Government have won another major contract. In a blog which reminded me of news that I used to get on my pager many years ago (I do still miss the headline delivery of news which made me sound more interesting and on the ball when sitting in the pub), a dailyator blog reports (and this is the whole thing!): “The United States General Services Administration (GSA) is moving 17,000 employees and contractors to Google Apps for Government, reportedly replacing their use of several different versions of IBM’s Lotus Notes and Domino Software. Microsoft isn’t thrilled.”
