Google paused from it's fight against becoming a brand name turned generic term like Xerox, Aspirin, and Kleenex long enough to release Google Apps for Your Domain (in beta, of course). The "software as a service" products will come thick and fast now that Google jumped in. They're all trying to catch pioneers like HyperOffice, but this technology eases aggravations for many small businesses. Check out one or more soon.
Corel, the company now in charge of WordPerfect (remember them?) and some other interesting products (Corel Draw) bought WinZip recently and just now bought InterVideo. I'm not sure what they plan to do, but they have a good reputation of selling good products (WordPerfect and Corel Draw) at substantially less money than Microsoft counterparts. I'm always amazed at how reticent Canadian companies seem to be about aggressive PR because they always appear too polite. Believe me, that's not a problem for most American companies and their PR people.
White box PC vendors sometimes include a Corel productivity suite rather than the much more expensive Microsoft Office software. If you have a chance, check them out. Of course, I started using WordPerfect back in 1984, so I'm a bit nostalgic. An IBM PC with a monochrome screen and WordPerfect could write books as fast or faster than a current PC with Windows and Word, I promise. I even remember putting many documents on the same floppy disk as my WordStar program because the IBM XT had yet to arrive with it's enormous 10 Megabyte (not a typo) hard drive.
Back to Small Business Tech Notes
The Bell Tolls For Microsoft
Today Google released a new service named Google Apps for Your Domain. Notice I didn't say software package. Reffering to this new service as a software package would be doing it a disservice.
This is not merely a collection of free software/services that Google is offering. That in itself is pretty nice for small business owners. I owned a small company during the late 1980's through the late 1990's, and I would have loved not having to spend all the money I did on software packages, that were no more functional than what Google is offering now for free. What Google is offering business owners, is the chance to re-think the way they do business, at no financial cost.
How nice would it be to buy "packaged" software, and then get your money back a month later when you discover it really doesn't meet your needs? If you're anything like me, you have a lot of software collecting dust, because it didn't do what you thought it would. Google is offering the chance to try a new business model for free, and if doesn't work, you can always go back to over paying Microsoft for average software.
Every day the web-centric world moves a little further away from the desktop as we know it. Every day Microsoft pretends that they still are a player. Every day the true web players, distance themselves further from the desktop world. The bell tolls a little longer, a little louder, every day. I'm guessing Microsoft can hear the ringing in their ears.
I’m Guessing
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