As I become more familiar with the features and settings of Googlemail [or gmail as it should now be known in the UK], I begin to realise just what an advance it represents over traditional email clients like Outlook – especially for the small business user.
Business owners have changed their dependencies drastically in the last few years – in the past folks relied heavily on paper filing systems, a telephone and a diary or Filofax system – these days if you were to ask a business owner ‘what are the most important business tools you use daily?’ he or she would probably say, Email and Mobile Phone!
When it comes to email, we’re all used to using the trail of sent and received messages on our computers as a source of easy reference, and the email address book is taken for granted – it’s the first place we look to find a contact. But what happens when your hard disk drive fails?
Notice I use the phrase ‘WHEN’ your hard disk fails, it isn’t ever a case of ‘if ever’ – its always when! Hard drives are mechanical and as such they will all fail eventually – despite having great reliability rates – Don’t forget that your most critical information is stored on a 3.5 inch wide, metal box that’s full of whirring bits and pieces!
Gmail solves this issue – and many more – all your emails and all your contacts are safely stored on the Google servers, with fully redundant back up servers – not only can you take your email with you wherever you go, you never have to worry about backing up your messages or your address book again.
Gmail is available as apersonal email account for single users or as part of the Google Apps package for business users:
One point that is often overlooked, and is the only downside to Gmail as far as I can see – there is no simple way to upgrade from a personal Gmail account to a Google Apps account – Imports and Transfers can be done but they are time consuming and rely on a fair amount of human intervention.
Life is much easier if you decide which system suits you from the outset!
Gmail for an indivdual user is a fantastic step up from traditional email clients – but Google apps offers many more features to the business user – including the ability to send all your mail via your own domain name in the style of me@mydomain.com
If you’re seriously looking at Gmail and are in business at any level, I suggest taking the Google Apps option right from the start, it’s not expensive and will repay the inital investment many times over. it’s somewhat trickier to get set up, but is full of potential for the future – with new add ons and applications being developed every day. Accounting, CRM and project management modules are available that integrate seamlessly with the dat already stored in your Google account and there are thousands of new applications being developed.
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