How Do You Know if You Are Cloud Ready?

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We understand the Google Apps may not be the best fit for all companies, but the solution is certainly worthy of serious consideration.   For most businesses, however, the question is really “Are YOU Cloud Ready?”

Being Cloud Ready is more than a willingness or desire to move IT infrastructure services, such as email, into cloud-based services.  You need to assess how the cloud solution will work for you.  Beyond the basics of email, calendar, and contacts, this means you should understand the following …

  • Does the cloud solution fit with your business processes and usage patterns?  Or, will users need to change how they use these applications?
  • Can you estimate how many users should see productivity gains by moving to the cloud solution?
  • Can you calculate and compare accurate Total Cost of Ownership estimates for your current systems and your cloud solutions?
  • Do you understand how many of your users rely on basic features versus your power users?
  • Do you have usage patterns that add could complexity to your migration if not identified in the planning phase?

Fortunately, answering these and other questions is getting easier as new tools come to market.

We have partnered with Exoprise to offer CloudReady RAPID and CloudReady PRO assessment services for MS Exchange environments.  With a non-intrusive analysis tool and expert analysis, we can provide you with the data and information you need to understand if you are ready to move from MS Exchange to Google Apps.

If you want to know more, please email me directly.

Is Cloud Connect Enough?

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Let’s face it.  While Google Docs offers decent web-based office productivity tools, you and some of your users need or want to keep the interface and features of MS Office.  The good news is that you can integrate MS Office and Google Docs to create a collaborative file service.  Google Cloud Connect, a free utility with Google Apps, is one such integration tool.  But, is it enough?

In our assessment, Cloud Connect provides basic integration, but lacks features that will give your users the full power of Google Docs as a collaboration platform.  Here is what we find lacking:

  • Automation Overdrive:  On installation, all MS Office documents will be added to Google Docs with automatic synchronization.  It is too easy to end up synchronizing files that you do not want or need to be in the cloud.
  • No Format Options:  Cloud Connect always uploads files in native MS Office formats, utilizing valuable space.  Users do not have the option to convert to Google Docs’ formats to take advantage of the unlimited storage.
  • No Collections:  All files are synchronized to your Home folder; you don’t have the option of selecting other locations.
  • Limited Permissions:   Documents inherit the rights of the Home collection, and you can add/change collaborators individually to files.  Since you cannot save files to other collections, you cannot take advantage of the permissions capabilities of Google Docs.
  • Site-Less:  You cannot synchronize files to Google Sites, so you do not have the ability to use all available storage and you cannot take advantage of the version control features in Sites.

Fortunately, you have some options.   Our favorite is OffiSync Premium.  In addition to providing all of the features lacking on Cloud Connect, OffiSync Premium lets you add/remove Google Docs collections and Google Site pages, email collaborators, and embed image and web search results … all from within a toolbar/ribbon in MS Word, Excel, or Powerpoint.  Also, OffiSync Premium gives you co-authoring collaboration across versions of MS Office, including 2003, 2007, and 2010.

Businesses Go from Ground to Cloud in 30 Days

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Nationally recognized cloud solutions provider Horizon Info Services announced a new program for helping small and mid-size business move into cloud computing with less risk and at lower costs. Horizon’s FasTrack Services provide rapid deployment of Google Apps for Business for companies with up to 250 employees, giving companies quick access to the integrated suite of email, calendar, and collaboration tools. Depending on each customer’s needs, Horizon helps customers through setup, migration, and user education, completing deployments in 1 to 5 weeks.

“For businesses with IT staff looking to move to the cloud, we offer the expertise needed for a quick, successful migration,” stated Allen Falcon, CEO of Horizon. “We nearly eliminate the learning curve, transferring knowledge and minimizing risk.”

FasTrack services provide customers with a project kick-off meeting and a customized, best-practice project plan, technical guidance and assistance throughout the project, status calls and updates, and template user communications. Core FasTrack Services are fixed-price, offering savings over most per-user and full service options.

“We also offer a many value add services and technologies,” notes Falcon. “These solutions facilitate data migrations, improve integration between Google Apps and existing technologies, and, most importantly, enhance the end users’ experience using Google Apps”

Businesses can learn more about Horizon’s FasTrack Services at a dedicated web site, http://fastrack.horizoninfoservices.com. Companies that complete the 12 minute assessment will receive a free analysis of their potential migration to Google Apps.

Horizon Info Services Expands Nationally

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Mid-South Office Expands Sales Network

WESTBOROUGH, MA – January 12, 2011 – Horizon Info Services, LLC (“Horizon”) announced today the official opening of the company’s first remote office.  Located near Austin, Texas, Horizon’s Mid-South office expands Horizon’s ability to reach and support small and mid-size businesses nationally.  Carol Gwynn-Adams, a former Google Enterprise Account Executive, will manage the new office.

“Horizon currently services small and mid-size businesses in nearly every state, including Alaska and Hawaii, and in more than half a dozen other countries from England to Australia,” notes Allen Falcon, CEO of Horizon.  “Expansion of our sales team with regional offices is a natural progression and complements our existing sales partner program.”

Initially, the Mid-South office is focusing on sales of Google Apps for Business and Google Postini Services.  The office will start offering other services, including web security and online backup services, later this quarter.

Google Postini Service Update: 6:20 PM ET

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For our customers, mail flow for Google Postini Services has been “normal” since about 3:25 this afternoon. A short while ago, the Message Center and System Administration consoles came back online.


The Postini service will continue to add deferred messages to the stream of messages being process and delivered in real-time. While we have no official word about how long it will take to forward all of the deferred messages, we expect the process will take several hours.

We will continue to monitor the process and post updates as appropriate.

We certainly understand the frustration and pain that accompanies email service disruptions. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Share with Groups!

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In a recent enhancement to sharing in Google Apps, you can now share documents for viewing or editing by Group. This feature makes sharing with project teams, customer teams, or large numbers of individuals faster and easier.

Group sharing is works with:

  • Docs (documents, spreadsheets, and presentations)
  • Sites
  • Video

To learn how, Click Here.

To learn more about how to improvide sharing and collaboration, Click Here.

Google Postini Service Update: 3:00PM ET

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Google Postini Services continue to experience mail flow problems. Mail flow rates continue to swing between Normal and Critical this afternoon.


Horizon’s customers site on Postini’s “System 7”, which is now operating out of secondary data centers. This shift should improve mail flow as the systems forward deferred messages.

A status update posted at 2:40 PM ET indicates significant progress in improving mail processing.
Note: During this time, messages may be deferred or queued, but no messages will be lost, deleted or bounced. Mail processing may also be directed to the secondary data center at times.

Given the nature of the incident, we expect mail flow performance will continue to fluctuate until the issue is fully resolved and the backlog of email is delivered.

We will continue to post updates as they become available.


Google Postini Service Update

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12:45 PM ET

Some users are still experiencing intermittent delays in email delivery through Google Postini Services. Currently, mail flow is at near normal levels. Emails will still be delayed as the service forwards queued and deferred messages.
Given the “fast/slow” nature of this event, we expect that mail flow rates may continue to fluctuate this afternoon. We will post another update as information comes in.

Manage Email Retention With or Without an Archive

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With 25GB of inbox space for each user, managing space is rarely an issue. Company policies related to records retention, however, often create a need to enforce retention policies on email messages.

In Google Apps Premier Edition, you can not set a retention period for email. Once set, Gmail will automatically permanently delete all email messages older than the retention period.

If you want or need to limit user retention of emails, but need to retain corporate access to messages for legal or compliance reasons, we can add Google Message Discovery to your Google Apps service.

Google Message Discovery is an email archive/recovery/e-discovery service that offers secure, audited archives of all messages sent or delivered for up to 10 years. Message Discovery also works with most any in-house email system.

Click Here to learn more about Google Message Discovery or to view a product data sheet (PDF format).

Google Calendars: Group Invites

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Google Calendars now let you invite groups.

To invite a group to your event:

  • Simply enter the group name under ‘Guests’ in your Google Calendar invitation.