Link:12 Most Requested Features for BPOS (Business Productivity Online Standard Suite) – Put your two cents in – Softpedia.

Can your small business get both affordable professional-class IT service and peace of mind? The secret lies in having a technology services provider handle your technical solutions.
To stay competitive, small businesses must make the most of current technology. But it’s expensive, time-consuming, and inefficient to maintain a full-time IT department like larger companies. A true Professional Technology Services Provider offers on-demand talent, depth of experience, deep resources and huge economies of scale. Here are the top 10 benefits you’ll see.

Benefit #1: Stay Focused On Core Business Functions
People are happiest doing what they do best. And they get frustrated by tasks that distract them from it. Researching solutions, implementing new technology and fixing IT-related problems are extremely inefficient for non-IT professionals. Free up internal staff for revenue-generating functions and the business of business.

Benefit #2: Tap Economies Of Scale And Purchasing Power
Due to a single focus on IT, technology services providers achieve greater efficiencies and economies of scale. They consolidate purchasing power and have access to deep and broad knowledge bases. Using developed best practices, tasks are completed more efficiently than small businesses can do on their own. The means real cost savings– both in time and money.

Benefit #3: Reduce Cost and Control Operating Expenses
The business value of technology services providers results in very hard dollar savings. In almost all cases, small businesses will spend 25% to 50% less than the cost of even one mid-level IT professional. Then take recruiting, training, vacation, sick days, turnover and other management issues out of the equation to see even more savings. Costs are budgeted, predictable and controlled.

Benefit #4: Access Highly Specialized Talent
Small businesses cannot cost effectively achieve the scale and flexibility to properly support their technology environments. Even a very experienced and dedicated IT employee has limits to skills and avenues for help. Professional technology services providers offer access to teams of IT specialists that deliver the cross-sectional IT knowledge needed to provide both on-going and critical support for small business networks.

Benefit #5: Get Services On-Demand
Many small businesses face the challenges of growth and the burden of scaling back. Both cases present a genuine HR problem when relying on in-house IT resources. Small businesses need the agility of just-in-time resources for emergencies and the flexibility to adjust technology support levels. With a professional technology services provider, sudden changes won’t affect the livelihood or morale of employees.

Benefit #6: Help Employees Innovate and Stay Productive
Communication, collaboration, and knowledge sharing allows employees to innovate. These capabilities are delivered through a multitude of technologies including file servers, central databases, broadband connectivity, mobile platforms, email communications, and many others. However, true productivity and business benefit can only be realized when this complex technology is properly planned, implemented and maintained. The best practices and comprehensive experiences around planning, implementing and maintaining such systems allow technology services providers to successfully deliver these productivity improvements.

Benefit #7: Reduce Downtime
Even a few minutes of systems downtime carry enormous business costs. Maximizing uptime must be a high priority. Small businesses can longer afford issues with internet connectivity, email communications, corrupt data or systems failure-the cost of reacting to these events is just too high. Professional technology services providers offer planned, measured approaches to pro-active systems maintenance, security, backup and disaster recovery.

Benefit #8: Get A Technology Edge Over Competitors
Don’t just level the playing field: take advantage of new technologies for a competitive advantage. Technology services providers keep up with the latest solutions through ongoing training and real-world experience. They know how to implement the latest hardware, software, and network applications available. Just as important: they know which technologies are not worth the investment.

Benefit #9: Attract and Retain Employees
Employees want to work in an environment where their computers are up and running. Employees want to be competitive with their rivals and they want the technology tools that really help them deliver. Potential new talent will weigh your company’s technology prowess. Utilizing a professional technology services provider allows small businesses to meet these expectations and increases the ability to attract and retain employees.

Benefit #10: Access Otherwise Unavailable Vendor Support
Access to manufacturers is crucial in effectively supporting complex technology. When available, technology manufacturers traditionally provide basic or unreliable direct end-user support. With a well-established professional technology services provider, small businesses enjoy the benefits of priority access to Microsoft, Cisco and thousands of other technology vendors.

Original article link: http://customsugar.com/small-business/10-reasons-your-small-business-needs-a-technology-services-provider.html

I’ve been working with small business computing and the Internet for nearly 15 years now. I’ve seen many “big things” come and go. Today’s top headlines is simply a regurgitation of yesterday’s news, so nothing really surprises me anymore. So when something takes me by surprise, I get rather surprised myself.

Cloud Computing is one thing that have taken me by surprise in the last few months. The technology behind Cloud Computing is not all that interesting but the impact of Cloud Computing has been breath-taking to say the least.

• Pundits are predicting that 25% of all software are going to be distributed in the “clouds” by 2012.
• Microsoft accepts that the revenue from the cloud offerings are going to surpass their Windows revenue (currently around $15billion worldwide) by 2013.

As you can read for yourself, the impact is huge to say the least. For most of my small business clients, cloud computing represents an opportunity to acquire enterprise-class infrastructure and software that they previously would not have dreamed of. Many of the software that are now available for little more than what you’ll pay for your monthly broadband connection used to cost many tens of thousands of dollars. To give you an example, Microsoft SharePoint, used to be the domain of big business, can now be accessed at around $8/month/user. That’s $80/month for 10 users. That’s a price point that smaller business can contemplate. It’s easy to justify $80/month worth of cost savings resulting from the utilisation of SharePoint, so the investment should be a worthwhile for most businesses, large or small.

Perhaps what’s more surprising than the incredible pricing resulting from the Cloud Computing evolution is the magnitude of investments that technology vendors have made in this area. One particular unnamed vendor, well known for their dominance of the desktop operating system and office productivity suite market, has invested more than $3 billion just in data centres alone. Why would a vendor that has nearly monopolised the desktop operating system and office productivity suite market spend $3 billion in something that will eventually cannibalise it’s own monopoly? This is an interesting question that I’ll leave for another day.

Whether Cloud Computing is going to succeed, only time will tell. The amount of money plunged into Cloud Computing makes it difficult to imagine how it can fail. Succeed or fail, the impact has already been felt. It’s a great time for small business owners to dive in headfirst to take advantage of the incredible savings and opportunities already here.

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