A cost effective, feature rich, and painless alternative to Microsoft Exchange Server has proven to be Google Apps. With over 2 million businesses already running Google Apps, we have implemented it for our organization and encourage our clients to do so as well.

Features & Benefits:

Gmail for business Touting 100 milion+ users, Gmail is a great option for email. 25GB storage, the best spam protection, 99.9% uptime SLA, and enhanced email security.  Benefits: Email and chat with contacts, large storage size (7.5 GB and counting…), great spam filter, and automatically saves drafts of emails every minute.

Google Calendar Agenda management, scheduling, shared online calendars and mobile calendar sync. Benefits: Access your calendar anywhere, share calendar with others, set up email reminders, drag and drop events, comment on other people’s events, and access offline.

Google Docs Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations allow you to work online without attachments. Benefits: You can upload files, email files, or create files within Google Docs, that can be saved in multiple formats, and automatically to prevent data loss. The best part is that it can be edited by multiple users simultaneously and saved with a revision history for multiple revision collaboration.

Google Groups User-created groups providing mailing lists, easy content sharing, and searchable archives. Communicate and share more easily with Google Groups. Benefits: Google Groups can be used as mailing lists and to share calendars, docs, sites, and videos easily with co-workers.

Google Video Private, secure, hosted video sharing. Google-hosted video solution saves you time and money. Benefits: Google securely hosts and streams your videos, so employees don’t need to share videos over email, or burden IT with a complex on-site video solution.

Google Talk Instant messaging and VOIP client. Benefits: Integrated with Gmail, voice and video chat, can be used as a local desktop application all with voicemail, and file-sharing

Picasa Organize and edit digital photos. Benefits: Very easy, use tags and keywords, keeps backup of original file, face recognition, and geotagging.

Google Sketchup 3D modeling program for civil engineers, architects, etc. Benefits: Easier to use than other 3D CAD programs, place models in Google Earth, interact with item in a 3D world, export as image, and allows you to upgrade to pro for more options.

Advantages:

Accessible anywhere – No longer will you be tied down to a particular computer. Any computer that has the internet can access your email, documents, and calendar.

No Installation required – If you frequently bounce between different computers, you may soon grow tired of installing the same applications over and over on each computer. With all these applications online, all you need is a web browser.

Collaboration – If two people want to work on the same document, traditionally they have to email it back and forth. After 10 rounds of back and forth, they may have a finished product. Google Apps allow people in your organization to edit the document simultaneously and save changes as different revisions.

Cost savings – Some software can get quite expensive. Microsoft Office Professional can cost upwards of $500. Open Office is free and can read and save documents as a Word document.

More options with paid version – If you want more users to collaborate on the documents, or need more space or other options, Google offers paid upgrades. The service is scalable to your organization’s needs. One of the main advantages is the Outlook and Blackberry sync offered by Google Premier.

From the Online Strategy Blog of !escunid

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Global News covers the story below:

Images below are of the BC Canada Pavilion and depict BC Premier Gordon Campbell signing his name on the glass plaque in addition to !escunid’s Executive Director Michael-James Pennie and Technical Director Gwyn Pritchett:

Images Below depict !escunid’s Technical Director Gwyn Pritchett and Executive Director Michael-James Pennie with the Chinese Olympic Committee Vice President Tu Mingde, British Columbia‘s Minister of Economic Development, and Minister Responsible for the Asia-Pacific Initiative and the 2010 Winter Olympics Colin Hansen, President of the Justice Institute of BC Jack McGee, and the President of the Canada-Asia-Pacific Rim Alliances Paul Stinson:

The BC Canada Pavilion will serve as an introduction to business, tourism and industry highlights in British Columbia, Canada. Exhibits are characterized as a journey to a land of pristine beauty, multicultural communities, rich natural resources and innovation in business. Additionally, it provides a flexible business and meeting center, open between May and September 2008, where government and private industry representatives from China and Canada can liaise to explore business opportunities and cultural exchange. !escunid is pleased to have attended the grand opening and utilize the business space provided.

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We are pleased to announce that !escunid will be attending the Beijing Technology Summit in conjunction with the opening of the Canadian Olympic Pavilion in Tiananmen Square, which will provide a gateway to the Canadian business market prior to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Representatives of !escunid will include Executive Director Michael-James Pennie and Technical Director Gwyn Pritchett.

From this event !escunid seeks to create further higher level business and government awareness for the platform. More importantly, !escunid seeks to align itself with a Chinese exclusive territorial marketing partner in addition to partnerships with Chinese software and web based application firms for the potential to integrate with the !escunid platform. This ties directly in with our model of providing the leading global business tools all within the simple and easy to use platform that !escunid provides.

If you are or are planning to be in Beijing between May 19-24, 2008 and would like pre-authorization to attend the Canadian Pavilion please contact us.

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