What cloud solutions do you recommend?
Are there more to this cloud software list? Skype, Xero, SharePoint, BaseCamp, Asana, Office365, GoogleDrive, Amazon, Rackspace, Salesforce, Worketc, Zen Desk, Desk.com, OneNote, Evernote?
I would also add,
Slack, Dropbox, Box, Trello, Adobe Creative Cloud (Design / Marketing), Invision (Design), Join Me (video conferencing), Mail Chimp. I may think of more later.
Perhaps true, but I think the question was meant generally. You could just as easily call out Service as a System (SaaS) or Platform as a System (PaaS) or a "distributed service". They are all just terms to help those less technical understand the solution. "OwnCloud" is a perfect acceptable open-source personal "cloud" application that you can host.
A lot of cloud services available to the market today can be installed on your own servers so you have full control over the data plus have the advantage of using cloud.
A lot of people will say you have to give up something for convenience. Most common thing people give up is privacy, however in the business world the only thing you need to give up is money, and that is only if you don't want to use the free software. If you want the benefits that come with cloud services then you can simply host them yourself.
Dropbox: can be replaced with Owncloud
Skype: can be replaced with an opensource voip platform
Facebook: I have my own version of Facebook running on my servers for testing and development
Salesforce: Very easily replaced as there are heaps of alternatives. I have an alternative to Salesforce running on my servers, clients can login, see updates on their accounts and interact with me. All on my servers.
Desk.com: Yep there are even alternatives to this lovely piece of software.
The truth is opensource is very popular with the general public but not as popular as it should be with the business sector. The beauty with opensource is the community of developers working around the clock to improve the software. In a lot of cases you will find opensource software more stable and reliable than commercial software.
Microsoft Windows/Linux is a good example. Another more well know opensource project is called Android. Chances are if your not using a iPhone you are using an Android phone, in fact Android has market share over the smart device market. More people are using Android then iPhone, more people use Android devices than any other smart device competitor.
So when it comes to cloud solutions it pays to have a look around at what is available. In most cases if not all cases, an opensource version will be available. Enjoy the benefits of cloud and enjoy retaining ownership of your own data.
SAASU as alternative to Xero.
Mailchimp for email marketing.
Zoho for entry level CRM capabilities.
Just to name a few...
Gill Walker, Owner Director, Principal CRM Business Consultant at Opsis
There are thousands more. Cloud is a buzzword, and is something that have written a fair bit about. All 'Cloud' means is software installed on servers not located within your own office space. Public Cloud is a solution where your data is in a shared server, and you have little control of much of the administration. Many of the technologies previously listed fall into this category. Private Cloud is where the servers are located in a data centre. Management of Private Cloud solutions is usually shared between the data centre and the client. There are some products, including most of the ones listed above that can only be public cloud. There others, including Microsoft Dynamics CRM which can be public cloud (CRM Online) Private Cloud or On premises. Cloud is often misunderstood. Technologically, there is little that can be done with Cloud servers that cannot be with on-premise servers. I too often hear people say that they need a cloud solution because they have people working in the field, or they have multiple offices. This is not true. It may be simpler to do things via Cloud, but it may also be harder. And if it is simpler, you may pay by loss of control, or by increased costs. Ask the questions, and challenge the people providing the answers - make sure that you know why they are giving the answers that they are giving.