Amazing. Technology has always moved fast. But doesn’t it seem like the last 6 months have gone into overdrive? So many people trying to get into the cloud game in so many ways, it’s hard to know what will stick. Office 365 seems ready to take over the world, but no public folders?? That’s a huge selling point for Exchange. That’s why Comcast’s hosted Exchange never really took off. Dropbox, the server killer, but would you really put your secure documents in a replicated folder in the cloud like that. Hosted VDI (virtual desktop technology), all the rage at the two major tech events this week. But then how would a major organization handle servers, put them with the provider too. So their entire organization could go down at once. What if it’s a provider wide outage? Could you have you company down for a couple of days? Tablets are the future, goodbye desktops? It’s really moving at a breakneck pace, and it’s hard to know what to do, and what will come to be the standard of tomorrow.

My thoughts? Many of these new technologies will be both fun and game changing for smaller companies and home users that don’t rely heavily on technology. Being able to utilize solutions that would have been completely out of reach financially.  For the 1-6 user environment, home and business, I buy it, 100%.  For the businesses that need technology to keep their employees functioning, leadership needs to be very careful.  Jumping after the latest solutions, to avoid a capital investment, without considering the long-term results, both overhead and productivity, is dangerous.  It not only could affect technology and finances, since the day-to-day of the business is so driven by automation, it could affect the very success or failure of the business.

More ramblings to come.  Have a great Labor Day!!

Written by Bret Erickson of Passkey Computer Services  www.passkeyinc.com