Cloud Services

We have found that our customers have found the following cloud services to be most beneficial to their businesses.

Google Apps

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Google Apps for Work has been a very cost-effective solution for those businesses that have large mailboxes, large shared folders that they want to make available to the web, or those who don’t otherwise have a strong affinity to Microsoft products. One of the greatest features of Google Apps for Work is the Gmail interface and Google Drive. These web apps are quick and responsive, making use of Google’s incredibly fast search technology. It is simple to add additional space in either Gmail or Google Drive for a small additional fee.

The downside of Google Apps for Work is that it is a little more difficult to integrate the email into Microsoft Outlook and some of the settings, such as Out of Office Notifications, need to be managed through the web interface as opposed to Outlook.

Microsoft Office 365

Office 365

Microsoft’s Office 365 offering has been improving over the last few years and is now a formidable competitor to Google Apps. There are three levels of business offerings: Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business, and Office 365 Business Premium. The differences come down to whether or not the business needs desktop versions of Office as well as fully hosted email.

The best part about Office 365 is that you can purchase your email, full desktop Office applications and a full collaboration platform (through SharePoint Online) for a low monthly fee. It also offers up to 1 TB of storage per user through OneDrive for Business.

The downside of Office 365 is when mailboxes approach 50 GB or if large file shares need to be synchronized with OneDrive, it can be problematic.

Office 365 also has a non-profit offering available in Canada.

Claritech Trust Bundle

The core of our offering is individual support incorporated within the Claritech Trust Bundle. By concentrating on the needs of the individuals in your organization, you can rest assured that they will be supported, no matter what their information technology needs. Our full service offering includes unlimited remote and phone support for each individual, regardless of the devices they use.  With the understanding that individuals don’t always leave their work at the office, we even include a home device for each of our supported individuals.

Trust

The Claritech Trust Bundle includes remote monitoring, inventory and antivirus for each of your devices as well as one home device for each user, all packaged together in one low per-user price.

Making IT simple

  1. Our personnel are customer focused and easy to talk to, both technically and interpersonally.
  2. We support all of your organization’s people through unlimited remote and phone support as well as user training.
  3. We leverage cloud-based applications and utilities to create a safer and more productive working environment.

Enhancing Value

  • Reducing data loss risk by focusing on security, backups and user training,
  • Managing vendor relationships and negotiating contracts,
  • Selecting and integrating systems and applications that will provide the most long-term value,
  • Providing cloud services such as Google Apps for Work and Office 365 to lower your infrastructure costs and increase productivity,
  • Using inexpensive, powerful web-based tools to monitor and pro-actively manage your technology infrastructure remotely.

How We Do It

  1. Review: capture the current state by performing an IT systems review;
  2. Envision: create a clear future state utilizing the business plan, philosophy and goals;
  3. Plan: facilitate the path to the future state through the development of a strategic IT plan;
  4. Achieve:  execute the plan through cost-effective, efficient project management combined with suitably skilled resources.

Reduce your IT budget

This article discusses three ways that we help our clients reduce their technology budget. Contact us now if you’d like us to do the same for you.

Embrace the Cloud

Embrace the cloud

You’ve probably heard a lot about the cloud for the past few years. The reality is that using online or hosted services can drastically reduce what it costs to install and maintain your corporate applications. The biggest example of this is your email server. If your email is still hosted in-house, a large part of your IT budget could be reduced or even eliminated by moving your email to Office 365 or Google Apps. In the last year alone we have helped a number of our clients reduce their email costs by migrating them to one of these two major email hosts.

Email is only the beginning of where the cloud can benefit your business. Virtually any service that you are currently using in-house servers for is available as a hosted service. Examples include customer relationship management, oil and gas applications, accounting, facility/rental schedulingemployee scheduling/timesheets and even your phone system.

User training and proper security policies are important to help minimize any risks associated with cloud computing. We’ll be discussing cloud application security in our next post.

Remote Monitoring and Support

Remote monitoring

If your IT support provider is not monitoring your equipment and providing support remotely, you are probably paying too much for your IT services. The tools that Claritech employs today can reduce your support costs and make your users much happier and more productive.

Your users are continuing to do more work from home and on their mobile devices. Traditionally, home computers and personal cell phones have gone unsupported or the users are left on their own for personal device support. Our new service offering focuses on your users and makes sure they are productive with all of their devices, not just the corporate ones.

Outsourcing to Reduce your Payroll

Outsourcing

One of the highest costs of managing information technology is employee salaries. Along with the use of new online technologies, we can help to reduce your payroll costs in the following ways:

  1. By providing the right level of resource for your particular need. As your needs change, we can change the level of resource we provide;
  2. We can provide fractional resources, from very part time to multiple full-time equivalents;
  3. We manage transitions for a continuation of service to keep your business operating, even during times of change.

Contact us today to find out more about our services, including our new Claritech Trust Bundle.

Livin’ in the Cloud

As I embrace the concept of cloud computing, I’ve been asking myself if it’s possible to live completely in the cloud.  To get a picture of what I’m talking about here, imagine doing all of your computer-related work at an Internet cafe or on a diskless netbook.  And I mean “all” of your work.

My revelation that living in the cloud could be a real possibility came to me about a month ago as I was walking into one of my clients with my laptop bag strapped over my shoulder.  As I had done almost every day for the previous several weeks, I put my laptop case on the floor under my desk and proceeded to log in to my client’s computer and carry on with my day.  My email, complete with contacts, tasks, notes, sent items, etc. is all totally accessible from the cloud through my hosted Exchange account.  I very seldom need my laptop at work any longer and I’ve started leaving it in my car to be used only in case of emergency (my security blanket).

There are a number of potential obstacles that must be overcome for a complete transition to livin’ in the cloud:Continue reading