I recently ran across this article on smallbiztechnology.com and wanted to pass it along:

Microsoft and Google: 3 Misconceptions That Microsoft Wants You To Know About

The article is certainly biased (It’s written by Microsoft Product Manager, Bhavika Thakkar) but I think it highlights some differences that business owners really need to consider when moving ANY of their services to the cloud.

In my experience, no other email server works as well or is as powerful as Microsoft Exchange Server. While you may be using Microsoft Office Outlook to connect to other email servers (POP or IMAP servers for example) there are a lot of back end features of Outlook which are not unlocked unless you have your mailbox on an Exchange Server (as many of our customers do).

The information in this article isn’t news to me.  However, it does help highlight some of the risks you take when evaluating a move to hosted services.

For some additional reading on “The Cloud” see below:

• Can You Rely On The Cloud For Your Business?
• Ease Into “The Cloud” With Dropbox

Are you using Cloud services for your business?

If so which ones and what’s been your experience?

We recently had an opportunity to play around with the newest Windows 7 phone from Verizon Wireless, the HTC Trophy.  The key features (as listed on the Verizon website) are as follows:

• Windows Phone 7
• Bluetooth Stereo Support
• Camera 5.0 Megapixel
• HTML Web Browser
• Global Ready

As with any product we didn’t think taking the manufacturer’s word for it was sufficient so without further intro here’s our thoughts on the product. Read the rest of this entry

Please help me in welcoming a new member to the Acroment team – Marketing & Sales Assistant, Brandon Sonich.

Brandon is a senior at Ashland University pursuing his degree in Business Administration with a major in Marketing and a minor in Entrepreneurship Management.  Brandon comes from an entrepreneurial background and is looking to augment his historical perspective with real world experience.  Brandon will work with the Acroment team on a variety of projects including developing new sales contacts, updating the Acroment website and blog and various other sales and marketing tasks.  We are excited about the enthusiasm and excitement  that Brandon brings to the Acroment team.

Welcome aboard Brandon!

I’ve been a user of an online money management site called Thrive (http://www.justthrive.com/) for some time now.  It’s marketed as “Free online money management, just for you.”  I’d previously used their main competitor Mint.com but had a couple of bad experiences which is why I went with Thrive.  As I was going through my email this morning, I saw this subject line which concerned me: “URGENT: END OF SERVICE NOTIFICATION”.

Here’s the content of the message: Read the rest of this entry