Headstand Media

Solutions for Small Business

Headstand Media is like many small businesses today, always looking for the best technology and tools to help keep costs down, and to provide the greatest security, power, and flexibility to help grow a business. In 2008 we became aware of Google Apps for Business, a suite of technology tools provided by Google to help small businesses and organizations. in 2008 Headstand Media began a process to experiment with and then migrate ourselves to use these solutions. Here is where we are today.

• Email

  • Headstand Media moved all of our email accounts to Google Apps. This means that each member of our team has a “Gmail-like” account using IMAP with up to 25GB of storage. For me, this means I have over 45,000 emails dating back to 1998, all accessible at anytime through my laptop, home computer, or smartphone — including all my attachment files! So far, I have not experienced any down time or inability to access my email and files. Another benefit is that we know of no better spam filtering service than that offered by Google as demonstrated by our current historically low levels of spam!

• Contacts

  • Within the Gmail-like email interface, there is an area with the ability to import all your Contacts from other business applications. I had been using Apple’s Address Book application. I was able to export all my contacts and information from that application, and transfer all that data into the Google Contacts application without losing anything.

• Calendar

  • We also created a personal calendar for each team member, and shared them within the company so that we can keep track and updated on everyone’s schedule. We can schedule meetings, meeting rooms and resources and alert others through email and iCal attachments. These calendars also sync with our smartphones, and are accessible anytime, anywhere via the web.

• Documents

  • Google Apps also include Google Doc’s which means they provide browser-based applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and PDF’s. You do not need any application on your own local computer other than a standard web browser to access and use these applications. So far, I have found them to be just as full featured and useful as Microsoft’s counterparts. In fact these applications look and feel remarkably similar to their Microsoft counterparts. The files can also be private and password protected, or shared within the organization.

Why We Recommend Google Apps

Based upon our experience, I would have to recommend this FREE business solution to any small business or organization seeking to maximize speed, power, availability and flexibility and lower their costs of doing business. We have recommended this solution to several clients and have helped them through the migration process. So far, we have heard nothing negative and received only positive feedback.

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