Google Apps

Google continues (in my opinion) to dominate the market with its extensive offering of products and services. Regardless of your feelings about operating systems (iOS v. MS), you must agree that Google has the best cloud services, hands down.

Six months ago I transferred all of my email/contacts/calendaring services to Google Apps, and I paid the premium price to upgrade my accounts to the business edition. I'm not looking back!

If you're not familiar with the Google Apps product, your law firm should be. The product provides a clean and simple cloud interface for handling a variety of daily things like calendaring, email, and contacts. More importantly, as long as you have internet access, you can connect to everything through the online resource.

For those of you who love the interface with Outlook (I am one), the paid version ($50/year per user) offers a simple sync to Outlook program that you can use to transfer your Outlook information between your computer and your Google account.

Here's some of the huge benefits I find with using my Apps account:

1. Easy integration/access to email, calendar, and contacts from my laptop, desktop, or smartphone;
2. Seamless sync between Outlook and Google on any computer (I currently sync my home, laptop, and office computers with my Google account);
3. Easily share calendar and contacts with employees;
4. High-quality technical support and hassle-free maintenance (I get the same quality as MS Exchange, without maintaining an Exchange server)

I would always recommend the paid version if you're intending to use Google Apps for business purposes. I believe, and would probably win any challenge, that paying for cloud services, as opposed to using freebies, entitles you to some privacy protections that might not be otherwise. Google Apps provides all users, especially small businesses, with the big business IT resources.