December 9th, 2012
With the fast-paced and highly technological environment that we have these days, it is quite difficult to keep up to date with the knowledge and information.
One of the more prominent concepts in technology right now is cloud computing. This is a very vast topic as it entails a conundrum of other hybrid concepts derived from precedent technology and completely new ones.
You cannot be a cloud expert unless you are well-equipped to identify and differentiate the different dimensions of the technology. First came the “as-a-service” models, then came the combination or hybrids to better address the varying needs of customers ranging from individual end-users to giant, multinational corporations and enterprises.
Two of the most popular concepts now are cloud server and cloud VPS. The instant question is, “What is the difference between the two? Are they the same or are they only similar?” Here is an explanation on how the characteristics of the two define the fine line:
A Bit of History
VPS is an older term used to describe the difference between a real “bare-metal” server and many virtualized OS’s running on one real server. Now that cloud or virtualization has become the normal, VPS is used again to define the amount of flexibility.
An old VPS was usually on one server that had RAID 10 array. Not bad but cloud uses a centralized SAN system for disk storage and many separate hypervisors providing the CPU and Memory resources for the virtual servers running on them.
What Relates and What Separates?
Both cloud server and cloud VPS are running on the same virtualized environment, this basically means that resources like CPU and memory come from the same hypervisor.
“Cloud VPS” is different in that total resources for all VPS’s is set to one overall account. Also, the OS templates available are usually restricted for VPS.
While “Cloud Server” is different in that the resources available are only restricted by the plan ordered by the customer. That plan can be changed to allow more if needed. There are more OS templates to select from. Also, it should be noted that more than one hypervisor can be used.
So in summation, “Cloud Server” versus “Cloud VPS” is trying to define how much flexibility a user has. “Cloud VPS” is shown as restricted and “Cloud Server” as more flexible.
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Bryan Kinney is a technical engineer at GMO Cloud. He has been working in the I.T. field for the last 18 years but have been into computers personally for 29 years. Always loves good logical puzzles and non-logical human ones too. Originally from the Northwest USA and can get into hiking and survival camping.
December 8th, 2012
How Social Media Can Help Your “Local” Business Reach International Customers
Social Media has literally changed the way we communicate, socialize and gather information. Rather than turning on the television to catch “Breaking News”, more and more people are beginning to access Social Media feeds via their smartphone, tablet or computer to get the latest up-to-date information. The trend really made its mark in the wake of the 2011 earthquake in Japan. Unable to access traditional modes of communication, citizens relied on Social Media to update family and friends on their status, check on their own loved ones and even gain important information about particular areas affected by this horrible natural disaster. More recently, Social Media sites became the lifeline to those in the Northeast United States before, during and in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. While many were without power for weeks, some were still able to access places with electricity to charge their devices and post status updates.
Social Media has weaved its way into the lives of people across the globe. For many, checking these sites has become as routine as drinking that first cup of coffee in the morning. Businesses have been able to seize the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon and engage customers in ways like never before. While many still believe Social Media best benefits larger companies, small businesses are finding their own benefit to integrating this new technology as part of their overall marketing plan.
Imagine this…a craftsman in Germany who has been producing handmade pottery (popular locally) now has the ability, through Social Media, to generate “buzz” about his product not only throughout his own country and the rest of Europe – but internationally! While websites offer a presence on the World Wide Web, Social Media provides a method of actual interaction. The store owner can now implement strategies to increase followers and communicate directly and instantaneously with them – regardless of where they are in the world. The key to success is developing a Social Media plan which not only generates followers, but sparks interest.
Consider these helpful tips to increase followers:
Ensure social media links are included on every page of your website: Make it easy and convenient for people to connect with you. Most companies will place social links on their HOME page, but neglect to do so on the rest of the website. Be sure to place Social Media icons and links on every page of your website.
Conduct a drawing: Offer an incentive or prize once you reach a certain number of followers. The bigger the prize, the greater the chances your followers will continue to encourage their friends to connect with you, thus building and expanding your connections.
Offer coupons and/or specials: Not only are you generating interest in your product with a “call to action”, you are giving them an incentive to buy. Encourage your followers to also share the offer with their Social Media connections. This will promote your product to an entirely new group of people who may be interested enough to learn more and perhaps even become followers themselves.
Interesting posts are the key to sustaining followers. Below are some ideas you may want to consider to keep your Social Media efforts fresh and interesting:
Make it all about your customers: Offer useful information, such as tips, advice, articles, etc. Give your followers posts they look forward to reading. Often, companies make the mistake of trying too hard to “make the sale” rather than developing a relationship with their followers.
Interact, Interact, Interact!!!: Explore opportunities to engage your followers. This could be as simple as asking them to comment on a photo you post. Encouraging comments and feedback is also an excellent way to gauge interest in your products and even evaluate the demand for additional product lines.
Highlight your customers and clients: Consider interesting ways to highlight your customers or clients. Of course, be sure to get their permission before posting. Encourage your customers to send in photos of themselves using your product. Post photos from special events or sales. The opportunities are endless!
If you haven’t already done so, it is important to consider developing a Social Media strategy for your business. While Social Media should not be a replacement for traditional advertising and marketing, it is an important complement to your overall strategic plan.
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Gina Smith writes freelance articles for magazines, online outlets and publications on behalf of a number of companies, including http://spanning.com. Smith covers the latest topics in the business, golf, tourism, technology and entertainment industries.
December 7th, 2012
There have been a lot of Japanese games which have made heads spin across the world. These are usually the result of a game concept extended to the technology at hand. These were the handheld game-and-watch games of the early 1980s, and early wristwatches with built-in games.
Although handheld consoles have taken these games into the 21st century with great graphics, the real and unseen revolution was the incorporation of collaborative games. One of the most successful handheld game with its own ecosystem was Pokemon. At its core, this is a single-player game card for kids. However, one innovation included in Pokemon was the ability to share or transfer ownership of pokemon creatures. Extending this ability to internet games has been a real money maker.
Monetizing with in-game commodities has been a big moneymaker for a lot of online games. A lot of MMORPG games and browser-based social games make money off of in-game transactions. As it turns out, online game monetization is done better by Japanese firms as compared to American companies.
There are a lot of reasons why monetization works better in Japan. The country, itself, is the third biggest economy in the world. Even with an economic slowdown during the 1990s, and the effects of the global financial crisis, they have not experienced any shrinking in their economy. During the same period during the rise of the internet, social networks and online markets, Japanese online spending has also been better compared to most of the world. Even with a high cost of living, the Japanese still have a big percentage of their earnings in disposable income. This translates to the Japanese having the second highest online spending per capita in the world.
Related to the individual wealth and spending habits is the ease with which the Japanese can spend on online games. Japan has a higher than 99% 3G telephony coverage, and almost everyone has access to mobile games. Handsets (both smartphones and feature phones) have apps pre-installed allowing for mobile payment. Most feature phones have built-in apps for paying train and bus tickets. These bills are not paid separately but instead are part of the month’s billing statement. On top of the carrier billing, there other payment modes which have been in use in Japan even before 3G, including credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards, e-wallets (also called e-money) and Paypal.
Merging the ease of payment with an enthusiastic gaming nation, is a formula for easy migration to monetized gaming. Japan is a gaming nation, as can be seen on television game shows of every kind. Mobile apps just made it easier for them to play games on their phones. Among the most popular games are social card games, as discussed above, these are like Pokemon and with tie-ups to anime and manga, these are self-promoting. Up to 70% of the most popular games are social card games. Japan has always had a big share of the worldwide video game market and they currently command a 10% share. Although it is very rare that social card games export well.
The increasing popularity of social card games and the ease with which these can be distributed via mobile phones, has resulted in the shift of market strategy among major video game makers. These companies have also introduced their own social card game apps. With their marketing savvy, and tie-ups with mobile app channels, there is practically a stream of social card game apps being introduced to the Japanese market.
Understandably, there is still the challenge of entering the Japanese gaming market. It requires some level of knowledge and expertise in the industry in order to successfully execute this venture. Japan-based firms such as GMO Cloud understands the need for this kind of service and has since started to offer localization and marketing services that aid the entry of these foreign companies.
With tie-ups on intellectual property holdings for titles and with established distribution channels, mobile games are not going to dry up soon. The Japanese willingness to pay for their games and for level ups, monetizing on in-game services and acquisitions will continue to be a big source of income for game developers, and mobile channels.
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Rodolfo Lentejas, Jr. is a fulltime freelance writer based in Toronto. He is the founder of the PostSckrippt, a growing online writing business dedicated to producing top quality, original and fresh content. To know more about him, please visit www.postsckrippt.ca. Like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest.
December 6th, 2012
There are some believable positive developments in the gaming industry since cloud computing came on stage to help businesses optimize their methods of operations. The three prominent benefits of cloud technology to the gaming industry are highlighted as follows:
These three innovative contributions of cloud computing to the gaming industry are quite influential in the industry. Game-makers are now concentrating on providing interesting and long-lasting game content to their customers, instead of worrying endlessly on producing hardware or consoles that customers will find portable, easy-to-use and light.
Incidentally, cloud technology provides a platform for innovation and new business expansion as major game-makers like Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are gradually migrating their game content to the cloud. The main advantage of this is that game players can speedily access the games using any digital-enabled devices. They can play as many games as possible in real-time without having to acquire plenty of consoles to do this. This attitude does not only help the environment to be cleaner, it also simplifies the procedures of playing games.
Visit GMO Cloud’s sample Game Server Configuration for an in-depth understanding of how it works and why it is advantageous compared to the old method that is used.
Without doubt, this is a win-win affair: The game-makers are going to increase their sales and revenues through this improved method of game-content delivery; the customers are going to enjoy their games without worrying about the headache of carrying their consoles around nor thinking about the cost of buying many consoles in order to have access to multiple games at a time. Though, the players’ personal information are required to open their accounts at the beginning of their subscriptions, the recent development in cloud computing security will help protect their identities so that they will not be subjected to identity theft, as it happened recently to some online game players.
Cloud computing is indeed revolutionizing the gaming industry with the hope of transforming the processes of game access, methods of play and storage for constant access.
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Jerry Olasakinju, a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree holder, is a passionate researcher and writer whose interest in everything computing is unparalleled. He blogs about his literary works at http://jerryolasakinju.blogspot.jp/
December 5th, 2012
There is no question that the social gaming market has the potential for huge returns. Today it is an industry worth billions of dollars and, the largest game developers in the world are quickly moving to the cloud as they recognize its potential and inevitability in the future of computer gaming. In this article we will take a look at the world’s top five online game developers and what they are doing today with regard to cloud gaming.
What is the appeal of social gaming?
People play online games for different reasons. According to studies done on the subject, there are three main reasons why people engage in social gaming:
There are several other reasons apart from the top three. Many gamers engage in social games because of the competitive aspect. In fact, this is starting to gain more widespread appeal as a competitive sport marketing and competition structure starts to emerge (a good example of this phenomenon is the incredible popularity of StarCraft in South Korea as a spectator competitive sport.)
Trends in social gaming
Initially, most social games used a pay-to-play subscription model. However, one of the largest trends in social gaming has been the acceptance of a free to play model. This allows companies to quickly monetize on the aspects listed above that draw people to social gaming. There are three main ways in which companies monetize on free to play gaming:
The top five gaming companies in the world and their involvement in cloud gaming
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Nida Rasheed is a freelance writer and owner of an outsourcing company, Nida often finds herself wanting to write about the subjects that are closest to her heart. She lives in Islamabad, Pakistan and can be found on Twitter @nidarasheed.
December 4th, 2012
Not much needs to be said about the rate at which cloud computing is growing. Both small businesses and large companies have embraced the cloud with great gusto and with immediate improvements to their capability and bottom lines. In fact, IDC has gone on to predict an annual growth rate of 26% over the next five years – this is six times the growth predicted for other more ‘traditional’ IT.
PaaS Solutions
While most CEO’s understand the SaaS model with ease – after all it is the same (or similar) software they use, only running remotely – with obvious benefits, the same is not true for Platform as a Service. To begin with, the term ‘platform’ itself may be poorly understood by the non-initiated. Therefore there can be doubts as to why PaaS is so important.
Let us look at a very recent case study where PaaS helped an international organization better itself.
Al Jazeera and the Egyptian Spring
In February 2011, Al Jazeera was in the forefront of reporting on the Egyptian uprising. Its grassroots organization in Egypt ensured that the world was given access to the latest in what was happening at Tahrir Square. As a result, the web traffic being handled by the channel’s Internet arm rose by 1000% (this is not a typo). Previously Al Jazeera was hosting its web site with a traditional hosting service, but this was obviously unable to handle the surge in traffic and visitors had some nasty experiences. That is when Al Jazeera moved its site to a commercial PaaS service. In effect it obtained an elastic number of web server platforms that grew and shrunk in response to the traffic.
The focus is on two important aspects of this story – the first and more obvious is the advantage that PaaS gave Al Jazeera in terms of its ability to respond to changes in traffic. The number of servers could increase to keep pace with the traffic. The other benefit which is not so obvious is the speed with which Al Jazeera was able to bring this capability into being. If the Channel had decided to (say) increase its web servers tenfold by procuring new servers, it would have taken much more time, required large upfront expenditure and additional manpower. All of this was achieved with no upfront expenditure and very little (if any) additional manpower.
Here are some more PaaS benefits that may appeal to CEOs :
Using specialized platforms – Smart phone sales have already beaten PC sales and this gap will only widen. The cloud offers smart phone users native methods to stay connected when they are on the move. This is bringing in new efficiencies to businesses. PaaS helps companies make solutions that are specifically aimed at the mobile user.
Cutting expenditure – This is obviously an area every CEO will love. Traditional IT expenditure relies on physical hardware, infrastructure and manpower. It has been said that more than 50% of all IT projects go well over budget, 31% of all projects end up being canceled and maintenance can cost far more than the original project itself. In PaaS projects, all of the hardware ends up in the cloud service provider’s premises.
Scalability and Growth – All PaaS solutions are scalable and elastic. Companies do not need to factor in future needs into their IT solutions because the size and numbers of your deployments can be programmed to grow automatically with the load. There is also no long term commitment to staying with a particular company if you can get a better deal elsewhere.
When super storm Sandy was about to hit the East coast, many companies shifted their applications from data centers in the area about to be affected by the storm and moved them elsewhere. In fact the cloud computing companies assisted their users with this and did not even charge them for the technical assistance. Research indicates that the PaaS market will grow from $512 million to $1.7 billion by 2015. Companies that move in early will have an opportunity to experiment and fine tune their operations. Later as their scale of operations grow, this knowledge will pay rich dividends.
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Sanjay Srivastava has been active in computing infrastructure and has participated in major projects on cloud computing, networking, VoIP and in creation of applications running over distributed databases. Due to a military background, his focus has always been on stability and availability of infrastructure. Sanjay was the Director of Information Technology in a major enterprise and managed the transition from legacy software to fully networked operations using private cloud infrastructure. He now writes extensively on cloud computing and networking and is about to move to his farm in Central India where he plans to use cloud computing and modern technology to improve the lives of rural folk in India.
December 3rd, 2012
When we talk about latest IT trends in the market today, no one would miss out on the importance of cloud computing. This revolutionary technology has created marvels in modern day business enterprises. They have helped businesses reduce costs significantly in terms of infrastructure, computing power, software resources and tools, manpower and so on.
Even non-IT firms have embraced upon its benefits with ease thanks to the simplicity and efficiency of cloud based service platforms. All you need to enjoy the cloud is a reliable and fast internet connection enabled device. So who has been at the forefront of cloud technology implementation? The answer is not at all surprising. Japan, the Asian giant lives up to its recognition globally as the land of the rising Sun. It is not just the land where the Sun sets its foot first but also any new technology that we envisage today.
According a recent survey by both VMware and Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA), Japan is at the top of the list of Asia Pacific countries in terms of implementation of cloud computing. The nation’s ranking remains unchanged from that of last year. The progressive minds of Japanese innovators are a steady contributor to the success of almost any computing or related technologies. With massive infrastructure building capability available with plenty of resources locally, Japan has a very high appetite for technology.
Japanese business enterprises have leveraged cloud services from both domestic and international cloud service providers to streamline their business activities in tune with demand and has thus brought about significant changes in the way IT has worked magic for business enterprises. Japanese businesses have benefited greatly with respect to the fact that their initial infrastructural costs especially that of IT companies have gone down by over a great margin thanks to their shift to cloud paradigm.
Even government agencies have leveraged benefits of cloud computing in Japan and even overtaken western nations in this sector. Many medical institutions prefer to keep their records online thereby making it accessible to physicians anywhere anytime. Cloud computing has brought changes in ways we could never imagine. Those that refused to move to the cloud earlier citing very vague reasons have begun to realize what potential the technology has and how it can bring about never before seen agility and efficiency in their operations.
There are numerous reasons for which cloud computing becomes dearer by the day to people all over the world. The imminent threat of hardware failure in personal computers is in itself a big reason to have their daily operational resources and computing platforms moved to an online cloud based service so that the risk of data and information loss is minimal.
Next up is the ease of access. Cloud computing allows you to take your work with you wherever you go. If you have with you an internet-enabled device like a laptop, you can work remotely from anywhere on the planet via an online interface. All your resources would be made available in front of you as though it was there with you all the time. The faster the internet goes, the greater the operational efficiency of cloud computing. Moreover, recovery from disasters is sped up by cloud computing thanks to its remote location access features and online backup capabilities.
Japan has been praised by several experts for its policies that greatly encourage the flourishing trend of cloud computing. Despite facing severe setbacks due to outages thanks to the devastating earthquake back in 2011, businesses and IT powerhouses have been increasingly dependent on cloud based delivery models. The reason cited by many for this growing affinity towards cloud computing is that even though downtimes can be lethal, efficient backup and easy access to remote resources have brought numerous advantages to them and hence the slight setbacks can be ignored taking the power of the greater good.
The survey also evaluated other Asian countries in terms of cloud adaptation and found out that everyone was following Japan’s model and is catching up. In countries like India, cloud computing is gaining momentum not even witnessed in developed nations like the United States. This positive outlook clearly shows us that cloud computing is here to stay for the long term and it is undoubtedly the core business platform of the near future.
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Mandira Srivastava is a fulltime freelance writer who specializes in technology, health and fitness, politics, and financial writing. Equipped with degree of mass communication and having worked for both private and corporate clients, I have experience meeting a wide range of writing requirements and styles.
November 30th, 2012
By all indications, Japan is experiencing a shakedown in the mobile phone handset industry. For a long while, the Japanese market has been a very insular business. Foreign phone manufacturers like Nokia and Motorola, had a hard time selling their phones in Japan. This was mainly due to the feature sets the Japanese consumer has come to expect.
One prominent feature for Japanese smartphones is their use in dispensing electronic money. Japanese phones can be used for paying for most daily consumer items, like train tickets and bus tickets, and convenience store purchases. This level of use of electronic money is only now gaining ground in some western countries.
Of course, there is the difference between how the Japanese use their phones for purchases. The concept of electronic wallets as implemented outside of Japan is much like sending a text message to the carrier or electronic money repository. In Japan, mobile phone electronic wallets are used like toll-free e-cards. The Japanese just swipe their phone at a reader in order to pay or to transfer cash. There are even some applications where the phone does not even have to be turned on in order to be used.
Even before Android phones and the iPhone were introduced to Japan, mobile phone apps have gone beyond communications. Besides phone calls and text messages, electronic wallet and dedicated applications, cell phones are also used for gaming which is one of the largest markets for mobile phones in terms of revenues.
The market penetration of Android and iOS phones and tablets in Japan is unprecedented. No other product, electronic or otherwise has had a successful run at the Japanese market. Currently, Android devices account for 64% of the smartphone market, while Apple iOS accounts for 32%. There are, of course, Japanese manufacturers which have Android as their operating systems, but nevertheless, the use of feature phones seems to be in danger of extinction.
With the success of these imports, the features which make feature phones so compelling might soon appear as apps in Android, iOS, and to a certain extent, Windows Phone. The only hurdle remaining are the same hurdles that feature phones already encounter. These are usually isolated instances of interoperability, where one e-wallet may not work with a particular phone model. It would be sad to see the demise of feature phone models which are almost exclusively sold as bus ticket containers, but even then, these can be easily replaced once the manufacturers have made their minds about the direction to take. The infrastructure for electronic wallets has been painstakingly built, robust and won’t go away anytime soon. It just makes sense for developers and phone manufacturers to create apps to replace feature phones.
Another good news for Android and iOS fans, as well as developers, is that the carriers and service providers are actively pushing these phones. For Japanese manufacturers, there has been a shift in strategy. More and more feature phone manufacturers are now designing and releasing Android or Windows phones.
Apple fans need not worry about iOS presence in Japan. In terms of actual units sold, the 32% market share is a solid number which does not seem to be shrinking anytime soon. Apple has always had a great fan base in Japan, and this has translated to the iPhone and iPad as well. Japanese developers taken notice of the large installed base and have been creating new titles specifically for the iPad and iPhone. Existing apps are also being ported to iOS. With loyal followers from users to developers, Apple presence in Japan is certain, at least for the near future.
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Rodolfo Lentejas, Jr. is a fulltime freelance writer based in Toronto. He is the founder of the PostSckrippt, a growing online writing business dedicated to producing top quality, original and fresh content. To know more about him, please visit www.postsckrippt.ca. Like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest
November 29th, 2012
There is no doubt that Facebook today has become a typical example of how a small start-up can grow into a household brand. However, only a few people realize that cloud computing played a significant part in Facebook’s rapid growth. It is important to state that cloud technology did not only encourage the expansion of Facebook’s size, it constantly contributes to the social network company’s environmental conservation policies in a number of encouraging ways that are described in this article.
The success story of Facebook is closely related to the enviable development in Data Center services. Previously, the operators of Data Centers were constantly troubled about how to manage their ever increasing amount of servers as the number of their clients ballooned. Then, Data Centers reportedly consumed about 30 billion watts of electricity, which was estimated to be equal to the output of 30 nuclear plants. Sadly enough, only 6 to 12 percent of this amount of energy was actually used in computing activities, the rest of the 90 percent or less were wasted and instead polluted the environment. Running those Data Centers then was considered environmentally unfriendly and unprofitable. But that changed dramatically since the advent of cloud technology.
In 2006, Facebook housed its several servers in a server site that was a rented 40-by-60 place located in California. The company struggled to manage its mere 10 million users then who, perhaps, sent messages, uploaded photo, videos, music files and shared other documents. Facebook faced serious problems as its servers were overwhelmed by the requirements of these users.
Facebook’s groups of computer servers that were meant to process, store and retrieve information produced from members’ accounts almost suffered sudden meltdown as electricity rushed into the computers, overheating the Ethernet and its accessories (sockets etc). According to Jeff Rothschild, Facebook VP of Technology, to arrest this dangerous situation, “We cleaned out all of the Walgreens in the area to blast cool air at the equipment and prevent the Web site from going down.” He urged the employees of the company to rush around and purchase as many fans as possible to achieve this feat.
Now with nearly 500 million users and still counting, Facebook has finally resolved this headache by entirely moving its myriad of operations to the cloud. This move explains why Facebook users have been able to enjoy uninterrupted operations for a long time. This does not only lead to better performance on the part of the company, it also helps create an environmentally friendly working ethic for both Facebook employees and users. Without doubt, the company has been able to grow from this circumstance through the process of saving on energy and innovating to new areas of operation as the varied needs of Facebook users diversify.
Here are some simple questions to reflect on: What could have happened to the image of Facebook as an innovative company if its operations were disrupted for days because of sudden system shutdown? How would the company have gained the reputation of being energy-saving and environmentally friendly enterprise? How could Facebook have saved on the energy wastage that occurred in its operations before and turn that to optimum performance and profitability?
The answer to these questions is as well simple: cloud computing does it all. This indicates that company managers that still show serious reluctance to move their IT requirements to the cloud are doing their business a lot of disservice. This is because they will continue to waste the scarce energy, lose money and fail to innovate!
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Jerry Olasakinju, a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree holder, is a passionate researcher and writer whose interest in everything computing is unparalleled. He blogs about his literary works at http://jerryolasakinju.blogspot.jp/
November 28th, 2012
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a technology that has existed for over a decade now. It has created opportunities for people to communicate over distances via the internet saving them a fortune that would have been spent on telephone charges had they not opted for it. VoIP-based services are used extensively by business enterprises today as they look at more ways to cut costs and reduce infrastructure by making everything as virtual as possible.
Using a VoIP-based communication system in your business has great advantages. Here are some of them:
First, you do not have to change your local phone number as VoIP is not based on your normal telephone line. You can communicate with your customers or with your employees through an intra-enterprise VoIP system right from your desktop PC or Laptop or even from handheld smartphones and tablets.
Today internet speeds have shot up to such a level that using it to convey audio as well as video signals is quite easy and very affordable as compared to normal telephone cable infrastructure.
It offers the freedom to connect with your customers and employees from virtually anywhere on the planet through an internet connection thereby making it one of the most flexible communication systems for an enterprise.
Automation within your customer contact system is made possible by VOIP systems. You can set up an automated response for a customer call directing him or her to the concerned department automatically thereby reducing service time and delay and providing better satisfaction for your clients.
VoIP based employee communication systems are scalable. When a new employee joins the team, you do not have to assign a new telephone and a telephone number to him or her but you simply have to get an extension for them from your VoIP system from which they can operate a new line via their computers.
So VoIP-based communication systems are in fact a big asset for enterprises as they can easily cut down on heavy infrastructure costs if they were to allot physical telephone lines to each and every employee and they were to implement call routing and scheduling physically each time a customer call is transferred to their service department. Automation largely reduces service time which would translate into great savings because the more number of satisfied customers, the better it will be for your brand’s image and the more will affinity of customers will be to return to you for any other services.
However, it is not wise to choose any VoIP system without having to conduct a detailed study of both your business requirements as well as the service provided by the VoIP vendor. Let us examine the criteria that enterprises should follow while selecting a VoIP service provider:
Flexible Service Plan:
This is a vital norm as your business only needs what it requires – nothing more, nothing less. The provider should offer whatever services your business needs, whether it be international call management, intra organizational calls and much more. Choose a specific business plan that offers you with enough minutes of service and that which suits your organization’s support infrastructure budget.
Features:
It is quite natural to overlook features that normally all VoIP providers provide such as call forwarding, voicemail, automated response, etc. because they are guaranteed to be in every basic VoIP system. What should you look for? The service providers offer more utility features such as call queuing systems, mobile forwarding applications that direct the calls to your mobile if you are away from your office and unable to attend calls from your computer and several other specific call features.
Usability:
The VoIP system you choose should be easily integrated into your business environment and control of your VoIP network should be a piece of cake for whoever manages the process.
Reliability of Network:
Losing a live call due to network errors is something an enterprise cannot tolerate especially when they work on tight deadlines and hence, it is important to ascertain the network infrastructure of your VoIP service provider to ensure that it is fail proof and reliably.
Support:
Any issues or faults that may arise in your VoIP system should be rectified at the earliest possible time because any disruption of customer service for a longer period would seriously affect brand image as well as lead to escalating losses owing to lack of communication. Hence the service provider should provide reliable assistance and support for their VoIP products to ensure that enterprises using their systems are not left alone to fend off faults and failures.
Hence when you select a VoIP provider, make sure you properly follow the abovementioned criteria because there is no room for mistakes as every minute of communication within the organization or with your customers is vital for your business’ prolonged existence.
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Mandira Srivastava is a fulltime freelance writer who specializes in technology, health and fitness, politics, and financial writing. Equipped with degree of mass communication and having worked for both private and corporate clients, I have experience meeting a wide range of writing requirements and styles.
« Older Entries Newer Entries »