If you paid any attention to technology news this week, you’ve probably noticed that Google has announced that they were going to release an operating system intially geared at netbooks next year. Its currently being called the Google Chrome OS. Since Google is the 800 pound gorilla of the internet, it got a lot of news coverage. From a practical standpoint for small business however, it’s really not that important, it’s going to be year until it’s out, and we won’t really know what effect it will have on business until then.  So just ignore the hype.

On the other hand Google made another announcement this week, one that didn’t get the same media coverage as the Chrome OS announcement but was much more important: Google is moving Google Apps (mail,docs, etc) out of beta. (Beta is the software term for a final test version) This means that Google has reiterated its commitment to these web based applications and users who want to can adopt them and cloud/web based computing with more confidence.

As you know from my last post, I’ve moved a lot of my computer operations from my PC to Google. One of the downsides of doing this is that, if the internet is down, so are you.  That’s just what happened to me last week.  At 11 pm I turned off my computer and the internet was working, and at 8 am the next morning, no internet. I troubleshot the issue and established that I wasn’t getting a signal from my provider, called, waited on hold, and learned that someone would have to come out the next day to fix it. NEXT DAY.!… that’s at least 24 hrs without the internet!, so now what. Now its time for my backup plan.

My backup plan is simple and cheap. If nothing urgent is happening I can use my iPhone to keep up with email.  If I have a major project on the other hand, our local library has free Wi Fi,  so I can pack up my laptop and go there. Its not complicated, but I’ve thought it out in advance so I don’t have to panic.  (I just checked mail on my iPhone this time since nothing urgent was happening.) You need a plan too.

Options include:

• A list of internet cafe’s in your area
• A list of free Wi-Fi locations in your area
• Tethering your phone
• Dial-up
• A Wi-Fi modem from your wireless carrier
• Verizon’s MiFi cellular modem (It lets you setup a mini wireless network)
• Wi -Max (a long distance high speed wireless service available in a few large cities)

Consider these, and see what available and feasible for your  business — and make a plan. I recommend a two phase plan, since sometimes ‘Plan B’ fails, and you need to try ‘Plan C’. (For instance, if the phone and the DSL are both out,   dial-up as your ‘Plan B’ won’t work.)

Good Luck.

I moved my business to Google apps a few weeks ago. I wanted to add some email addresses and consolidate my docs online. It’s also a step towards a ‘cloud’ based architecture where the computer I use becomes irrelevant. The conversion was fairly painless, although the some of the directions for modifying domain info on goDaddy were out of date. I now have multiple email addresses,a nice Google-mail based email client, and the ability to store my documents in the Google docs application. Apps also has a shared calendar app that I’m not using now, and the ability to quickly create websites for projects.

Now that I’ve gotten everything set up I’m planning to convert my business documents to Google docs. I also plan to start creating websites for each of my clients major projects. I hope that will make communication easier.

By the way, Google apps standard edition is free. With it you get up to 50 users, shared calendars, shared contacts, websites sites, and docs. Since it’s free, you do get ads in the email client.

Because of it’s functionality, and value Google apps is a great tool for very small businesses. But, before you take the plunge, read my post on the the ‘Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ of Cloud Computing