Business On Software

Microsoft have this week announced that they will be releasing a version of Microsoft Office which is entirely web based.  The new edition is not designed to compete with their desktop based Office products, but rather to complement it, and allow you to get to your documents and information anywhere in the world.

From early news, it looks like their web based Office offering will be available in straight HTML/AJAX, and also a version that runs under Silverlight for an even richer client interface.  This product line has been designed to work in with their upcoming Office 14 desktop software, where they will be showcasing some truly impressive real time collaboration tools.  This is not your daddy’s Office suite!

Eran Kampf over at CloudAve has a post which goes into a bit more detail, and asks a few questions about Microsoft’s revenue plans around this new offering.

New Zealand based online accounting vendor Xero have recently launched their product for Australian businesses.  This means that our local GST tax laws and conditions are (hopefully) supported.

From a brief look at their online tour, their system looks quite aesthetically pleasing, and should be quite easy for users to learn and understand.  I am hoping to set up a test account on their system so I can have a more in depth look and report on here.

Their service costs just $49 per month, with any additional companies adding $29 per month on top of that.  Cheap as chips when you consider that you do not have to install anything, and any future upgrades are automatically done for you without even thinking about it.

Readers of this blog will know my passion for online based systems, but my biggest question with online accounting systems is the quality of training that the end users will get.  From many years of experience, we find that the level of training the end user has obtained in the early stages will have a great impact on the quality of information going in and out of the software – even true for those ‘easy to use’ systems such as MYOB and Quickbooks.

I will keep you updated with my findings.

UPDATE: Ben Kepes over at CloudAve has done a thorough and informative review of Xero.  Check it out!

Image via Panorama Paul

For many business people, being able to take some of your everyday work technology on the road is invaluable.  For example, making phone calls (only where legal of course!) via a hands free system, finding client sites using GPS, driving safely with reversing cameras etc.

Fellow blogger, Vinnie Merchandani has compiled a list of things you can do to upgrade your old car with spiffy new car features.  The site is US specific, and all dollar amounts are quoted in US dollars, but most of these solutions will work just as well here in Australia, and are available from local distributors.

Vinnie cites that you only need to spend around US$500 or so to turn your car into something less than the USS Enterprise, and when you understand that a new car dealer will charge you around $5000 extra for these ‘features’ then you will appreciate it.

Gotta go – I have an 8 year old Honda CRV that needs urgent upgrading…

Would the ability to check your business health on a mobile device make a difference to you?  I know it certainly does in my business.  I use my Treo Smartphone quite regularly to check in with our CRM and Emails all the time.

But what has frustrated me is the inability of some of our (Australian) financial institutions to offer a mobile interface to their services.  I would dearly like to check my bank balance and perhaps even pay a few urgent suppliers while on the road on conference or holiday.  Whilst I always carry a laptop and wireless 3G card, it is inconvenient to have to fire it up and login etc. just to make a quick payment or funds transfer.

I noticed this week that ANZ, the bank we use, has finally released a mobile interface, specifically geared towards the Apple iPhone.  This was of particular interest to me because on our holidays a couple of weeks back, I actually bought my wife an iPhone 3G to replace her dead Nokia N80.  (Note: Thank you to NextByte in Adelaide city who relented and sold me an iPhone outright without a crappy limiting carrier plan!).

Now, for those of you who dont know my wife, she is extremely technophobic.  For instance: I knew my wife for 13 years before she sent me an actual email – so you know what we are working with here!

However, as soon as I gave her the iPhone, she was off and away with scarcely a backward look.  Before I knew it, she was sending emails and SMS’s all over the place, forwarding email work requests to other team members and generally running our business – all whilst we were driving between country towns in remote South Australia.  The interesting thing was that she kept learning new things on the phone by herself, and for once, she was not afraid to push the envelope and experiment.

This got me thinking about the whole iPhone mania that is currently on the airwaves.  I believe that Apple have a game changer here with this phone as it has an interface that truly removes the ‘fear factor’ from new users.

This really puts the phone into the hands of (and I say it with all due respect), the ‘everyday’ people out there, rather than us techno geeks who like to play on the bleeding edge.

As more and more people adopt mobile devices and start to push the capabilities, I would like to see more and more business, financial institutions etc. come on board with mobile interfaces to their service.  Next  step would be for accounting software vendors to bring out mobile interfaces to their software, so that we can check journals, do bank reconciliations and chase tardy debtors from across the globe.  My dream would be to run my entire business from a hand held device within the next year or so.