The Gaping Hole in the Cloud Computing Market

When dealing with startups and growing businesses there is no more popular technology topic than cloud computing. At the forefront of this new world are services like Google Apps, Basecamp, SalesForce and Dropbox. For business owners the idea of zero infrastructure cost, no hardware failures or software updates is very, very, very attractive. I know. As a small business owner I've spent more time in the server room than I should. After a lot of research and four years of hosting our own Exchange Server I switched our email over to Google Apps at the end of last year and we are enjoying several benefits.

1. Email search has never been this easy or this fast. Using Microsoft's desktop search in Outlook was a painful, painful process. 
2. Gmail's threaded conversation view cuts down on inbox clutter.
3. Gmail's keyboard shortcuts make processing the inbox much faster when you receive 100-200 emails per day.
4. Massive amounts of storage mean we don't worry about bloated backups or full inboxes.
5. When out of the office we get the same exact email experience as we do in the office. No VPN's or Outlook Remote Web Workplace to worry about.
6. Spam protection that seems to work better than our old add-on service.
7. Did I mention it's free? Well sort of. Advertisers are paying for it, but the ads are unobtrusive and if we really get tired of them we can pay to have them removed (and get more storage as well).

There are some drawbacks. Gmail does not integrate with Microsoft Office, Quickbooks and some other programs the way Exchange/Outlook does so emailing attachements requires a couple of more steps at times. And then there is this gaping hole in the Google Apps product suite. THERE ARE NO SHARED CONTACTS. I just cannot get over this. When we are using Google Docs we can opt to share a document with everyone in the domain. We can share calendars with everyone in the domain. We can even create websites that we can share with the domain or with outsiders (Microsoft was on the verge of something great here with Sharepoint but for some reason they thought no one outside of the domain would need access to the site). But we can't share a simple contact list?

This is a huge problem because for our office it is the one feature that keeps us anchored to an Exchange Public Folder. What is even more surprising is that no-one has stepped into this space to fill the void. We could spend a fortune ($65/month/user) for SalesForce or we could pay a fraction of that for Zoho CRM. But these are full blown CRM systems and we don't need that. Further, their email interfaces are clunky at best (SalesForce) and downright destructive at worst (Zoho). Zoho Business could be a competitor to Google Apps except for the lackluster email experience.

Google Apps users have been begging for shared contacts in forums and feature request boards for over two years, and this seems like such a simple thing for Google to implement. Their goal is to index all of the world's information, but they can't let me share our company's contacts with the five other users on our domain? I just don't get it. Someone help me. Why go to the trouble of branding Google Apps as an organizational platform and leave out something as simple as shared contacts? 

The Sabbatical Effect

Stefan Sagmeister is a very talented designer running a high profile design firm in New York. There is nothing very remarkable about that. But Stefan also closes his firm for an ENTIRE YEAR every seven years. What is interesting is that Stefan's sabbatical started out as a way to enjoy a glimpse of retirement earlier in life. What he found out was that the sabbatical was essential to rejuvenating and re-energizing the creative capacity upon which his firm's success was founded.

Watch Stefan's TED talk below and ask yourself what you need to do to generate the "sabbatical effect" in your business.

January Newsletter

If you did not receive our email newsletter today here is a taste of what you're missing.

• How to get the most out of a tax season visit with your CPA.
• Things you can do to give yourself a better chance of keeping those New Year's resolutions.
• Hot topics and things to watch out for in 2010.
• A run down of some of my personal and business resolutions for this year.

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Business tax organizer checklist

Follow the link below to download a copy of Axiom's business organizer checklist. It will assist you in pulling together the documents and other information Axiom needs to prepare your business tax return.

Axiom Business Organizer Checklist

The A,B,C's of Economic Recovery Through Job Creation

President Obama held a jobs summit today and while I disagree with much of his policies he did get one thing right. Obama said "true economic recovery is only going to come from the private sector." As true as this statement might be it is hard to stomach when uttered by an administration that wants to pile additional taxes, regulation and compliance costs on the back of that private sector recovery engine. But politics aside there is a lesson here that is so simple.

To understand job creation as a source for economic recovery you need to think like a small business owner, not Bill Gates. Bill has to go overseas every chance he gets. And you can't blame him. He needs cheap labor because Google is giving the stuff away for free. And you won't pay $15 for a pack of underwear at Wal-Mart so don't gripe when they make the stuff in China. That's life, get over it.

But think about the kid down the street that just came up with a killer iPhone app. He WILL hire American. In spite of all the stories about the four hour work weeks it just isn't feasible for a small business to outsource work overseas. They need to see each other, collaborate in person and play ping pong once in a while. So if you're looking to create American jobs you should look to small companies not big ones.

Now. Ask yourself the following questions (answers provided)

"Who hires employees in small companies?" The owner. 

"What does the owner need to hire new employees?" Money. 

"Where do owners get money?" Profits.

"What can the government do to increase profits?" Cut taxes and decrease compliance costs.

Most small business owners want to hire more people. They understand that putting additional people into productive roles increases profits. But you are not going to convince a small business owner to roll the dice and hire someone without the cash needed to cover traning costs, draws for beginner sales people, additional overhead for insurance, desk space, office supplies, etc.

But if you tell a business owner making $250,000 that his tax rate just went down 5% that's real money that can be used to invest back in the business. Instead this administration is saying taxes are going to go up, we're going to take more of your money, AND we need you to go out and hire more people to help out the economy. 

Someone needs to pull Obama aside and explain it to him this way. Imagine Malia and Sasha have a lemonade stand. Business is good and at the end of their first day they have $10 in profits on $20 in sales. Malia decides to recruit a friend and pays that person $6 to man a second stand the next day. Now the girls have $14 in day 2 profits ($10 per stand less the $6 labor cost). But then daddy steps in and demands $7 of their profits so he can give it to the thirsty White House tourists who can't afford lemonade. He gives the girls plenty of assurance that they'll get the $7 back because these people will use their "stimulus" to buy lemonade. But even if everyone does buy lemonade the extra $7 in revenue only yields $3.50 in profit. But that's not really the point.

Picture yourself in Sasha and Melia's shoes at the end of day two. Business is booming. There are dreams of a third lemonade stand and possibly a franchise. But then comes the daddy tax. If you are in their shoes do you spend $6 of your remaining $7 "after tax" dollars to open a third stand? I can tell you the answer is "no."

And there's the rub for Obama. You must give money back to business owners FIRST in the form of reduced taxes now if you want them to invest in the economy today. Tax credits they can cash in next April won't do it. Promises of forthcoming economic stimulus won't do it. Giving them the opportunity to go deeper into debt with cheap bank loans won't do it.

Ten year olds on a neighborhood street corner understand this implicitly, but today 130 of the country's most powerful politicians, business leaders and economists met and didn't get it.