Top Cloud Apps That Really Make a Difference in Your Small Business

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Google Drive

Google Drive is a cloud storage and sharing system. It can be used as the center of cloud-based office work. Users can work on their own documents, spreadsheets and presentations, as well as work collaboratively with others. Users need a recent version of the Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari Web browsers in order to use Drive. It has a web-based app and a downloaded version. Once installed, uploading and downloading files is insanely fast. Additional office and creative programs are already available specifically for use with Google Drive such as LucidChart, a diagramming program; WeVideo, a video-editing program; Docusign, an e-signature program; and HelloFax, to send Google Drive files as faxes and receive faxes as Google Drive documents.

QuickBase

QuickBase is a larger, more secure alternative to Google Docs. It helps collect, manage and share data. Quickbase can be customized for a specific business. It has a lot of pre-existing applications and also has a store of customer created applications. It has an easy to understand application builder. Users have to buy a month subscription and a 30 day free trial is available.

Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 is designed for cloud-based storage and sharing. A subscription allows users to download Office 2013 (or Office 2011 for Mac) on up to 5 devices. An annual subscription costs $100. Microsoft also offers an $80 subscription to students for all four years. If you don’t want to install the full Office, you can run Office On Demand. Office On Demand temporarily installs a full copy of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, or Publisher on any Windows 7 or 8 machine. It lets you open or create documents and then deletes the app from the system after you close. Improvements have been made to the commenting capabilities in Word as well as to Word in general to make it much cleaner.

Handility

A powerful, yet easy to use cloud based phone system and access to local and global numbers.

The system allows you to free yourself from the limitations of traditional telephony and become seamless and globally connected.

There is no equipment to purchase, maintain or upgrade, and our unlimited inbound and outbound calling plans eliminate long distance charges and billing from third party phone companies.

You can chose to maintain a pay-as-you-go plan at incredible low rates, starting from 3 cents per minute.

Adobe Connect

Adobe Connect is a comprehensive web conferencing cloud application. It costs $55/a month (or $45/month if sign up for a year) and becomes available to 100 users. Adobe Connect allows users to video conference, share and annotate files, videos, and one another’s desktops, and rearrange the look and feel of the space to suit user’s needs. It accommodates all browsers and internet connections. Meeting Rooms can be cumbersome to set up, but once set up are always available.

Expensify

Expensify is a web-based application that helps users track and categorize expenses. It has a mobile application that can be used to take note of expenses. Pictures can be taken of receipts for upload, and users can forward email receipts to the Expensify account. Best, it’s free.

FormMobi

FormMobi is a web based application that helps simplify the process of creating forms. Users create an account on FormMobi and begin building forms. They can then be accessed by the field team if they have the Android or iOS device. Once the form is saved on the device once it can be accessed without a data connection, and finished forms can be synced with FormMobi. It costs $10 for a single user and up to $100 a month for ten users.

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