SugarSync Versus Google Drive

December 26, 2012 by 1 Comment

As we discussed in a blog post this past May (see How Google Beats Dropbox and SkyDrive), we made the transition from a local file storage solution to a cloud-based solution, and based on our needs, Google Drive beat out Dropbox and SkyDrive for our business. What it basically boiled down to was cost and functionality: Google Drive seemed the best choice as their costs were reasonable and their desktop app was more platform agnostic, allowing us to sync both Windows and Mac desktops and laptops as well as sync Windows, iOS and Android devices. SkyDrive isn’t there yet from a mobile standpoint, and Dropbox was just too expensive.

However, we DID make the following pretty clear: “One of the things that makes SmarterTools a successful business is that we are never really content with how things run or with how we do things. We always look for improvements.”

That constant evaluation brought us back to SugarSync. While Google Drive was stable, and extremely cost effective, we started noticing some issues with the GDrive desktop clients. The main issues seemed to center around our MacBook Pros and the occasional issue with missing files. While we could log in to the Web interface and see the files, the desktop sync was spotty, at best. Oddly enough, Windows users didn’t see any problems. We did contact Google support and our efforts netted us some possible solutions, but nothing concrete. To their credit, contacting Google customer support was fairly painless – more so than we thought.

So, we went back to take a look at SugarSync. We liked their interface initially, but again we had cost to consider. A quick call to them with an explanation of what we were encountering led to a nice offer from their Sales team, and an assertion that our 30-day trial would allow us to get everyone set up and running, so we could run full sync tests, without a cost to us. After that, if we decided to sign up, we had a nice promotional offer in our back pockets to use.

I’m happy to say that, after 2 weeks, we’re seeing few issues with keeping everyone synced, regardless of their platform or device. There ARE one or two issues that we were able to overcome, but nothing like what we were seeing with Google Drive. I do have to say that, with Dropbox, it was much easier to remove users from the overall sharing “team” – you simply had to remove them from the Team and Dropbox took care of removing shared files from the user’s account, and, therefore, their synced devices. With SugarSync it’s not quite that easy. Regardless, SugarSync has been very responsive and helpful throughout our testing. We’re very optimistic about our future with SugarSync. While we don’t rest for long, at least we’re resting comfortably with our selection. If you’re looking for a cloud-based file storage solution, you may want to give them a try.

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Google’s Winter of Discontent

December 19, 2012 by 3 Comments

Source: Pocket Now

Source: Pocket Now

Late last week, Google announced that, as part of its “Winter cleaning,” they would be eliminating, or “closing”, some the less popular features from their free products and services. Examples of these include the ability to create calendar events via SMS or to check your calendar via SMS.  And who knew about Punchd, an Android app that keeps loyalty punch cards on your smartphone? Apparently not many people as it is getting axed as well.

Source: iMore

Source: iMore

However, some other features that they’re eliminating are a bit more surprising. The one getting the most attention is Google Sync, Google’s implementation of Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync for syncing Google Mail, Calendar and Contacts. EAS is the premier syncing technology for mobile devices that run Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8. Microsoft even added EAS support for Outlook 13, the update to their popular desktop email client. While it’s true Google is only “closing” Google Sync for new users of their free mail service after January 4, 2013, it will still cause a lot of headaches for a lot of people. They also state that, with their implementation of IMAP for syncing mail and CalDAV and CardDAV for syncing calendars and contacts, that users of their free mail service won’t really be affected.

Source: The Verge

Source: The Verge

There’s just one problem with that line of reasoning: Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 doesn’t support CalDAV or CardDAV as it relies solely on EAS for calendar and contact syncing. Therefore, anyone who purchases a Windows phone after Google’s Winter cleaning is completed won’t be able to sync their phones with their free Gmail accounts – well, at least not their Google calendars or contacts. As a result, many in the tech community are projecting that this is an escalation of the platform wars surrounding Microsoft and Google. In addition, it’s clear that Microsoft may have been taken by surprise at the Google’s revelation and is doing whatever they can to spin people from Gmail to Outlook.com, their own paid email service.

This is all extremely entertaining for those of us in the mail server business. While the big guys all slug it out, pointing people away from free services and funnelling them toward paid services, our products become even more important parts of the discussion. For example, when looking at the paid options from Microsoft and Google, SmarterMail’s price point really comes into its own, even with the Exchange ActiveSync add-on factored in.

As an example, let’s use a 15 employee business, which is the sweet spot for both Google and Microsoft. Below is a pricing matrix comparing Outlook.com’s price with Google’s Apps for Business paid service, and SmarterMail’s Enterprise licensing alongside. The numbers speak for themselves.

Outlook.com
$6/user/month		 Google Apps
$50/user/year		 SmarterMail
Enterprise
Monthly Fee $90.00 $62.50 N/A
Yearly Fee $1350.00 $750.00 $499.00
EAS Add-on N/A N/A $199.00
Yearly Total $1350.00 $750.00 $698.00

What this doesn’t factor in is that, with SmarterMail (or any SmarterTools product), yearly renewals of upgrade protection are extremely discounted – up to a 60% savings. So, year 2 would look like this:

Outlook.com
$6/user/month		 Google Apps
$50/user/year		 SmarterMail
Enterprise
Monthly Fee $90.00 $62.50 N/A
Yearly Fee $1350.00 $750.00 $199.60
EAS Add-on N/A N/A $199.00
Yearly Total $1350.00 $750.00 $398.60

That means SmarterMail Enterprise, with EAS, is almost half of the cost of Google Apps for Business. When you start adding employees, those savings become even more apparent as SmarterMail’s overall cost doesn’t increase until you hit 25 employees and need to increase your EAS subscriptions. And even if you don’t need EAS for syncing your Apple or Android devices, let’s say you’re a die-hard Windows fan and will cling to your HTC 8 or Nokia Lumia 920 until end of time, SmarterMail can accommodate you as well. That’s because SmarterMail natively supports IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV so you can still get enterprise-level mail service for an even greater discounted price. Then there are the other things that come included: anti-spam and anti virus that keep mail servers, and users, secure; instant messaging and live chat, even when using external clients; shared contacts and calendars; industry-leading webmail interface, and much more.

So, go ahead, guys. Keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll sit on the sidelines with our popcorn and watch how things unfold…and we’ll just keep building a fantastic line of products that match and some ways exceed your offerings, but at a fraction of the cost.

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Apple throws down the social gauntlet

June 13, 2012 by

There’s already a ton of press about Apple’s WWDC, and a lot of discussion about the next generation MacBook Pro, iOS 6, Mountain Lion and more. Some things of note: Engadget has a good review of the new MacBook Pro, John Gruber at DaringFireball breaks it all down into 3 main takeaways, and of course, there’s all the coverage from the Verge. I won’t rehash any of what’s been discussed, but there are a couple of things that I found particularly intriguing that don’t seem to be getting much coverage.

Apple made a big deal about being able to share maps, photos and web pages through social networks and the integration of Twitter (the deeper integration, that is) and Facebook that’s coming in iOS 6. This means that more people will be able to share things with their existing social accounts. Not terribly earth shattering, but it’s something that all of the iOS users I know have been clamoring for. In the background, however, is something that’s even more intriguing.

The first is Apple’s sharing capabilities beyond just Facebook and Twitter. Apple is placing a ton of  importance on Apple IDs and the complement of Mountain Lion and iOS 6 seamlessly integrating the desktop and mobile experiences. Take a picture on your iPhone and it appears on your desktop. Create a document on your desktop and you can not only view it on your mobile device, but edit it as well. Microsoft is moving in this direction with Windows 8, but from what I’ve seen and heard, their efforts aren’t nearly as seamless. Apple is truly blurring the lines between the desktop and mobile in a way the others can only hope to do.

Beyond that, however, and even more interesting, are the new sharing features for photo streams. You will soon be able to share pictures with people in your address book, and those people will not only get a shared album in their own photo stream but they will be able to comment on these photos as well. That is HUGE! That means that Apple users have the ability to share with true friends – NOT Facebook friends, or business associates, people you knew in the 7th Grade or other acquaintances and followers that you’ve accumulated since you signed up for Twitter and Facebook. These are actual friends of yours. These are people you regularly call, message and interact with. This, more than anything else, is the beginning of the Apple social network.

Look at it this way: one of the major uses of Facebook is photo sharing. However, photo sharing was never easy in Facebook. Have you ever tried to share a photo with just a few Facebook friends? It’s difficult at best. Photo sharing is so popular that Facebook bought Instagram and then released their own camera app (and what platform got the Facebook camera first?). However, the iPhone is one of the most popular cameras out there and with the new sharing and commenting features in photo stream, Apple takes the primary Facebook hook and brings it back into iOS and the desktop. Users can now share pictures with JUST true friends and the people they are closest to. They are filling in the gap between sharing with “friends” and sharing with friends.

Finally is Passbook. This is Apple moving into Square and Google Wallet territory. It can’t be anything but…especially since it already mirrors Square’s Card Case. The implications of this are huge, and Dan Rowinski over at ReadWriteWeb does a much better job of breaking it down that I could. Suffice it to say that Apple is moving towards processing transactions, just as a Visa or Amex do, but couple that power with the ability to provide services that neither Visa or Amex could ever hope to provide.

There are some that are saying that Monday’s keynote at the WWDC was an attempt to throw down the gauntlet with Google. Well, that could be, but it may have been an even subtler jab at Facebook. Apple looks to be moving towards creating their own social network. I guess only time will tell.

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How Google Drive beats Dropbox and SkyDrive

May 10, 2012 by 5 Comments

As your company grows, so does the necessity to better manage company documents and files. Like many companies, SmarterTools utilized file servers at our data center and created shares for various departments. This was, of course, a decent solution, but one that required a bit of maintenance by our IT staff and required our employees to use VPN in order to access the server, and this wasn’t a good solution for the up and coming tablets. So, in 2010 we decided to evaluate “cloud based storage” solutions. We looked at Box.net, Dropbox, SugarSync and a few others and eventually settled on Dropbox. We have been a long time customer and supporter of Dropbox and we’ve used them through thick and thin, like their security mishaps and some terms of service issues. We weathered these storms because the service is robust, it’s reliable and its sharing and team features keep the management of our documents and files simple and secure. However, the recent updates and rebranding of both Microsoft SkyDrive and Google Drive has made us re-evaluate the functionality and pricing of Dropbox. Through this re-evaluation we discovered that we can decrease our file storage costs approximately $3700.00! You read that right – a $3700.00 savings!

Why use a cloud storage solution versus a file server?

Apart from the savings we see from an IT standpoint, there are some personal and technical savings as well. SmarterTools employees need access to documents and files whether they’re online or offline.  We work all hours of the day and from anywhere; some of us travel, some work better at night, some work better from home and several are responsible for 24 x 7 x 365 emergency support incidents. In addition, we use many different mobile and desk-based devices. While everyone is provided a laptop, that laptop may be Windows or Mac. We use tablets such as iPads or Asus Transformers and use a variety of mobile phones as well, including Windows-, iOS-, and Android-based devices. With an internal file server, in order to get to a file we’d have to deal with all of these personal, geographic and technical variables and use a number of different methods, applications and protocols to reach our company documents and files. Sometimes that became a huge hassle. For example, many tablets and phones don’t support VPN well and that’s a critical component for reaching a networked server. IN addition, some devices, like the iPad, aren’t file based.

Ultimately, we ended up with Dropbox because every situation, platform, location and device mentioned above is fully supported and we’ve found that everything synchronizes quickly and completely, and while we were paying close to $4000.00 a year to use the service, the price was worth it considering how it made things so much easier on the entire team.

So, why move to another provider? One of the things that makes SmarterTools a successful business is that we are never really content with how things run or with how we do things. We always look for improvements. With the recent announcements from Microsoft about SkyDrive and the rebranding and added features of Google Drive, we felt it would be worth our time to evaluate these new developments. I have to say, we’re pleasantly surprised with the results.

Doom for Dropbox?

First things first: Dropbox is a wonderful service. Even though they’ve had their share of adversity and public brow beating, we were very happy with the service they provided. The unfortunate thing for Dropbox is that their Team feature, which is what we had to use in order to be able to share department-level access across multiple users, secure access to folders and files, etc. requires adding additional “users” to the team account, and this can be very pricey. The pricing for our Dropbox usage is as follows: $795.00 for Team sharing, which includes 1TB of space and 5 users.  Additional users are $125.00 each, so for 25 more users we pay an additional $3125.00. All together, that’s $3,920.00. In addition to the cost, when using the Team features of Dropbox, each users’ Dropbox account is converted into your Team account. So, when an employee leaves, you must email Dropbox support and have their user turned into standard account. Otherwise, users wouldn’t have access to any files they’ve put into their personal Dropbox space.

Looking at Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive, their services are based solely on space. That means that only a main, corporate account needs a paid plan. Accounts that have shared access to folders on the primary account can be free! Using SmarterTools as an example, we only need one account that has 200GB of storage. We want to share this 200GB of content so our employees can sign up for a free Google Drive or Microsoft SkyDrive account and then accept invitations to the shared resources that are created on the primary account. As of now, accepting a shared resource on a free account does not impact the 5GB or 7GB allotments that Google and Microsoft respectively provide. That is a huge cost saving advantage! In addition, when an employee leaves the company, all that needs to be done is that the main SmarterTools account needs to remove that individual’s access to any shared resources. For Google Drive, those files and directories on the users’ machines are then automatically, and instantly, removed.

Let’s look at a pricing comparison for Google Drive and SkyDrive. Again, with 30 accounts on Google Drive we’d need a primary account and pay $120.00 per year for 200GB of storage. The additional 29 users would be free accounts. With SkyDrive the cost is $100.00 per year for a primary account with 200gb of storage, and the additional 29 accounts would be free! Compare either of these to the $3,290.00 cost at Dropbox for users and and the $795 Team feature and you see the overall savings!

How do we protect our documents and files from a cloud storage disaster?

When you’re in the software and services business, you understand the risks associated with having tired programmers and network administrators. No matter how many policies or procedures you put in place, something can happen. Because of this, we don’t rely solely on the cloud storage company for backups. Even though Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive support file revisions there is still the possibility of file loss. To alleviate some of that concern we also have a server configured with an account which pulls down all documents and files. This server is then backed up in our datacenter as all our other servers are and can be used in case of a cloud storage disaster. Now this isn’t a “file server” per se, so we’re not accessing the server for access to files, etc. It’s a server that we use for other things that also acts as our backup server. Therefore, the maintenance and other costs associated with a standalone file server are not issues.

Ultimately, we chose Google Drive because…

So the question is why did we decided to go with Google Drive versus SkyDrive? The answer is really simple: just like Dropbox, Google Drive’s clients for Mac and Windows desktops download shared files to machines. As of today, Microsoft SkyDrive clients do not work like this. The shares are available in the SkyDrive Web interface, but their desktop clients and tablet/phone clients does not support shared folders and files which is a necessity.

Taking all of this into account, things are looking a little grim for Dropbox. Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive are incredible offerings at incredible prices. Apart from the cost savings, the effort both Google and Microsoft are putting into cloud storage gives us a great deal of confidence in their offerings, in the progress they’re making and that any issues we’re currently seeing will be quickly resolved. On the other hand, Dropbox seems to be screwed!

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Microsoft building an ecosystem with Barnes and Noble investment

May 1, 2012 by 2 Comments

Microsoft is one of the largest players in the next generation of platforms and operating systems but it’s the only one with out an ecosystem. That is, it’s the only one without revenue generating services that can help power and guide those platforms

In a previous blog post, “Windows 8 will succeed, but Microsoft could still fail“, I talked about Windows 8 and the impact it could have on the antiquated business model Microsoft has for their Windows Division. Specifically, I talk about how their business model is in trouble due to pressures on providing free upgrades like Apple and Google do for the iOS and Android platforms. I further propose that, without additional revenue generating services, Microsoft is going to have a difficult time competing in the platform space moving forward. In order for Windows to succeed in the Post-PC era, Microsoft needs to build an ecosystem that provides their main source or revenue in the consumer space.

Oddly enough, it seems Microsoft understands this and its recent injection of money into Barnes and Noble is proof.

It’s no great secret that Microsoft is years behind Apple, Amazon, and Google in providing online services. In addition, Microsoft will not be able to build these services in a reasonable amount of time and, to be honest, their track record has proven they aren’t necessarily very good at it. They have attempted multiple music services, either through building it themselves or via partnership, and none were very successful. In addition, their implementation had a long lasting impact on users because they took down DRM servers making some music no longer able to be played.  Bing has been somewhat of a bomb and continues to cost Microsoft money.

The “funding” of a new Barnes and Noble digital and educational company is brilliant. This allows Microsoft to complete against all three major e-book players on a fairly level playing field very quickly. Without Barnes and Noble, Microsoft would be in a world of hurt, plus they have added another piece to their ecosystem.  Microsoft is already planning to come out with an App Store for Metro, which will provide some decent revenue opportunities, but having access to the Barnes and Noble customer base and providing their e-reader on all Windows 8 versions is a step in the right direction.

Now the question is, where is Microsoft going to get video?

A friend of mine, Jeff Hardy, sent me an email and suggested, albeit sarcastically, that Microsoft buy Netflix. The funny thing is, I agree 100% with the idea.  Netflix is in trouble. They don’t have enough money to get enough content and they’re stuck.  Companies such as NBC, CBS, FOX, Showtime, HBO, etc. don’t like the Netflix model. Plus, Netflix has another issue: their model works great for older content but you can’t sell customers on older content. New and ever-changing content drives revenue. That’s why CBS, NBC, et. al. have their own apps and websites for customers to consume “new” content.

Microsoft has the perfect opportunity to get into the TV and movie service, immediately and across ALL platforms.  Microsoft could go from zero ecosystem to a complete ecosystem, across every device and platform available, practically overnight. Once Microsoft has their new media service (i.e., post-Netflix), they will have the money and the leverage to bargain with the NBC, CBS, HBO and other media companies. Microsoft will now own the platforms – Windows Mobile and Windows for desktops and tablet – and will have the ability to extend Netflix into a rental service as well, just as Apple has with iTunes and Amazon with their Prime service. The Amazon model is really the one everyone needs to move to. What’s holding Amazon back is that their video can only be played on limited devices and the service is very dependent on Flash.

So that leaves Microsoft with a need for a music service, and it sounds like they’re going to try to develop their own solution again. This time it should be simpler both because they’ve tried it before, and this time there are a few good models to use moving forward.

Investors, and even politicians, are giving Microsoft a lot of heat for sitting on nearly $60 billion in cash. This might have been a very smart decision and will give Microsoft a lot of flexibility in their direction and development of online services as there are some very well established companies that can make Microsoft very relevant very quickly, for the right price.

It would be a pleasant surprise if Microsoft could erase their consumer failures over the last 5 years. Apple’s iOS has had the same look and feel for the last few years and I don’t think Apple has felt pressure from Google and Android from a “user experience” standpoint. Microsoft, especially with there Metro interface, might be the nudge that Apple needs to evolve their very functional, but somewhat boring, mobile platform.

After all is said and done, what do you think of a Microsoft acquisition of Netflix? Does it make sense? Do you think Microsoft has what it takes to build a comparable ecosystem to Apple, Amazon and Google?

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