Below are some excerpts from an article that I had written for Smart Company magazine, so I thought I’d go ahead and post it to our blog.
Get Your Office Off the Treadmill of Traditional Software and Online for the Benefits of Web-based Applications
I’m about to send the draft of this story to the editor by e-mail through my free Gmail account with Google. There. I just used a Web-based application to complete a business transaction. Now that I’m done, I might do some shopping on Amazon or e-Bay, check in with my friends on FaceBook, and then update my fitness and nutrition schedule at SparkPeople.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, every day most of us already employ Web-based applications on our computers — from e-mail and retail to wikis, discussion boards, blogs and role-playing games. So don’t be intimidated by the term when it comes to using this free or low-cost technology to benefit your business. Simply put, a “Web-based application” is just software that comes from and remains on the Web. These tools and utilities run on a remote server rather than your desktop computer or network. You access them through your browser, like Internet Explorer, Safari or Firefox. They don’t need to be downloaded, installed or configured — and most importantly in these belt-tightening times, the software often doesn’t even need to be purchased. Read more »
