How to Run Your Business With Virtually NO Software to Install

I was thinking the other day that every single time we need new “software” for the business, Jonathan, our VP of Engineering says, “Can you fine an online solution so the engineering team can concentrate on creating value for our customers and not managing all kinds of software?” Fine Jonathan, and we'll even do it on the cheap!

Jonathan and Alf helped me out with this one and it's a goody. The main reasons for wanting a online hosted solution are:

• No servers to manage or maintain
• All you need is a browser, so they're normally compatible with both Windows and Mac users

So together we came up with a list of online solutions, that you can get either free, have inexpensive monthly fees or pay as you go, and you don't need to manage anything. It isn't an exhaustive list but we think it's some of the best.

One more thing...this is a list of products we like or products we use ourselves. There is no paid advertisement going on here.

Running the Biz

800# and Hosted Phone Lines – VirtualPBX ($25 set up, $10/month per line)

Conference Calling – totallyfreeconferencecalls.com (Free, each caller pays for their minutes)

Fax to Email/Email to Fax - eFax (from Free to $20/month)

Payroll - ADP (less than $100 for a 40 person payroll)

Word Processing & Spreadsheets - Google Docs & Spreadsheets (Free), Zoho (Free, comes with TONS of features, I may finally and fully leave MSFT)

Data Backup - Mozy (Free 2GB), xDrive (Free 5GB), SOS Backup (5GB $4/month), iBackup (5GB $10/month)

Photo & Video Storage - Phanfare (unlimited backup of full resolution photos and video $6.95/month) Flickr (100MB/month, 5 MB/Photo Free), Snapfish & KodakGallary (Free for 12 months as long as you buy one thing from them.

Group Chat/Collaboration - Campfire (Free to $49/mo), Zoho (Free)

Organization - to do lists, notes, files, images, calendar, reminders - Backpack (Free - $14/month) Zoho (Free), Google Calendar (Free)

Project Management – Basecamp, Go Plan (Free to manage 1 or 2 projects.)

Marketing/Sales

Email Marketing – Obviously VerticalResponse (about 1¢ or less an email)

Website Hosting & Creation Templates – WorkZ Sites ($20/month)

Website Analytics – Google Analytics (Free), Technorati for blogs (Free)

Brand Monitoring – Andiamo Systems ($99/month coming soon, I've seen it, it rocks)

CRM/Contact Management – salesforce.com ($65/month/user, stripped down version for $9/month/user), SugarCRM ($40/month/user), Highrise ($149/month unlimited users.), Zoho, (Free up to 3 users)

Direct Mail – VerticalResponse, iprint ($ Depends on # of pieces)

Online Store - Yahoo Store ($40/month), eBay Stores ($15.95/month), Amazon Stores ($40/month), Miva (from $14.95/month)

Surveys – SurveyMonkey ($20/month 1000 responses)

Create a Logo – LogoYes ($99 to create your own Logo in minutes, it's pretty fun)

Blogging – TypePad ($4.95/month)

Website Rankings – urltrends, Alexa (Free)

Do you use an online solution you love but Got any others? Love to hear them.

Comments

[rachel]

I use some hosted pbx service from vox line systems and everything is online all I needed to get was the phone. It is much cheaper and better then regular phone service and I am happy that I found it.
Their website is www.voxlinehostedpbx.com

here is a link to the hosted pbx company

[aaron]

probably the best office suit is open office (www.openoffice.org) You can open MS-office docs, spreadsheets and powerpoint and save them in Microsoft format too. for project management i like GanttProjet (www.ganttproject.org) Its very similar to MS-project.

[Missy]

For blogging, Wordpress.

It is rich in features, FREE, and the most popular. I use it on several blogs i own and manage. Love it!

[Ryan]

Also great for CRM and project management: www.QuickBase.com. We have been using it for years as a knowledge center.

And for photo storage don't forget Google's Picasa http://picasa.google.com/. It is free and my favorite photo hosting site out there.

[Bob Mathew]

CatalystOffice should probably be on this list as well. It's an online office for small businesses and provides an integrated suite of customizable business-class email, online document management, contacts, calendar, company-wide IM and even collaboration. The pricing is revolutionary -- just one price for the entire organization (i.e., no per-user charges) and the plans are incredibly affordable (starting at $25 per month for the entire company). The website is www.catalystweb.com.

[Joe]

Great list. You should also check out projectspaces, which is a really easy to use project management team collaboration tool.

[Jon]

For project management, social networking and collaboration all rolled into one, you should also check out Huddle (www.huddle.net) - it's a new online tool and really good :)

[Arvind]

Thanks for using Zoho and recommending us to your readers, Janine :-)