One of the biggest fears associated with having a virtual office seems to be distrust in its security.

“The concern that most internal IT organizations raise when it comes to cloud computing services is that they can not be sure how secure data will be as its moves from their internal systems out to a public cloud service,” says Michael Vizard at eWEEK (Source: http://tr.im/gClQ).

We often get asked about our security at Remindo. Businesses are very concerned, and rightfully so, about the risks of their data being online, but while it’s a common fear, I would contend that having a tool like Remindo.com in your workplace actually makes your data much safer!

Look at your security today, what do you have? Passwords, virus detectors, firewalls, and hopefully a back up. All of these functions are good and you will still need most off them if you take your office online.

But how safe is your information today?

If you store all your information on your laptop, you don’t have any back up if the system crashes, and that means you will lose all your work. Hopefully you are better equipped than that!

Look at it this way: if you don’t have a shared, common place to store and manage projects, people throw things everywhere. It’s like your keys. f you have a place to keep them at home, you generally know where they are. If you don’t, you constantly have to search for it. Knowledge is the same thing. A simple tool that helps you organize and store your data will keep you from spreading it around – making it safer.

So let’s say you store all your files in a common server in the office. What happens if that crashes? Your IT guy might be able to fix it in a couple of hours, IF the data was not erased.

To be safe you need to have an extra server with another round of hardware and software, maintenance, etc. and keep that as a back up. This is the ideal solution for private servers, but it is very expensive and also doubles your storage cost.

Neither of these solutions seems cost effective, so let’s look at how a virtual server operates.

The most important thing to understand is that you don’t need any particular computer when you use a virtual office. You can access it from everywhere, and it will store your information safely regardless of what computer you are working from. Your information is stored in gigantic servers that offer a lot more security and service than smaller ones. Thus, if something goes wrong, you information is instantly backed up.

Convenient, right?

Now let me tell you about how Remindo security works.

At Remindo, we want to keep your files safe. That’s why we selected Amazon Web Services (AWS) as our hosting and data storage partner. AWS is widely regarded as the Platinum Standard when it comes to hosting and data storage.

This partnership represents Remindo’s use of Amazon’s EC2 servers. For you as a user this means that your information such as your profile is stored on these servers. When you upload files, they are stored on Amazon’s S3 data storage systems.

Both Amazon EC2 servers and Amazon S3 data storage systems are highly available, secure and backed up. Another great feature is that the EC2 servers are scalable, which means that it can scale in terms of storage, request rate and users to support an unlimited number of Web-scale applications. The reliability is also great since it has a store data durably with 99.99 percent availability. They promise no single point of failure and that all failures must be tolerated or repaired by the system without any downtime.

After all, says AWS, “Ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of customer’s systems and data is of the utmost importance to AWS, as is maintaining trust and confidence.” (Source: http://aws.amazon.com)

Impressive, right?

So give me one good reason to keep your old, time-consuming and expensive system, when you can get access to Remindo secure servers FREE?

In 2013, 20 percent of enterprise IT work will be done trough cloud computing, and experts predict an acceleration from small and medium-sized businesses. According to William S. McNee, president and CEO of Saugatuck Technology, time has come for software to be widely accepted as a service.

The main reason supporting the increasing acceptance for software as a service (SAAS) is that companies want to decrease operating costs and reduce IT staff. Since Internet is universal, it creates an economy of scale, making it possible to provide services as cheap as possible.

However, less obvious factors support cloud computing as well. For example, it is easier to update and integrate services online. Improvements accumulate without staff, along with the fact that it is easy to mange and use since it does not require installation. There are indications that the benefits of cloud computing are so many that on-premise solutions might decrease significantly.

Cloud computing has been very hot the two previous years, and the trend will continue to accelerate. A survey by Saugatuck show that the amount of companies saying that they would use SAAS in their finance and accounting operations has doubled. In a previous survey, 18.3 percent expected to use SAAS by the end of 2008; two years later the number was up to 39.3 percent. McNee believes that the adaption is even larger and estimates that by the end of 2010, 70 percent of companies will have installed at least one cloud computing application.

Companies that does not adapt to the new circumstances will have a hard time staying competitive. If competitors grasp the trend they decrease their expenses and attain more money to either lower prices or enhance marketing, pushing others out of the market. In the modern fast-paced market, you need to adapt today, to stay ahead in your field.

Welcome!!!!

You’ve heard the saying, the more things change, the more they stay the same?

That doesn’t fly here at Remindo.  When we change Remindo, we constantly add new features and functions to help you work better.  If you haven’t been here before, this will all be new to you.  GREAT!  If you’ve been to Remindo before, you may notice that some of your feedback has been included in the site.  Once again, GREAT!

To show you all the cool new features, we need you to login.  BE SURE to use your corporate email address when you login.  If you don’t, you won’t be able to take advantage of some of the stuff we’ve added.

• Corporate Network. Using your email address, we AUTOMATICALLY create a corporate network for you.  No one has to go in and figure out how to set it up because we do it for you.  If there’s a network already, we add you to it.
• All the Project Management features you need, and none you don’t want. We’ll help you track everything the company’s doing with our corporate-wide Milestones and To-do lists.  Share documents with free storage.  Everyone can see and download the latest on the new corporate initiative, the next product release, and the upcoming party.   How?  Start by clicking the “Milestones,” “To-do,” and “Documents” links to plan the next happening.
• Tweeting. You want to know what’s going on in the office.  Your coworkers want to know what you’re up to.  Sometimes you just want people to know what’s on your mind.  Use the Talk function to tweet to your team.  That will keep you and your friends up to date.
• Groups focused on what you are really doing. We provide an easy way set up groups according to your organization’s hierarchy.  That way you can make the structure in your corporate network reflect your reality.   When you login, click on the “Navigate Groups” tab to see if your teammates have set up groups.  You can join a group, or create your own by clicking the “create group” button.   This creates online workspaces around as many specific teams and projects as you want. There’s no limit!
• Group Project Management.  Did you think that the cool features are only available for the corporate network.  Each group can have its own individual Milestones, To-dos, and Documents.  Go into the group you just created (use the “NAVIGATE GROUPS” button) and start creating some To-dos for your team and then Tweet a message telling them what you’ve done.
• Expand your team. We all know that there’s more to your team than those sitting within the office’s 4 walls.  Click on invite to invite partners, customers, and clients to your corporate network, or go to People to invite people to each group.
• Become more intelligent. Ok, we can’t make you smart, but we can sure give you the feeds to help you along.  The User Dashboard provides customizable RSS feeds for news, sports, competitor information, and industry happenings.  So now you don’t have to go searching for all this stuff, it comes right to your Dashboard.  Click on the “DASHBOARD” to customize your news.
• Create online productivity. Now you’re logged in, you’ve created groups, you have your teams, and you know what’s going on in the industry and the world.  Now is the time get productive.  Set your milestones and track them on the calendar.  Share files and store them in the massive amounts of online storage we give you.  Send messages to your friends, and we’ll keep the message thread for your teammate.
  And remember to have some fun!

BTW, don’t see something you want?  Let us know.  This version of Remindo is based on customer feedback, and we think it’s much improved, so keep it coming!

Thanks!

William