Virtual Office? Yes There Are Pros and Cons

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Here’s a great example of a small business who uses a virtual office successfully

A plumber works out of his van.  He uses a laptop on a cellular modem Internet connection to run a virtual Windows Desktop to create work tickets and invoices for customers while he is onsite.  With everything on the remote host, he liked the security of knowing if his van was broken into and his laptop stolen, his data was safe and he could use any Internet connected computer or tablet to resume work.

So are you ready to run out and sign up for a virtual office and junk your server?

Not so fast!

To date, not one of my clients who considered a virtual office has actually implemented one!  Instead, they purchased new physical servers and new physical PCs…why?

In a word expense, it was just too expensive to go to a pure Cloud-based computer infrastructure.  The cost starts at $100/account and goes up significantly as more services are provided.

One of my clients with two people calculated it would cost $380/month to host their ACT! databases, two virtual desktops, and a virtual server with 180GB of files.  They could purchase new computers and software and recover the investment in ten months.

Labor is also a significant variable cost.  On-boarding processes vary by hosting firm, but applications still have to be installed and data migrated.  Some local support is still necessary for configuring printers and firewalls.

The costs climb into the stratosphere for larger firms.

A client with 34 employees had eight executive team mailboxes on a hosted Microsoft Exchange server.  The cost was $9/month/mailbox.  They loved the service, but balked at spending $306/month for 34 mailboxes.  I implemented a virtual Microsoft Exchange 2013 server on their office physical server for $2,000 in labor and software that will take six and a half months to recover.  Then they will have years of mail service without monthly payments.  This decision was just for mail hosting.

Still, most clients use a hybrid of local and Cloud services.  Some applications are exclusively Cloud-based these days.  Cheap VPN technology and remote control tools can make it easy to access physical servers from anywhere.

Eventually costs will come down as more companies adopt virtual office technology.  Then maybe by that time I’ll see my first client adopt a full virtual office solution!

Read more of David’s articles:

Computer Professionals Taking Care of Business

Mum’s the Word

Wearable Computers Are Coming

Small Business Move To Cloud? 8 Factors Say NO.

The Changing Face of Personal Computing

5 Key Small Business IT Managed Benefits

 

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