Cloud Storage?

The “cloud’ is an extremely hot topic right now in many areas of IT and personal computing, but it means different things to different people, and it can do different things for different types of businesses.

One of the simplest concepts to understand and use is cloud storage. This is essentially just remote storage of your data, and you can get this service from Google, Amazon, Apple, Mozy, and any number of others.

But, is that really a business service, or just outsourced storage? Small businesses need data security and disaster recovery, included automated backup services, not just data storage. Many companies offer this service as well, but is that the whole story?

Imagine this scenario: You have a retail store with 4 POS terminals and a back office station. You have had a busy holiday season so far and you’ve done lots of account sales and loyalty transactions with your best customers. You have a backup service, so you assume you’re good to go.

But, a desperate criminal, possibly hurt by the long recession, breaks into your store. He finds empty cash drawers because you have good banking practices, but he sees value in your computer system and steals them all.

What good will your simple backup service do you now? You need help re-installing your point of sale application on your replacement computers, and you need help downloading your data. A simple backup of your files isn’t enough. Not by a long shot.

As noted here by Mark Webster: http://www.echannelline.com/usa/story.cfm?item=27328, retailers need to be thinking about more than just offsite backup. You need to have a disaster recovery plan, and you can use the cloud to store not only your data, but your mission critical applications and other necessary information. Or, pick a provider that will do it for you, and will give you the services you need, when you need them most.

Retail Technology Flies!

I just returned from a point of sale vendor conference and it’s clear that this business isn’t standing still. Despite a relative lack of innovation before and during the recession of 2008-2010, the last year has shown that mobile devices, web offerings, cloud products, and many other new technologies are set to offer retailers powerful new ways to interact with their customers, more efficiently gather data, and reduce their operating costs.
Mobile platforms such as tablets, smartphones, etc. allow retailers to come out from behind the counter and offer their customers a much more personal and interactive experience, without reducing their data gathering capacity. You can serve a customer in an aisle or near a display, but still capture their demographic info, loyalty points, inventory balances, and process credit cards securely, all from a simple tablet device. Is your store ready for this?

The cloud is going to continue to develop, but we see lots of opportunity for hosted data storage, reporting dashboards, and remote connectivity functions, just for starters. What part of your system would you like to see in the cloud?

In short, there’s a lot going on, and I think the rate of change will only accelerate. Help us understand what you need, and we’ll get there together.