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As a Freelancer, you need to have the office tools and online presence to run your business successful. Cloud being the new buzz word thrown around these days one has to wonder what this is all about. How does this apply to freelancers? Let’s look at the different areas of tools a Freelancer need.
Email, calendar and contacts
There are quite a number of Service Providers available that provide a Cloud based, email, calendar and contacts service, Google being one of them. Using a email, calendar and contact cloud service allows you to sync everything between your computer and any combination of devices. The good part is that you do not have to worry about backups, disaster recovery. It also saves the hassles of manually syncing your phone.
Website
Some Cloud Service Providers provide hosting facilities as part of the basic package. All that is required is to purchase a domain name and using the templates available you can get a basic website up and running in no time.
Sharepoint
As a startup Freelancer you might need to share documents with clients or other Freelancers which might assist you in a Project. This will help keeping version control instead of having to email it back and forth. This will also enable you to be more mobile as you will be able to access the documents form anywhere.
Money
Starting out as a Freelancer one has to keep the operational costs as low as possible until you are up and running. Most of the Cloud Service providers provide the opportunity to start using the free service and as you grow use a Pay as You go business model.
Up Time and Security
This is most likely the most debated topics around Cloud at the moment, as you will need some sort of guarantee that the service will be available when you require. Security is also a very hot topic as the security of your information and possibly your customer’s information must be very secure.
As a Freelancer you need to focus on your business and customers and it is very important that the technology and Cloud Service Provider you use are reliable to portray a professional Business image to you customers.
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