It sounds like you have a good solution for your business. The available services offered in the cloud don’t currently make sense for every situation, but I believe that will change as cloud applications become more advanced and network connections become more reliable and ubiquitous.

Why not MobileMe – because is does not work through a proxy, or with Outlook using Exchange and poor client support for Linux.

However because I use everything, I know what I want to spend “MY” money on – so I own a Mac. Apple mail is really nice to use and has some nice desktop and automation features (I love jsut clicking on a mail and say “Create appointment in iCal” it usually gets the details right, then iCal synch with Google, and all my other devices get the appointment too.

The only “Mac Only” app I use is Eye-TV and iTunes to synch my iPhone, but the mac as a client for all my other apps is nice to use. It is small and quiet, the OS has never crashed on me. All the free and open source software I use is supported, and is a real unix for when I need to do work, and has the best parental control features of any OS I have used so I have not problems letting my kids use it too.
The cloud to me does not diminish my use of OS X, but actually lets me use it now where I would not have been able to just a few years ago.

As far as change tracking, Pages has a very sophisticated system that is compatible with Word. One nice thing is that it allows multiple people to make changes on the same document. It also has a nice feature of being able to easily send a copy of a document over Mail from within the document itself.

You make a good point about the real issue of keeping track of who is working on the document and I can see where having it available over our internal network makes sense. On the other hand, I still prefer the tools I currently have to the online tools and our system of making changes and then passing them around via email works well for us. Who knows, there may come a time when we change. Our little forays into online document sharing have run into issues that made us decide to stop pursuing it.

Finally you make the comment, “Two key benefits of storing your docs . . . and you can free up your IT guy to do more important things than maintain the document-storage servers and their associated software.”

We use Macs. I need to keep him busy. Take care

Quote: “Maybe you need another IT guy or maybe your NOT listening to your IT guy. Instead of spending money on the license for a copy of each app installed on those 70 Mac you could reduce your IT spend and use the savings to improve your service.”

Aren’t you being a little presumptive? You know nothing about my business nor do you know anything about my business processes but you presume that I’m NOT listening to my IT guy. Is it possible that maybe we have sat down and looked carefully at the choices and the costs of those choices (both in monetary terms and in other terms) and determined that the costs outweigh the benefits of online solutions.

What is also presumptive is your listing of online programs that you presume will meet our needs. A good example is Quickbook online. I am being a little presumptive myself, but I am guessing that you have never run a complex business (7 locations) with Quickbooks Online. Because if you had, you would understand its significant limitations. I use Moneyworks Gold which is far removed from Quickbooks. The same is true for all the other solutions you suggest. None of them meet my needs.

I would also like to suggest that rather than say that I am NOT listening to my IT guy, that it would have been preferable to say something more like, “Have you considered the money you would save on licensing and how it could be better spent on your business?”

Regardless of where the data or the application is located, local, local network, internet – you still need a local machine – an Apple is clearly the best solution (easier to use, better security, stability, cost of ownership, etc.)

Automatically backing up mission/business critical data off-site every day is a must. Still want to backup every day locally and take the backups home each night? Fine – but still automate the off site backup.

Smooth’s whiteboard analogy is dead on – collaborate and mediate to problem solve. For document sharing/routing/editing, Snow Leopard Server’s Wiki server is a simple to use solution to manage the process. It both works and is better than sending email attachments.

Want to run a business, make money, grow and use a Mac? Then check out open source xTuple ERP . Runs on Mac Linux and Windows – and can be used in a mixed environment – basically Alfredo’s point on robust OS specific client, think of the xTuple client as a souped up browser and just as easy to install and manage. It easily and securely connects to the database in the main office or on a public server. And way more robust than Quickbooks and has an integrated CRM that, while not at SalesForce’s level, will satisfy almost all situations.

Now Smooth wants to be able to touch his hard drives – while I get the point, if he has a multisite organization exactly where does he want his database (I’ll assume he has a core database for his financials, sales, purchasing, inventory, crm, etc) so that he can go touch it? As long as you have a solid backup plan, redundant servers and power and 24/7 network support – put it where ever you like. And if you can stand the down time redundancy is optional – backup is not.

If you use xTuple and want your database in the cloud – then we have a hosted solution that solves the redundancy, backup issues and has all the advantages of scalable pricing, managed up grades, support, security, etc. We run our database on Apple severs and you can optionally have Apple’s Wiki server. If you later want to put it on your own hardware, buy your own Mac, Linux or Windows server and you can host it yourself.

And uh – don’t forget to backup.

As for cooperative work, it sound like you have a good solution in place. However, how do people view and make changes to the document? Are they passing around a hard copy, e-mailing it to each other, or modifying the document over your network? Except for the change-tracking features in MS Word, all other change-tracking systems that I’ve seen work over the network.

If your people use the features in Word and pass the document around by e-mail, it works to some extent, but you can easily run into cases of getting multiple people working on separate copies of the document at the same time, without knowing the other is working on it (this is a pain to then have to go through and merge), and they have to remember to attach it in their next e-mail, make sure they attached the right version, and the next person has to make sure no one else is working on it and he/she has the latest one.

If you use the third option, accessing the document over the network, you avoid all these problems. While it is stored on your company’s local network instead of in “the cloud,” you are essentially doing the same thing. Two key benefits of storing your docs in the cloud are that you can access them from anywhere (not just from your company’s network), and you can free up your IT guy to do more important things than maintain the document-storage servers and their associated software.