I am just starting a new business venture with a couple of colleagues. We do not want to have an office, preferring to each work from home. What is the best way for us to share documents and spreadsheets? I have been told that we need to have a server but that sounds expensive.
If you had asked me this 5 years ago I would be talking about servers but now there are many tools that can give you full connectivity without the need for expensive hardware or a central office. There are products such as DropBox and Cubby that will enable you to share your files with colleagues and synchronise them between computers. Depending on how much data you are storing these can even be free! The other benefit of ‘cloud’ storage like this is that they also act as a back-up for you. If you wish to have a shared diary you can use free services such as Gmail where you can share a calendar as well as contacts and documents or you can use a Hosted Exchange solution so you can use Outlook on your computer or your ipad or mobile and this can be had from just a few pounds per month. We are able to advise and set-up the right solutions for your business so that it will work right now and cover you for future expansion. Good luck with your new venture.