With so many excellent Cloud applications now available, I thought I would compile a list of my favourite ones and the applications that I use the most. I must emphasise that this is a personal choice and no doubt many of you will disagree and have your own preferences – if so I would be delighted to hear from you and we can compile our own top ten.

The problem with lists such as this is that there is so much choice it is difficult to know where to start, so I am going to begin with three applications that I use the most and then see where we go from there.

Accounting software for business
When I first entered the market (the subject of a future blog) there was virtually no choice in internet based accounting systems. The virtual market place is now swamped with providers and I will be compiling a review of the different offerings in the near future.

For now, I am going to concentrate on one particular product – e-conomic.

e-conomic is a Danish based offering which has been extremely successful in Scandanavia (having been adopted by a number of top 4 firms as their principal accounting software), and is now trying to gain a foothold in the UK. It is an extremely versatile package with a comprehensive list of functionality and add on modules, including departmental accounting and stock control.

The ability to import opening balances and charts of accounts (which are completely customisable) via excel spreadsheets, facilitates set ups and menus can be adapted to suit the user – from the most basic data entry to full scale book keeping mode.

For those diehard Sage users who are just considering a move to the cloud – e-conomic will probably be the easiest way to make the jump.

Dropbox
I tend to work from three different computers depending on where I happen to be. I have my office laptop which is, of course, set up to operate through the firm’s network, my home laptop and my netbook (on which, incidentally I have just installed the Alpha web based operating system Jolicloud).

Dropbox is a virtual drive which is installed on your PC and syncs automatically via the Cloud so that it is available – either via the web – or as virtual drives on whichever PC you are using. Any changes to documents become available on whatever PC you are using. It also has the ability to share directories with other users, making collabaoration that much easier.

Dropbox provides 2GB of storage for no charge and provides additional space at a modest monthly charge.

Evernote

Evernote works in a similar way to Dropbox in that it places a syncable drive to your PC which then syncs with your other PC’s via the web, making your notes available wherever and whenever.

What makes it so versatile, as far as I am concerned, is that it has an excellent Iphone application thus making notetaking truly global. The Iphone enables notes to be entered manually, by voice note or by photograph. Notes can also be added via Twitter.

The extract from the Web site sums it up:
“…..Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere……”

To be continued…..