Roaming data charges have come down – especially when going to Australia. However iPhones and BlackBerries can be data hungry devices, so the bill can add up.
In a lot of cases wireless access will be available, sometimes free, but most often requiring a fee and another username and password that you will soon forget. These are also costly, and then you get to the hotel to find out they want to charge you more than breakfast, lunch, and valet parking combined to use the internet. From my recent travel to Australia it seemed that, unless you were in an Air NZ Koru lounge, you were going to have to pay someone to access the Internet.
Some of our most frequent business travellers have just come back and reported great news about an alternative – Boingo Wireless. Essentially, you load the app on your mobile phone or laptop, pay one monthly fee (for mobile users USD$7.95 per month) and with one username and password you can use wireless without the hassles. In Auckland there are 142 compatible locations. In the Waikato, there are 22, Australia 2018. In the USA, there are over 25,000 – you get the idea, and can see locations here.
A month ago we began working with Microsoft Online Services. It has gone better than expected and we are now accelerating our deployment of Microsoft Online Services, having achieved positive feedback from users.
The biggest uptake has been Exchange Online, especially with organisations that have multiple branches and/or a distributed workforce.
One of the more interesting projects that we have on the go is improving email efficiency for a business that was created as a result of combining four firms (each in different cities), using a total of six systems to manage and deliver email. Moving to Microsoft Exchange Online is not only going to save them on hardware and licensing (something they needed to do, due to the age of the systems), but operational costs are also going to fall due to us being able to eliminate five systems that previously required support, licensing, and management.
See the cost estimator here for how cost effective this solution can be.