We have all heard about the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomenon in which employees bring their own computing devices to their work, such as their laptops, tablets or even smartphones to complete their job tasks more conveniently. Now Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) is arising and reshaping the world of IT management.

Bring your own cloud is a concept about employees being allowed to use public or private third-party cloud services to perform certain job roles, according to techopedia. Many of the services are web based and cross-platform with Dropbox being probably the most famous among them. Other popular personal cloud services are iCloud, Google Drive and SkyDrive. Additionally, these private cloud services are free to use under a certain storage limit, usually between 2 and 5 GB which is enough for storing emails, documents and other raw data.

Therefore, these BYOC services offer an efficient option for storing files off-device for greater protection, automatic backup and constant availability. However, at the same time they provide an avenue for corporate users to compromise security by storing important data outside the company’s secure barriers. The concern here is not about the Bring Your Own Cloud trend taking over the Bring Your Own Device. The real question is:

How securely can the two concepts coexist in a corporate environment, where you cannot really stop users from using private cloud services when they bring their own devices?

Doriana Kote, Marketing Assistant, WebSan Solutions Inc., a Channel Elite Awards Finalist for 2013

WebSan Solutions Inc. has been named a finalist in the Best Small Business Solution category for this year’s CDN Channel Elite Awards. http://www.itbusiness.ca/cea/home.html

This award honors the partner that has created the most innovative and problem solving hardware, networking, cloud or software-based solution for an organization or department with up to 100 seats or less using the solution.

CDN’s Channel Elite Awards recognizes IT Solution Providers for their innovation, leadership and commitment to creating value for their customers.

As a finalist, we will be judged by a panel of CIO or IT director level executives. Category winners will be chosen based on the following criteria:

Innovation - originality in the application of the IT solution to the business problem

A while back Microsoft offered two new cloud-based services that can be very beneficial to your company if you are already in the cloud or if you’re planning on moving to the cloud.

Microsoft has announced the first two accounting offerings for Dynamics GP 10.0 and GP 2010. Payment services and commerce services are the new two new services that are cloud based. Payment services have credit and debit card that is processed from Dynamics GP. Payment services work with: VISA, MasterCard, Discover Card, American Express and PayPal. The good part about it that there will be the same existing data entry screen and you don’t have to install or integrate new software and your customer benefits from this service because they have more options to make payments.

A commerce service has item catalog functions also with integration to Dynamics GP, using the same tool used to connect Dynamics CRM to Dynamics GP. This service is to support a business to consumer website it also allows you to extend your sales reach.  The great benefit about commerce service is that you can expand your sales across different channels and enabling online shopping, therefore, using another resource to increase your sales.

By: Natalie Williams, Marketing Coordinator, WebSan Solutions Inc., a Canadian Certified Microsoft Dynamics Partner