If you haven’t already done it, chances are you’re seriously considering it.

Entering the cloud, that is.

For a growing number of small and medium sized businesses, it’s an option that’s becoming increasing appealing as marketing conditions remain questionable while operating costs steadily climb.

Nothing like being caught between a rock and a hard place, is there?

But now that innovative web-based solutions like email hosting are available at such a cost-effective price, SMBs can actually benefit from all the functionalities of top-grade resources that were once the exclusive domain of the fortune 500.

Cloud computing might sound like a gift from the gods (and for many SMBs, it is), but the fact remains that the concept of cloud computing and hosted email solutions — such as Hosted Exchange — is still a relatively new concept. It’s only really been a viable option for SMBs for the last few years and many of us are still struggling our way up the learning curve.

And that’s where making the right decision can get tricky.

The internet is literally flooded with information on cloud computing and hosted email. (Just try Googling the terms and see what you get.) So how can you zone in on the information that you can actually put to use today?

We recommend starting with TMCnet’s Email Hosting community.

Information you can use—right now

SherWeb specifically created this community in partnership with TMCnet because we know that most SMBs need help weeding through the tangled Amazonian forest of information about hosted email and cloud computing (some of which is questionable at best). We also know that more than any other business category, SMBs are often the most hard-pressed to find ways of boosting productivity while simultaneously saving time and money. And to make matters worse, decision-makers have precious little time and even fewer resources at their disposal.

Dwindling budgets, limited resources and small IT departments: yes indeed, SMBs really do have all the fun.

Which is why cloud computing has been such a revolutionary force for this business category.

What makes these hosted solutions even more appealing is the fact that they can be fully customized to a company’s specific needs—and instantly evolve with them. Hosted email and collaborative solutions offer a practical cloud-based structure that helps SMBs better prioritize and delegate so that work gets done faster. Perhaps more importantly, they allow SMBs to decrease costs and ramp up productivity from day one —with little-to-no IT resources or infrastructure.

All the info you need—in one place

Even if we do say so ourselves, email-hosting.tmcnet.com offers a goldmine of resources and useful information:

• An introduction to cloud email and collaboration services and how they can help you increase reliability, security, efficiency and scalability
• Easy-to-understand information on the many functionalities of CECS
• Expert advice on the various options available
• Objective recommendations on which solutions will best meet your specific business needs
• Feature articles that are worth reading
• Industry news
• Popular FAQ

To cloud or not to cloud?

Ultimately, whether or not you decide to enter the cloud depends on your situation. If you are having trouble managing your applications or IT infrastructure, minimizing downtime, or maintaining data privacy for your business and customers, outsourcing to a cloud provider could eliminate all these headaches in a single click, so to speak.

And just imagine what you could do with all this extra time.