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Please be rest assured that SherWeb is extremely excited about Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS) and we are doing our best to speed up the process and deploy the solution as soon as possible. That being said, we do not want to rush things in such a way that it will have a negative impact on our customers’ experience. Unlike some of our competitors, we rely on Microsoft’s solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) for the deployment of our Microsoft solutions. HMC is a set of tools and best-practice recommendations proposed by Microsoft so that providers such as SherWeb are able to offer their software in a reliable way.

Since the HMC version of OCS is not out yet, we will not offer OCS right away. Some providers have opted to do so even though Microsoft hasn’t provided the solution yet and we are not willing to take that risk. SherWeb has had absolutely no unplanned downtime for its Exchange 2007 service while still experiencing an incredible growth and we associate part of that phenomenal success to our ability to stick and work under Microsoft’s guidelines and specifications.

SherWeb’s mentality has always been to provide the best hosted experience to its customers, period. This philosophy allows us to offer products that are mature and Microsoft certified for the Hosted environment; unlike that of some of our competitors which take the risk of releasing un-tested early versions which may provide limited features and continual development at your time and expense.

Thank you for taking the time to read me.

Eight Business Trends to Watch from McKinsey

Top Consumer Technology Predictions for 2008 from Forrester Research

You can also take a look at this website who publishes a list of all the websites that have something to say about the new trends of 2008.

THE Digital Media & Internet Uber 2008 Prediction List
http://www.darrenherman.com/2007/12/16/the-digital-media-internet-uber-2008-prediction-list/

Enjoy and if you have more predictions do not hesitate to post a comment.

Thank you

So what to expect from SherWeb in 2008? For starters, we intend on staying focused on our goal which is to provide high quality software-as-a-service (SaaS) products to our customers. So far, besides Web hosting, we have focused on messaging and collaboration software such as Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint because we firmly believe email (with collaboration capabilities) is the most critical business communication tool.

For the year to come, not only will we remain focused on continuing to improve our business-class e-mail offering, but it is also an objective to introduce new software products under the SaaS model. Therefore, on the business-class email side, you can expect Exchange 2007 SP1 soon and the launch of new optional services such as Encryption which will further empower your email experience. As for new products, you can anticipate from us among other things a new CRM offering and a new Web-conferencing/IM package. We want all of our products and services to work perfectly together so we make seamless integration a priority. Of course, we will continue to back all of our services with our world-class email, chat and phone technical support.
We will post updates on our Web site and this blog as they come along!

This Year: Don’t “lose” your domain name!

Mr. Sweetman explains how Tucows.com deals everyday with anxious customers who forget to renew their internet identity commonly known as a Domain name.

SherWeb definitely understands this situation as it sees plenty of customers complaining that they have “lost “or got their domain name stolen. So before it happens to you, here is what Mr. Sweetman has to say to avoid this disaster.

Take 30 seconds, RIGHT NOW, to find out when your domain name is going to expire. (Do a WHOIS query at whois.tucows.com, then check to see what expiration/renewal date is listed.) Make note of this date.

Now, take another 30 seconds to write a reminder to yourself to renew the domain name a few weeks before it expires. Go ahead, I’ll wait while you do this. Use Outlook or whatever calendaring system you use. Just make sure you set a reminder!

Finally, when you get your reminder to renew your domain name, RENEW your darn domain name! In most cases this takes less than two minutes, and you can do it online via the company your registered the domain name with.

As you can see, all this is extremely easy to do and requires little or no time. Most importantly, it prevents you from feeling angry and frustrated when trying to retrieve your “lost” domain.

That being said, I would like to thank M. Sweetman for his blog and would like to wish you all a Happy New Year!

It has become mission critical for organizations to implement a business class email solution at work but most importantly to arm itself against the increasing amount of spam sent to employees within the company. According to Barracuda’s annual spam report: 95 percent of all e-mail sent in 2007 was spam.

Please read this interesting article if you want to know more about the study and consider yourself lucky to be protected (for free) by one of the best spam filtering solution on the market.

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In its press release published on October 24 2007, RIM announces the launch of its new Facebook for Blackberry application that enables fast, streamlined and optimized mobile access to the popular Facebook social utility using a BlackBerry smartphone. The application leverages the push-based BlackBerry system architecture and Facebook Platform to create an unparalleled mobile experience for Facebook users.

Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones, which will be available as a free download, makes it faster, easier and more convenient for users to stay wirelessly connected with their Facebook friends and colleagues. The application allows users to:

• Receive notifications and messages automatically – Leveraging the BlackBerry platform’s push-based architecture, notifications and messages are automatically sent to the user; the user can also set a unique alert (vibration and/or ringtone) for Facebook related content
• Quickly access essential features – Convenient onscreen icons let users quickly change their Status, upload a photo, add a friend, poke someone, write on a Wall, or send a message. Users can also quickly scroll through messages and notifications as they do with email messages
• Invite friends to join Facebook and accept new friend requests
• Quickly snap and post pictures along with a caption and tags – The photo upload feature is also integrated with the BlackBerry smartphone camera and photo management applications on the smartphone
• View the Status of friends
• Read, compose and reply to messages even while offline – If the user is out of wireless coverage, messages are queued until the user returns to an area of coverage

Facebook users will be able to download the application at www.facebook.com from their PC or BlackBerry smartphone beginning later today.

Now the only thing that’s left to do for all you Blackberry fans, is to make sure to purchase a Hosted Blackberry account from SherWeb

For more details and to read the full press release please click here

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To quote Ellen Lee and Ryan Kim, chronicle staff writers from the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Marketers are expected to spend about $1.2 billion worldwide on social-networking advertising this year, according to a research report by eMarketer. That could grow to $3.6 billion by 2011. Microsoft is betting big that Facebook’s rise is just in the early stages. Facebook remains second behind MySpace, but Facebook’s audience has grown from 13.3 million people last year to more than 30.6 million users in September, according to comScore, which measures Internet use.”

As a fan of Facebook, I myself just can’t wait to see what will happen with all this!
Please, if you have time, take a few minutes to read the article that inspired my blog

Thank you for reading me!