After posting my article on the benefits of Outlook Exchange hosting for the real estate professional, I got a great comment asking, “Why not use Google Apps?” This question really made me think. We here at MyTechOpinion.com are huge Google fans. I have become addicted to my personalized Google homepage and love my Gmail account. While these tools have improved my personal computing life, let’s take a look at Google’s offerings from the perspective of a real estate agent’s business needs.
Google is in the first stages of a new push towards becoming a leading business applications provider. In fact, they have recently announced a partnership with IBM to develop enterprise applications starting with an intranet search tool.
Google Apps is a compilation of several existing Google applications with the addition of some new offerings. These applications include Gmail (email), Google Talk (text and voice calling), Google Calendar, Docs & Spreadsheets (a Microsoft Word and Excel alternative), and Google Page Creator (web page publishing). Google has also added domain name hosting, allowing you to use the Gmail application without an @gmail.com email address.
Google Apps is a very impressive package. Yet, I am not convinced that this is a great option for a real estate agent. While Gmail and Google Calendar have some great functionality, they fall short on contact management and smart phone synchronization is limited. I have played around with Google Docs & Spreadsheets and am amazed at what Google has accomplished with this application, but it isn’t robust enough to replace my beloved Microsoft Office (think of functionality like mail merge). Google Page Creator does make web page creation easy, but are you a real estate agent or a webmaster? Focus on selling homes and pay a professional to build your website.
Feature comparisons aside, the most important issues are that of reliability and support. InfoWorld.com ran an article here this past week discussing problems with service outages. According to their article, Prudential Preferred Properties, a Chicago based real estate firm with about 500 agents, experienced a several hour period recently where email service was unavailable. That type of service disruption can prove to be quite costly to a real estate agent or in this case, the entire brokerage.
With regards to support, phone support and uptime guarantees are only available to Premier Edition users. Premier Edition accounts cost $50 per user, per year. Standard Edition (free) users are limited to online support that includes user discussion groups, email and knowledge base access.
Relying solely on online applications adds another potential problem. If your Internet connection goes down, you are in the dark. With no access to your calendar, you could miss an important appointment.
When it comes to my business, downtime means lost opportunity. I would much rather spend a little bit more to have tools and services that I can rely on. Until Google Apps or another alternative can prove themselves over time, I am going to continue to use Outlook Exchange hosting, Microsoft Office applications, and a dedicated web host and recommend this for real estate professional, as well.
These days, it is difficult to find a real estate agent that works on only one computer or who doesn’t work with an assistant or in a team. For those of you who fit that description, you have probably found that you have outgrown the standard configuration of Outlook. Your contacts, calendar and tasks are on only one computer. Other computers that you use don’t have that information and you are unable to share that information with teammates or an assistant. The good news is that it is now easy to overcome these limitations.
The days of setting your out of office reply and not looking back while on vacation seemed to have fallen by the wayside. But you can take some important steps toward making sure your work items are “buttoned up” enough to enjoy your vacation getaway! If you are planning a vacation in the near future and find it a necessity to stay connected with your clients and office while you’re away, you should consider the following:
One more resource for your Real Estate Relocation Guides: 
Many of us have gone through the process of purchasing a domain name. The process can be daunting; trying to hunt for the perfect mix of keywords and branding. So what should you think about when purchasing a domain name? What elements should you focus on? In my opinion, you want to find a name that’s meaningful and well branded to your real estate business first and foremost. If you can work in one or more keywords great! When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) other items outside of the domain name weigh heavily and are even more important than having keywords in the domain. For example, links to your domain, body text, title tags…you get the point. If those other areas are done right, your site will result in successful search engine ranking for your keywords.
The Blackberry 8800 is simply the best device that RIM has ever put out. While Blackberrys have always been the hands down leader in push email technology, they have been lacking the additional functionality that has become commonplace on other smartphones (such as the Treo or Q). The Blackberry 8800 changes all of this.
