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How Microsoft and GoDaddy’s Partnership Can Help Your Small Law Firm

By Scott Bassett posted 04-03-2014 09:29

  

Last fall, Microsoft and discount domain registrar and Web hosting company GoDaddy announced that users could purchase custom GoDaddy domain names directly from within Microsoft’s Office 365 subscription-based office suite. (Domain names represent the online identity of companies and individuals. For example, the Institute of Continuing Legal Education’s domain name is www.icle.org.) If you already have a GoDaddy-managed domain name, you can also update Office 365 to use that name directly from within Office 365. 

Microsoft and GoDaddy have now expanded their partnership by offering three packages that include e-mail, calendar, and contact syncing between devices, as well as cloud-based OneDrive storage.

The most interesting package for solo and small law firm users is the Productivity Plus package. For $12.49 per month per user, this package provides hosted Exchange e-mail with 50 GB of storage; 25 GB of Microsoft OneDrive for Business cloud-based document storage; Office Mobile Apps for iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone; and unlimited online meetings and HD video conferencing. Perhaps best of all, the package includes the latest versions of Microsoft’s Office desktop applications that each user can install on up to five PCs and/or Macs.

 The Productivity Plus package is something to consider whether you are a new lawyer or an experienced solo or small firm practitioner. It could be a great way to get e-mail, cloud storage, calendar, and contact sync across devices, along with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, without a large up-front investment.

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04-24-2014 09:25

For small firms the proposition of going to the cloud for records storage seems scary. Perhaps because they are not sophisticated enough but many have noted that security breaches are featured in the news frequently which involve businesses which aggregate and store large volumes of sensitive information, which is the essence of what law firm files often contain. Perhaps the data thieves are like many professional data-mining thieves, they go for the big targets. It seems that many small firms are leery of potentially involuntarily sharing data stored on the cloud with unauthorized persons who go after the big targets. It seems that small firms can secure their information not only by technology but by anonymity. Perhaps others could comment on this perception as being realistic or naïve and the reasons behind their perception.