Business tools are transforming, much of it moving out of expensive servers and into the Cloud. What's it all about? Warren Wander of LawCloud, The Man Who Knows, is here to help.

As a total Cloud fanatic, I’m amazed and energised at the transition that is currently happening in both the business and technical worlds.

The transition to the Cloud is growing at a tremendous rate and as the technology becomes more available, robust and affordable, the opportunities continue to grow. We all know that Cloud is a rebrand of hosting, which has been around for many years, however, the difference is that The Cloud has become more about business transformation than technology.

Recently, a traditionally very conservative Law society of Scotland has taken the lead by stimulating a very interesting discussion with a view to publishing there Cloud Services Procurement Guidelines for the Legal Profession in Scotland in anticipation of their forthcoming Law Society Cloud Event in Edinburgh on the 9th of November 2011.

To see all of this grow from the days I started writing games on the ZX81 and Sinclair Spectrum is fascinating.

Now, many years on, as a specialist in the legal field offering Cloud for Law firms and through products like LawCloud, we at the forefront of transforming the way that lawyers in the UK work, and LawWare Ltd is leading in the legal cloud.

Times have never been more challenging for law firms than today. With the recent introduction of Alternative Business Structures alongside legal aid reforms, increasing paperwork for compliance, the need to be more efficient and competitive has never been more important.

Cloud computing presents the opportunity for small to medium sized firms to have best of breed software (traditionally reserved for the bigger firms) delivered directly to their doorstep at a low fixed monthly cost and with little or no capital expenditure. This very premise is creating vast modernisation and cultural changes in what was a profession grown out of very traditional roots.

Out of the box, The Cloud offers lawyers a new way of working that have never been so easy to reach before, including flexible working from anywhere (office, home, court, holiday even), peace of mind, cost savings and simplified technology, kept updated by the easily scalable Cloud provider.

Microsoft is leading the way with their online services with Office 365 and with new licensing models, Microsoft Office 2010, hosted emails and shared diaries should be an integral part of any serious Cloud system.

The Secret to Cloud Success is really still about relationships and knowing your Cloud provider. You are entrusting your crown jewels to a provider for the long term and you need to do your due diligence well. Nobody is perfect and whilst I am sure your experience will be a huge success, you should also plan your backup just in case things go wrong as they sometimes do. So, know where your data is and be sure you can get all of your data back when you need it and in a meaningful format.

As the infamous Benjamin Disraeli said “The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.”…


Warren