Simdesk, an on-demand computing services company, offers two products — Simdesk Business Basic and Simdesk Business Plus — that provide just about every tool a small business needs to operate a virtual office. Simdesk lets you create, store, access and share information from any Internet-connected computer anywhere in the world.
The Simdesk services provide secure online storage — up to 5Gb — and a suite of web-based and PC (Windows or Linux) applications, including messaging, personal information management, word processing, group collaboration and remote printing. These services make good sense if you need to share data with collaborators or clients in many locations, or if you want to be able to travel without carrying a laptop and still access your data wherever you go.
Logging in to the Simdesk Web service with your assigned username and password — from any browser-equipped and Internet-connected computer — gives you online access to Simdesk Organiser data, including web mail, calendar, contacts and notes, plus the files that you’ve stored on your 2Gb or 5Gb “S-drive” on the Simdesk server. The web interface also gives you access to the groups of Simdesk subscribers you set up to take advantage of collaborative functions. And you can print from wherever you are to printers set up on your own or other people’s computers.
The desktop client software — downloadable from Simdesk once you’ve logged in — includes several modules: Simdesk Organiser: a PC version of the Organiser functions available at the website; Simdesk Messenger: a basic instant messaging (IM) client; Simdesk Groups: a utility to set up and manage collaborative groups; Simdesk PrintShare: a utility to set up and manage printers for remote printing; and Simdesk PersonalOffice which includes word processing, presentation and spreadsheet applications.
The S-Drive utility, also part of the PC client software, lets you set up your Simdesk online storage capacity so it shows up as another drive in Windows Explorer on your desktop and/or laptop PC. This means you can save, copy and move files to the S-Drive from within Windows, or even backup to it — though there are probably better online backup options available.
Integration with Microsoft apps
The Simdesk mail, organiser and productivity applications — both the web and PC client versions — are basic tools that lack the depth of functionality you’ll find in Microsoft Office. If you already use the Office productivity applications, there is little incentive to switch to the Simdesk PersonalOffice apps. If you do, though, you can at least open Office files with the Simdesk word processing, spreadsheet and presentations applications — and Office applications will open native Simdesk PeronalOffice files.
Simdesk Organiser does have some built-in advantages. The PC mail client automatically receives Simdesk mail.
You can import contact data, mail and settings from Outlook to Simdesk Organiser on your PC and vice versa — but not calendar data.
Until the Outlook synchronisation utility arrives, the unique benefits of Simdesk come mainly from three applications: groups, file synchronisation and print sharing.
Collaborate remotely
Simdesk Groups lets you set up groups of other Simdesk users with whom you can share resources. For example, if you want to give a distributed group of co-workers or clients access to documents you’re working on, you use the PC-based Simdesk Groups utility to create a group and add the individuals to it.
Simdesk adds a new tab to the Windows dialogue that shows the groups you set up in the Groups utility. Select the group name and set the sharing permissions — read only, write only, read and write. Now copy the documents you want to share to the folder — you can do this in Windows Explorer or by copying from an application such as Word. Every member of the group will be able to access the folder and its contents, and it will show up automatically on their S-Drives.
File synchronisation makes it possible to maintain a constantly updated folder of your most-frequently used files that you can access wherever you go from any Internet-connected and browser-equipped device. You start by copying files from the hard drive on your PC to the Simdesk File Sync folder on the S-Drive.
Simdesk PrintShare lets you print to an office printer when you’re travelling, or print to a printer that you share with another Simdesk user — from anywhere you have access to the Internet. Start by using the PrintShare utility on your PC to add a printer or printers from among those connected to your PC or local area network. Once you’ve added a printer, you can make it available to members of any sharing group you’ve created. Other people (of your choosing) can share printers with you in the same way.
Business Basic costs $15 a month per account for 2Gb of storage, 20Gb of data transfer (this includes incoming and outgoing e-mail and file transfers to and from the Simdesk server), with an upper limit of 20Mb per e-mail message. For $20 a month, Business Plus, provides 5Gb of storage, 50Gb of data transfer and the 20Mb per e-mail limit.
Verdict
Pros: Worked reasonably well in most of our tests.
Cons: The how-to documentation is succinct to a fault, and we sometimes had difficulty understanding basic principles of how the service and applications work.
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