How virtual office technology changes everything

We’re in the middle of a sea of change that’s upending every aspect of computing as we know it. One of the biggest trends driving this change is the rise of the virtual office – the ability to relocate our workspaces from central offices to just about anywhere in the world. In every aspect of business, from file sharing to tech support, new tools and services collapse the entire world into an immediate, shared experience.

Here are five key ways that trend manifests itself today:

Work Follows You (Not the Other Way Around)

The commute to downtown. Wrestling your way into an anonymous cubicle. Outdated equipment that doesn’t work the way you want it to. The office as we know it hasn’t changed much in the last two or three decades, but virtual offices are finally revolutionizing all of it in one fell swoop. With technology like videoconferencing, remote access, and cloud-based storage you can work where you’re most productive, whether that’s your kitchen table or the coffee shop. Just bring your laptop and a wireless connection and let tools like LogMeIn Hamachi’s VPN software do the heavy lifting.

Shaking Up Support

Most organizations offer support of some kind, whether it’s tech support for company employees or offering live chat to customers experiencing trouble or prospective buyers with pre-sales questions. Managing a support operation used to require a large-scale help desk and call center: a huge investment for any company. That’s no longer needed thanks to the virtual office. Now you can engage support experts from anywhere with tools like LogMeIn Rescue. This enables support teams with live, remote access to the customer’s devices - no cubicle required. It also allows you to find hire best tech support crew regardless of their location, and to scale up for your busy season without having to worry about adding desks or buying more hardware. 

The End of Big Hardware

The virtual office doesn’t just do away with the front office, it’s replacing the back office as well. Not long ago running a tech-savvy company meant investing thousands of dollars in an array of high-end file servers, each gobbling up power, requiring special cooling, and reliant on an army of IT staff to keep running. Servers are now easily accessed via third-party providers which let you buy only the storage space and bandwidth you need for only as long as you need it. 

Software When You Want It

The flipside of outsourced hardware is SaaS, software as a service. Need a project management tool? Sign up for one online instead of buying dozens of software licenses and installing them on every computer in the organization. Ditto email, CRM, accounting, human resources, and just about any other business function you might conceivably need. Now it’s all is available through the cloud – which means it can reach your employees anywhere they happen to be, on any device they choose to use.

Backups You Can’t Forget

Dealing with backups at the enterprise level has become increasingly difficult as staff rosters have swollen. Not to mention, it’s always tough to get users to run backup software on a regular basis. Enter the virtual office, which gives you much greater control over what devices are backed up and when. Advanced, secure, centrally-managed backup software now protects all your organization’s computers no matter where they’re located, letting you scale up or down to easily back up all the devices in your worldwide organization.