Productivity apps are just one way for accountants to use technology in their jobs

Everyone wants to be able to do more in less time, and there are a dizzying number of productivity apps promising to help us do exactly that. Dean Evans picks his top five

Getting a productivity boost isn’t about having the most advanced to-do list or juggling 10 tasks at once. It’s about streamlining workflow, prioritising tasks and minimising distractions. With the imminent arrival of 4G, new technology is going to become a fundamental tool in the way accountants do their work.

Here are five productivity apps that can improve your working life and save you time.

1. Sanebox, from £1.30 per month

Most of us are swamped with email. Every day we receive messages from friends and colleagues, email newsletters we’ve signed up to, notifications and offers. Wouldn’t it be great if you had a virtual assistant who could sort your mail and tell you what was important?

Sanebox does exactly that. It’s a productivity app that intelligently filters your emails, showing you the messages that matter and sending you a summary of those that don’t. You still see everything, but you don’t get distracted by every new email. The service works cross platform (PC, Mac, iOS and Android) and with a variety of email services.

2. Clear, £1.49

The problem with many to-do list apps is that you often spend far too much time fiddling with them when you should be working.

Clever task management apps like Toodledo and Wunderlist 2 are jammed with features you don’t really need and options most people never use. It’s why Clear for iOS and Mac might seem disappointing at first. There’s no support for dates/times, no sub-tasks, no way to get reminders by email.

Instead, it’s a perfect recreation of a simple, paper-based to do list. Simply swipe down to add tasks to a list, drag tasks into whatever order you like, swipe to complete them with a satisfying ‘bing’. Clear supports multiple lists and iCloud storage to make your to-do lists accessible between iOS devices.

3. Evernote, FREE

Ideas are fleeting. If you don’t write them down straight away, they can evaporate and you’re left with only a small sense of what they were.

The best thing to do is get them out of your head so you can concentrate on other tasks. And the best way to do that is to use Evernote. The appeal of Evernote is simple: you can make a note on any device – iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, PC or Mac – save it and hoard it in a free Evernote account that is fully searchable, taggable and available to you whenever and wherever you need it.

Store anything – ideas, to-dos, photos, voice notes and web pages. You can store up to 100,000 chunks of info. Upgrade if you need more.

4. Pocket, FREE

One of the simplest ways to increase your productivity is to reduce your distractions.

Do you get bogged down answering emails? Check your inbox 3-4 times a day, not every few minutes. Spending too long on Twitter or Facebook? Turn them off. What about reading articles like this one? Is now the best time to be reading it or should you be working? If you’re busy, the smart solution is to save it for later using a ‘read it later’ service like Pocket.

Install a bookmarklet into your web browser and use it to file away interesting web content to read when you have time. The Pocket app (iOS, Android) gathers everything you’ve saved together into a date-ordered list, and displays articles stripped bare of distracting ads or sidebar links.

5. Google drive, FREE

Cloud storage has revolutionised the way that businesses work online. You can start working on a document in your office and, using the Google Drive app for iOS and Android, continue editing it on an iPad as you travel on the train. Or you can share a spreadsheet with a colleague and make changes without having to save new versions and tediously email them back and forth between you.

Google Drive isn’t the only cloud storage game in town. Dropbox provides excellent file-sharing services, although its mobile apps often restrict editing. Microsoft’s SkyDrive, meanwhile, is a fantastic option for storing and sharing Microsoft Office files. Got a Windows account? Then you’ve already got a SkyDrive account.

Dean Evans is a technology writer and fomer editor of TechRadar. Interested in productivity apps? Then check out Matt Packer’s post on time management apps.

Access to social media at work is a potential minefield (picture courtesy of Franco Bouly/Flickr)

One of the most hotly debated topics is whether social media at work should be allowed. Leon Walker weighs up the arguments

We all remember the days when most offices banned the use of ‘personal email’. Some employers still do. This was an early attempt at stopping the perceived influence access to the internet was having on staff productivity.

Looking back, with the current omnipresence of smartphones and the continued interconnectivity of our personal and work selves, this behaviour looks to have been as effective as using an umbrella to hold back the waters of a broken dam.

Indeed, a report released towards the end of 2011 by job site Reed.co.uk found that around a third of employees use Facebook while in the office. Such a figure means that social networking in the workplace is here to stay.

Social media access at work: a tricky beast to manage

But companies and managers are still constantly trying to manage what employees can use their internet connections for. It’s a minefield. For every staff member who listens to Spotify to keep their pace while doing a monotonous task – and is actually more productive as a result – there is his cubicle-mate who spends half of his ‘work-day’ using the streaming music service to make progressive neo-math-rock playlists for his friends.

The old adage that it’s not what but who you know that gets you ahead in business, arguably holds truer than ever in the digital age. Social networking allows virtually anyone to virtually ‘know’ virtually anyone else. So it’s clear that there are business uses for social networks.

To wit, the Reed survey found that 35% of those employees using Facebook on business time said it was specifically for business, while 55% said their use was for both personal and business reasons.

Where do you stand?

Here are three fictional scenarios where an employee has used social networking while at work. Where do you stand?

1. An employee uses Twitter to announce that she has just secured a major contract for her company, the tweet, which was supposed to be proprietary information, generates positive news coverage for the company.

The good: Her actions seem to have had no bad results for the company and may have improved their business prospects. This one could really be seen as a “no harm, no foul” situation. Who knows? It could possibly lead to the company employing a new communications strategy.

The bad: Many companies have policies against communicating confidential information anyway and clearly this employee should have known better.

2. One staff member is caught using Facebook on company time. He is a good employee with a strong work ethic, but social media use is against company policy.

The good: This is a good employee and that should not be ignored. If this staffer was sitting around and not getting his work done and then got caught, bosses would be forgiven for thinking he was spending all his time goofing off on Facebook. But that’s not the case with him, maybe well-timed breaks are a key park of how this employee works and this was simply one of those.

The bad: Clearly this is a breach of trust, the company explicitly forbids social media use at work and this member of staff just ignored the rule. In many ways it’s the same as breaking any other rule at work, such as contravening the dress code or turning up late.

3. In a company that allows social media use, a mid-level member uses LinkedIn to research contacts in a company that used as a contractor by her employer. As a direct result of her efforts and work on the project she is headhunted for a job at the other company.

The good: Well the employee just did her job and presumably landed a pay rise as a result. She can forget about contracts with her former employers though.

The bad: this one is really just bad for the company: they’ve lost a (presumably) good employee to the other company and may think twice about their social media strategy as a result. The other company might want to take a look in the corporate mirror and wonder about the ethics of pinching a client’s staff.

Are you a locker or a liberator? Have your say on our Facebook page now.

The introduction of 4G will change the way you work

This week the result of the Government’s 4G auction was released, meaning faster mobile internet is a step closer. But what is it? And how will it change the way you work? Technology expert Dean Evans explains

Thinking about buying a new smartphone or tablet to replace your laptop? You might want to wait a bit longer.

You’ve probably seen Kevin Bacon talking about ‘superfast 4G’ in those ubiquitous 30-second TV adverts for Everything Everywhere (EE). And with the result of the Government’s 4G auction released this week, more alternatives will follow later this year (and saves us those adverts too).

You might already know that 4G is the next generation of mobile broadband, promising internet speeds several times zippier than current 3G services. But you might not know why your next gadget needs it.

Simply put, 4G is the future of mobile connectivity. EE’s pioneering 4G service uses all-new digital technology called Long Term Evolution (LTE), which squeezes more data into the radio bandwidth delivering faster connection speeds and greater reliability.

It’s a significant mobile upgrade, arguably as big as the tech-jump we made from clunky 2G GPRS/EDGE to modern 3G services. Today, EE’s 4G network offers a five-fold speed boost. Ultimately, 4G technology could be over 20 times faster than 3G.

This dramatic speed increase will give you true mobile broadband, anytime and anywhere. So with a 4G device, you’ll be able to:

• work anytime and anywhere, browsing websites as fast as you would on a computer in your office
• connect to cloud-based accounting software, like Xero or QuickBooks Online, with no lag
• send or receive large documents in a matter of seconds
• video conference like never before: video streaming is what the technology was made for.

What does this mean for accountants? With 4G and clever document sharing applications like Dropbox, your productivity will never take a hit and your ability to work isn’t compromised by poor connectivity.

Mobile working can cut costs for big firms, reduce travel and lead to faster response times for clients. Crucially, in rural areas where fixed-line broadband speeds are still sluggish, 4G could become a viable alternative.

We’re living in a digital age where clients already enjoy the convenience of banking, chatting and shopping online. They will expect other services to be just as flexible. Why can’t they email their accountant after hours (and get a response)? Why can’t they sign documents digitally rather than hunting down a fax machine? You could argue that accountancy is long overdue an internet upgrade.

It’s why the next device you buy needs to be future proof. It needs to be 4G/LTE-capable. Right now, your options are limited to EE and a selection of phones that include the new Blackberry Z10, the powerful Samsung Galaxy S3, the Windows Phone 8-powered Nokia Lumia 920 and the Apple iPhone 5.

But O2, Three and Vodafone are launching LTE services of their own later this year, so it’s worth waiting until everyone has launched into the marketplace so you can get the best deal and the best 4G device.

Want to know more? Keep an eye on 4gbritain.org (run by EE), Everything Everywhere and Three’s new Ultrafast page.

Dean Evans is a technology writer and former editor of TechRadar.com.

The Pebble Smartwatch - one of the big technology trends set to take off in 2013

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January is the biggest, loudest and glitziest technology show on the planet. From ultra-thin, ultra HDTVs to intelligent HAPIforks; legions of laptops to oddball Flower Power soil sensors; this year’s CES had everything. So it was the perfect place to spot the technology trends that could change our lives for the better. Dean Evans picks his top five

1. Oculus Rift

Did you know that Virtual Reality (VR) was back? Admittedly, you might have missed it the first time around. Rewind to 1992, when The Lawnmower Man movie promised us wondrous virtual worlds and exotic new ways to work with data.

But the technology wasn’t up to it and the graphics were too clunky. The Oculus Rift hopes to reboot VR with a compact set of digital goggles that will bring greater immersion to modern gaming. Beyond that, imagine ditching Excel to work virtually, amidst tower blocks of profit and loss…

2. Samsung Youm

You could argue that the last revolution in mobile phone technology came in 2007, when the iPhone introduced its 3.5-inch multi-touch screen and slick, icon-based interface. Since then, we’ve seen bigger displays, faster processors and better cameras, but smartphones themselves have looked much the same.

The Samsung Youm could change all that. It’s a high-tech OLED display that uses thin plastic instead of glass, enabling the screen to be flexible, bendable, perhaps even foldable.

3. Activity trackers

When you sit at a desk all day, it’s often difficult to do any meaningful exercise. But perhaps you don’t need to. With new wearable activity trackers like the Jawbone Up, Nike FuelBand and FitBit Flex, you can use companion smartphone apps to track how far you travel in a day, how many steps you’ve taken and how many calories you’ve burned. You can even measure the quality of your sleep.

4. The Pebble Smartwatch

Pebble exists because its creators used the Kickstarter website to ask for donations. They wanted to build a digital watch with a long-lasting e-paper display – similar to the technology used in the Amazon Kindle. The watch would connect wirelessly to your smartphone, enabling you to check your email, schedule and use a variety of apps. Pebble raised over $10 million from people eager to buy one and it’s finally finished. With Apple reportedly developing an ‘iWatch’ it seems that wearable computing is nearly upon us.

5. Lenovo ThinkPad Helix

Why choose between a laptop and a tablet, when you could buy a laptop that is also a tablet? The Lenovo ThinkPad Helix is the best of both worlds. Use it like a traditional ThinkPad Ultrabook or detach the 11.6-inch 1920 x 1080 pixel full HD screen and use it as a Windows 8 tablet. As a tablet, you’ll get six hours of battery life out of the ThinkPad Helix.

But there’s also a four-hour battery cell in the keyboard dock. Connect the screen again, fold it back down on top of the keyboard and it becomes a fatter tablet with 10 hours of battery life. This is the future of the laptop right here.

Dean Evans is a technology writer and former editor of TechRadar.com.

New technology is changing the way accountants work

The way accountants work has been overhauled by the proliferation of new technology. And it’s only going to get more advanced, argues technology expert Dean Evans.

The virtual accountant

The way that accountants work is changing and evolving. You don’t need a desktop computer any more. Or a desk. You don’t even need a traditional office.

New technology is making it easier to work any time and from anywhere. While bold internet services are disrupting old business models and dragging accountancy into a new digital age.

PCs and Ultrabook laptops are being replaced by a wave of powerful tablet computers, like the Apple iPad and Microsoft Surface devices running Windows 8. There are apps for everything.

Ditch the desktop scanner and use Genius Scan on the iPad to digitise your paperwork. Capture client signatures with DocuSign, video conference with Skype, and sync important files across multiple devices with Dropbox or Google Apps. Even Excel has a handy web app.

Why tablets could be replaced

Of course, even the tablet could be replaced. Have you noticed that smartphones are getting bigger? With its 5.5-inch screen and quad-core processor, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 blurs the boundaries between phone and tablet.

This ‘phablet’, and other big-screened phones like it, could be the future of portable computing. Let’s face it, smartphones have already replaced the diary, digital camera, Dictaphone, video conferencing system, portable music player and sat-nav.

The mobile market is where all the action is. Alcatel recently unveiled the One Touch Idol Ultra, which is only 6.45mm thick, while Samsung is prepping a superfast eight-core Exynos 5 Octa processor that could power the Galaxy S4.

Flexible screens are coming

In two years’ time, you could even be working on a phone with a foldable or rollable HD display. Science fiction? Far from it. Samsung outed its amazing Youm flexible screen technology at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Hardware and software improvements won’t just benefit accountants. There are a growing range of online services that can make it easier for small businesses to manage their finances.

What started with internet banking now embraces a variety of cloud accounting systems – from invoicing systems like Freshbooks and Blinksale, to full-fat bookkeeping software such as QuickBooks Online, FreeAgent and Xero.

Working remotely as an accountant is getting easier

Technology isn’t just changing how accountants work, it’s revolutionising it. Nick Callen is an experienced chartered accountant and tax adviser from Bristol. He’s recently relocated abroad, but modern technology enables him to run his UK business ‘virtually’ using email, web filing services, Dropbox, Dropsend and Xero. He also uses Skype for face-to-face meetings when his clients require them. Is this the future face of online accountancy?

Or is it something more disruptive? Consider crunch.co.uk, an online accountancy for small businesses and freelancers, where a team of accountants work for clients across the country.

Its internet service provides online accounting software and real-time updates of tax liabilities for a monthly fee. It’s another way that accountancy is changing, another way that traditional services are being repackaged to appeal to a new generation of internet-savvy clients.

How are you going to use technology to change your business?

Dean Evans is a technology writer and former editor of TechRadar.com.

Digital currencies are shaking up transactions on the internet

Digital currency is shaking up transactions on the internet – but for many, it remains mysterious. Matt Packer explains how it works

Like any sprawling foreign nation, the online landscape has produced currencies that are unique to its economic requirements, and very different to the ones that visitors may be used to.

As Europe desperately swerves around financial obstacles to keep the Euro afloat, and Greece anxiously contemplates a return to the Drachma, the internet is single-mindedly pursuing a range of alternative financial models.

And while they have the advantage of being unencumbered by many of the inconveniences that have put a squeeze on conventional currencies, they still have a number of drawbacks of their own. Not least that lots of people don’t know much about them.

With that in mind, it’s time to make some introductions:

Bitcoin (BTC)

Created by software guru Satoshi Nakamoto – about whom very little is known – Bitcoin gave digital currency a boost thanks to his trailblazing innovation: a desktop application comprising an encrypted peer-to-peer system and a digital-signature tool.

Together, they ensured that virtual money could not be duplicated, and that transactions could be carried out in private. At least, that’s the theory (see ‘Problems’, below).

Nakamoto’s application, the Bitcoin client, was made available in January 2009. At the same time, Nakamoto triggered the Bitcoin currency issue, consisting of 21 million coins. Imagine Nakamoto as a kind of Mervyn King character, pumping currency into the market at a capped level.

Those 21m coins are the playground for Bitcoin traders, who build up their savings by ‘mining’ the currency from other users via networks of micro trades.

Bitcoin holdings are pictured on users’ desktop clients in the form of blocks in a chain, with the largest holdings rising to the top. It is this image – and accompanying notion of an inverted pyramid – that has led critics to label Bitcoin as a Ponzi scheme.

So, what do people spend Bitcoin on? Well, a Fortune article of last year pointed out that a New York meze grill had starting accepting the currency for lunches. There are also specialist online retailers who accept Bitcoin for a host of different products. In short, the answer is that people spend the currency on anything and everything – as long as the seller has the necessary software for processing the payments.

Ven

Rare among digital currencies in that it is actually linked to the conventional money market, Ven was first released as an experimental digital currency on Facebook in 2007.

Unlike Bitcoin, which can be traded for any product, Ven now has a very specific purpose as the currency of choice for environmental social network Hub Culture. Members of that network use Ven to buy and sell distribution for pieces of content about carbon reduction and other environmental issues.

In September last year, Hub Culture struck a deal for Ven to be listed and priced on the Thomson Reuters finance network. The value of the currency is determined by a ‘basket’ of indicators, including environment-specific factors such as carbon futures. Its special Thomson Reuters instrument code is <.VEN>.

Flattr

Every penny counts, but standard online cash-handling systems such as Paypal tend to have minimum-spending rules with high thresholds to ensure they’re not clogged up with millions of tiny transactions. But Flattr turns that on its head. Essentially, it takes chunks of inspiration from Bitcoin and Ven, enabling people to make micro-payments to artists who are producing eye-catching web content.

The idea behind Flattr is that, by actively encouraging tiny payments (often of pennies at a time) via a system specifically designed to handle that traffic, more people will want to donate, generating healthy sums through a higher number of little increments. Once artists have been ‘flattrd’, they can use the donations to purchase resources for improving their work.

Donors pay monthly sums into their Flattr accounts, then share that money among all the causes they want to ‘flattr’.

Virtual weaponry

Yes, even broadswords and axes made out of pixels can be exchanged and bartered for – if you happen to be a player on the world’s favourite time-wastage aid, World of Warcraft.

Benefits

Transactions on digital currencies are not plagued with the charges, fees or ponderous clearing times that tend to make customers furious with the ‘real-world’ banking system.

Anyone can obtain an account for a digital currency, regardless of national jurisdiction or domestic regulatory background. No pre-existing, conventional bank account or financial reference is required in order to sign up – you can start right away.

Problems

Digital currencies are underwritten by private companies rather than governments, so critics argue that one set of problems has been pretty much exchanged for another.

Aside from administrative matters, though, the biggest concern is that digital currencies are as vulnerable to cyberattacks as any other electronic infrastructure. Bitcoin, for example, has endured several hacks – including one in June last year on the specialist MtGox trading platform that siphoned off $9m of the virtual currency.

It is also fair to say that the unregulated atmosphere in which these currencies thrive could pose future risks – especially considering how low regulation has affected conventional finance.

Matt Packer is Online Editor at Think Publishing.

The death of cash will be covered in more detail in the September/October 2012 issue of Accounting Technician, AAT’s membership magazine.

Learning how to videoconference can save time and money

New technology now enables a global community to sit around the same virtual table. Yet many people still don’t know how to videoconference. Here’s the lowdown

Considering how telecommunications have evolved, the term ‘global village’ is just so last decade. It no longer feels as though we are in the same postcode as our overseas neighbours – it’s more that we are in the same room. What has brought us so close?

Among a range of contributing factors, videoconferencing is high on the list. The flexibility that it has brought to the business world cannot be underestimated. In Hollywood, for example, it has helped filmmakers such as Peter Jackson and James Cameron monitor the simultaneous efforts of crews in London, California and New Zealand in the course of putting mammoth blockbusters down on film.

But videoconferencing has more workaday applications. One of the most important ways in which it can facilitate business activity is by helping single parents return to work by enabling them to stay at home and care for their children while earning money as remote workers.

Moreover, videoconferencing opens up labour markets in isolated areas – as the technology develops, the need to commute to major population centres is reduced. That’s great news for accounting workers in the North Pennines or the Highlands of Scotland.

Another rich field for videoconferencing is e-learning. One of the UK pioneers is the South West Grid for Learning Trust, a charity formed by a consortium of 15 local education authorities. With a potential reach of 756,000 users – the majority of them students at schools in south-west England – the Grid has set up videoconferences with experts at museums around the UK, and even marine-life gurus in Australia.

Far from signalling the death of the field trip, the Grid hopes to provide students with a supplementary range of information they simply would not be able to access through occasional days out. As bodies such as the Grid trailblaze e-learning for the education sector, FE colleges teaching accountancy and other business skills are likely to follow suit.

The best apps for making your working life easier

In the fast-paced, technology-soaked world we now live in, multitasking has become the norm. But it also provides more distractions than ever before. Here we show you the best apps for making your working life easier for iOS, Android and Blackberry…

Executive Assistant + £4.27
Available for: Android
Android Market

The best apps save you time by automating tasks that you don’t want to do or making it easier to view important information.

Executive Assistant + falls into the latter category and has been created to pull various info-sources into a clean, organised and easy-to-view layout. Rather than checking individual apps for new email messages or missed calls, the Executive Assistant + widget gives you a simple at-a-glance overview.

Penultimate £0.59
Available for: Apple iOS (iPad only)
Apple iTunes/App Store

Penultimate transforms the £399+ iPad into the sort of £1.99 notepad that you can buy from Ryman.

It might sound ridiculous. But digital devices such as smartphones and tablets excel at replacing traditional tools with digital applications. So, with Penultimate, you can draw pictures and write free-form notes with your finger.

Trickle £0.59
Available for: Apple iOS
Apple iTunes/App Store

Most Twitter apps for smartphones try to cram in as many features as possible. Tweetdeck, for example, supports extra columns for User Groups, Twitter searches, Mentions, Direct Messages, Favourites, Trends and Lists. Before you know it, you’ve got multiple panels to keep track of.

Trickle has almost no features to speak of beyond the ability to retweet and make a message a favourite. This minimalist design ethic extends to the interface, which displays a single tweet in big, bold Helvetica text on an inky black background.

IA Writer £2.99
Available for: Apple iOS (iPad only)
Apple iTunes/App Store

Have you ever stopped to think how cluttered Microsoft Word is? You can change the font, adjust the paragraph spacing, highlight words, strikethrough, bold, spellcheck, and so on….

IA Writer for iPad strips away functions such as auto-correction, toolbars, cut/copy/paste and spelling/grammar checking for a bare writing environment.

Instapaper/InstaFetch £FREE
Available for: Android, Apple iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone 7
Android Market

Increasingly large amounts of information mean that we rarely consume it in depth. Think about how you read a typical web page. You probably skim it, scanning the paragraphs. Everybody does it.

With a glut of data and precious little time to absorb it, we graze rather than read. Instapaper provides you with a one-click way to save interesting web pages so you can read them when you have more time.

MindMeister £FREE
Available for: Apple iOS
Apple iTunes/App Store

Mind-mapping can give you a helicopter view of your thoughts/ideas and help you to organise them.

MindMeister is simple, intuitive and devoid of clutter. Sign up for an online account, download the app and you can quickly create mind maps, then synchronise them with an online account for viewing/editing. Or vice-versa.

Excel apps mean more freedom and less need for a calculator

In an increasingly fast-paced business environment, we’re always looking for ways to do more in less time. Here we show you some apps for editing Excel spreadsheets on the go.

Handling Excel on a mobile device isn’t a simple task. Excel is a comprehensive piece of software with an array of advanced options. Want true compatibility? Only Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 software runs a native mobile version of Excel as part of its ‘Office hub’

The lack of native compatibility means that iPhone/iPad, Android and Blackberry users need to try third-party solutions such as Documents To Go and Quickoffice in search of the most effective Excel-compatible experience. What do we mean by ‘effective’? Simply put, a mobile spreadsheet application is a companion to Excel, not a replacement for it. A good app will strip back the full functionality of Excel without sacrificing too much core usability.

Ideally, an effective app will let you create new spreadsheets, not just view them. You’ll be able to edit and update these; create new columns and rows; copy and paste data between cells; sort, freeze and format; and perform basic calculations. You’ll want to easily import and export Excel files (in both .XLS and .XLSX formats) without ruining the workbook’s formatting.

Is there a smartphone app that does all this? Here are three apps for mobile devices. Apps for the iPhone will also work on the iPod Touch and big-screen iPad, while apps built for Android can be used on tablet PCs that run the same software, such as Samsung’s Galaxy Tab.

Microsoft Excel Mobile, £FREE
Available for: Windows Phone 7 only

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 OS now delivers a far better mobile Windows experience. For business users, Office Mobile is the real draw. Alongside Outlook Mobile, Word, PowerPoint and OneNote, the dedicated ‘Office’ hub features a great version of Excel that’s fully compatible with Office 2010.

Excel Mobile doesn’t support all the features in the desktop software. But there are 114 functions, the ability to insert charts, apply filters, sort data, format cells and freeze panes.

DataViz Documents To Go Premium, £9.99
Available for: iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Palm, Windows

Documents To Go first made an appearance on old Palm PDAs for viewing Office documents.

The latest version is available for almost every device and the Sheet To Go component effortlessly opens Excel (.XLS and .XLSX) files while retaining the original formatting. You can create and edit spreadsheets, export to Excel and store files on services such as Google Docs, Box.net, Dropbox, iDisk and SugarSync.

But large spreadsheets can crash the application, while imported documents will open as ‘read only’ files if they have functions that Documents To Go doesn’t support. There’s also no chart creation functionality, but you can’t get everything in a mobile version.

Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite, £5.99
Available for: iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Palm, Windows, Symbian

The Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite trumps the cheaper Quickoffice Mobile Suite with support for cloud-based document-sharing services. If you store your Excel spreadsheets in a Dropbox folder on your PC, they’re automatically available (and editable) online. Both .XLS and .XLSX formats are supported but Quickoffice works best with simple spreadsheets and basic number-crunching.

Will Apple's newly-launched iCloud service make cloud computing mainstream?

Every cloud has a silver lining. And the current cloud looming over the UK business landscape potentially has one of the biggest silver linings of them all.

Cloud computing is a buzz-phrase that has been exciting tech-heads and IT departments for years, but now it is going mainstream with numerous businesses – from small firms to large corporates – latching on to its potential benefits.

But how does it work; what are the key attractions of using it; and are there any potential pitfalls that users need to be aware of?

In its most basic terms, cloud computing is simply a new way of delivering IT services. Rather than splashing the cash to build your own IT infrastructure to host databases or software, and then employing a team of IT specialists to look after this infrastructure, a third-party provider, such as IBM, hosts these databases and software for you in a server farm.

As useful as such services are, there is much more to the cloud than creating simple master documents. The cloud allows businesses to create an online space to suit their own needs.

You can use a public cloud that anyone else can access or you can have a private cloud used by a single organisation. Alternatively, multiple companies can band together and run a shared private cloud.

Whichever cloud option you plump for, one of the key advantages is the time and cost savings that it offers. The cost of cloud computing varies wildly depending on requirements.

A company’s entry-level Development and Test Cloud costs from as little as 15 cents an hour and offers IT savings of up to 50%. In addition to the financial benefits, it’s also scalable, allowing you to manage peaks and troughs in activity more effectively.

It sounds great – but there are a few issues that cloud users need to be aware of, particularly around the areas of legality and security. If you send your data into the cloud, you don’t know who is looking at it.

You can encrypt data on your laptop and then send it up into the cloud, and then you can control who can see the data so it is very secure. However, a lot of cloud computing data is processed in the cloud, so there is a security risk.

Many believe that such security concerns are mere mythology.

An average small business is probably working with a server in a stationery cupboard, backing up every night. But they’re probably not checking if the back-up is successful and they probably don’t know how effective their firewall really is.

When you’re dealing with a major cloud provider, you are dealing with a set-up in which servers are in dedicated units and the security is like Fort Knox. You can be 99.9% certain, if not 100% certain, that their security, back-up procedures and virus checking is going to be better than what you’re operating in your own office.

The one area in which he admits that there remains a lack of clarity is the legal framework within which some businesses must operate. Under the terms of the Data Protection Act (DPA), companies that hold an individual’s personal details must notify the Information Commissioner’s Office that they are processing information and tell them how this information is held.

A key legal requirement of the DPA is that personal data is held within the European Economic Area (EEA) or else in a country deemed to have an adequate level of data protection (see box). So if your data is in a cloud hosted in an EEA member country, the US or any one of the other approved countries, you should be fine. But if your data centre provider has a facility in, say, Mexico or China, then you will be in breach of the DPA if your data is held there.

Some providers may offer assurances that information will be saved in countries that comply with legislation, but such promises cannot always be met.

This will become less of a problem as third-party service providers such as IBM build networks of data centres throughout the world so that they can offer customers a truly local service.

Despite its emergence, cloud computing is still a very new concept to many businesses. But not for much longer. Apple is launching itself into the marketplace with its iCloud service, so the stigma is about to dissipate.

With consumers set to embrace this seemingly new concept, it’s only a matter of time before businesses follow suit.