“He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.” (William James, the Godfather of modern psychology)

Okay, let me get this straight…

You are seriously going to ignore an incredible opportunity to make your business faster, leaner, more agile…

… because…

… well, I’m not sure what your reason may be.

I’m sure it makes some sort of sense… but what if “IT” is an illusion?

I understand the weird, twisted way humans look at opportunity… because I’ve allowed Big Opportunities to get away from me.

Like most opportunities, there is almost always some change required to pursue it, and that can be scary.

And if you are like me you’ve probably learned that if you just look the other way, that pesky opportunity will vanish, and things can remain the same…

… Safe and secure in the knowledge that nothing in your life will be any different.

And then, one day you wake up and realize you are behind, others have passed you by, and living life in the rear view mirror isn’t so sexy anymore. 

Now, sometimes opportunities arise out of a whisper and are hard to detect if you aren’t really tuned into your environment.

And you know what, “IT” happens. 

 However…

Sometimes opportunity whacks you upside your head… so obvious that you have to work at ignoring it.

NOTE TO SELF…. You’ve just been WHACKED upside your head.

Here’s the deal.  Cloud computing has arrived and is here to stay. 

It is changing the business landscape, and is allowing companies to do their work faster, with fewer resources and for a LOT LESS MONEY $$. 

If you haven’t looked at how cloud computing or SaaS can help you achieve a higher ROI, it’s time to look.  I’m serious about that.  The dividends will start rolling in immediately! 

At IPRO, we’ve built a SAAS offering that encompasses both discovery and review.  Spend an hour with us and we’ll show you point blank how to:

·         Decrease your hardware infrastructure costs

·         Do more work, in less time, with fewer resources

·         Achieve higher returns

·         Maintain control over your data, decisions, costs, and workflow

Opportunities come in all sizes, and this is a BIG one.  Seize the moment...

click this link →  http://iprotech.com/Products/IPRO-SaaS/ ← and schedule a Demo.

As the Program Manager for IPRO Nimbus, IPRO's Software as a Service, I really enjoyed Dennis Kennedy's article "Working in the Cloud" featured on the ABA Journal Website. If you haven't already done so, I encourage anyone thinking about a hosted software solution to consider the "SaaS Assessment" listed in this article when evaluating your options.

 

Read the article here: http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/working_in_the_clouds/

I am excited to announce that effective August 1^st, 2009, the IPRO Nimbus environment will be utilizing a modified metric for storage pricing when using the IPRO eCapture product for EDD processing.

Previously our storage metric was based on all files uploaded/created within the environment.  This included a large amount of data created by the EDD process that eCapture produces during discovery, such as the unfolding of email archives to a discovery directory, search indexes for complex filtering techniques, and the temporary image and text files created for a thorough QC process prior to exporting a final deliverable.

Though all of these items are extremely valuable and make eCapture a strong EDD processing product for any type of EDD project, when using the product on the IPRO Nimbus hosted environment these outputs made the storage costs a greater factor than ever anticipated.

Our new metric will eliminate charging upon any of the files created during these processes, or also referred to as ‘working directories’. As the hosted environment still provides great benefit as far as a stable infrastructure that can be used on the fly with no upfront costs, storage will still be a part of our pricing model, but by only totaling files uploaded by you and exported by you, the unknown factor is eliminated and control over those costs is truly in the hands of you, the user.

Our analysis of the change from past usage has shown that the change will save users on average over 50% in storage costs from our original metric. If you are interested in more information about using the IPRO Nimbus environment for EDD processing, please contact your IPRO Sales Representative at 888-477-6463 or email sales@iprocorp.com.

Litigation Support Today published an article in their February/April ’09 publication called “ABA Outsourcing Opinion – What it Mean to You as a Litigation Support Professional”. It discusses the August 5, 2008 opinion 08-451 released by the American Bar Association (“ABA”), regarding legal teams responsibility of results from outsourced services. In the past attorney’s could place blame on vendors for data processing mistakes, this article explains how they now have to bear the responsibility. This is a great example of how having a SaaS solution for electronic discovery processing can help put control in the firms hands for processing results, eliminating the worry of being held responsible for someone else’s work and managing an outsourced vendor.

Though IPRO’s ESI processing software can be purchased by anyone for on-premises installation, it is often acquired by those who can roll-out the infrastructure to support such a powerful application. It seems that it may be the very implementation of these applications that prevents some firms from handling this work in-house. If the implementation is the obstacle, and the desire is there to take ESI processing in-house, the solution is to go SaaS.

IPRO’s Software as a Service offering, IPRO Nimbus, allows for direct control over the ESI processing but from a remote location where the only resource needed to get the processing completed is an Internet connection. IPRO Nimbus, started out as a try-before-you buy concept for evaluation of the eCapture product but has been growing in popularity to be used as one of the many choices available to those in need of ESI processing solutions. The flexible offering seems to be a natural fit for those Lit Support professionals looking for a way to take control of that responsibility without cumbersome installation requirements or long-term commitments.

 

Whenever I hear the discussion of speed in the use of a SaaS technology or 'cloud-computing' I get the same gut reaction of hearing someone say, 'how hard is it?'

Just like a person's reference of how difficult a task is can vary so greatly, so can the impression of speed when talking about a responsive Internet connection or use of web-based applications in general.

When I am asked about the 'speed' of the SaaS environment we offer there are so many benefits in relation to speed it is difficult to know where to start.

Anyone considering the route of SaaS solutions may be intrigued by the 'speed' to adopt a solution and be operational. With no need to purchase equipment, configure those components into an existing network infrastructure, or installation of a new application. The 'speed' to adopt is by far superior to any on premises implementation.

Then there is the 'speed' of upgrades to the application. Many SaaS applications upgrade without the user recognizing. A popular web meeting program will simply notify you the next time you login that a new version has been updated and you need to perhaps upgrade a few Active-X controls. Our offering goes even farther to schedule upgrades with each individual user allowing for a scheduled upgrade that does not conflict with any business processes and the 'speed' benefit comes from having that third party handle all the arrangements from pre-tasks, process of upgrade, and post tasks to verify everything runs smoothly.

The last one I will mention is the most common interpretation of 'speed'; what the end user experiences when connecting to the web site to obtain access to their SaaS application. Of course there are a plethora of components that can affect this 'speed' both positively and negatively. There are the considerations of what is bandwidth available to the user logging in, but this is also going to be experienced if that user is attempting to remote into their work pc from home or on the road through some sort of a VPN connection such as Citrix or Terminal Services, and who’s to say connection to their local file server is degraded due to some other activities occurring on the corporate environment.

 Also is the available bandwidth through the SaaS provider to their service. This concern is legitimate considering all the host review applications that are out there. However if you are receiving your review software through a true SaaS provider, the network implementation is typically far superior than the average hosting server in the same server room as everything else within a business. Why? It's simple, that is the competitive advantage and core purpose for SaaS providers to offer the most reliable and efficient access. It is unlikely that the IT staff that has all the concerns of any other corporate IT department will put in the same level of technology or scrutiny to host a review application in-house than a SaaS provider implements in their services.