We use a number of products and services from other companies on a day to day basis both in our own business and in our clients businesses. We’ve tried a lot of products from other vendors over time. Some times they’re great but other times they don’t live up to their claims and our expectations. If you’re having difficulties trawling through all the hype and need some direction, here is our go to list for third party products and services.
Domain Name Registration
If you’re in need of getting a shiny new domain name for your business or want to register additional domain names, we’ve found that the following companies offer decent service and good turn around times.
Crazy Domains
When we are registering a new .com.au domain name we use Crazy Domains for our clients. Their prices are good and the registration process is quick and effortless. When registering we recommend bypassing all the other offers and skip to the end.
Namecheap
We've found that when registering a .COM domain name that NameCheap are good.
Website Hosting
There are plenty of hosting providers out there. HostGator and Crucial Cloud Hosting have proven to be reliable for us and our customers. Both have different feature sets which will depend on your requirements.
HostGator
We find HostGator are great for Businesses which are on a tighter budget and their reliability is fantastic. HostGator also have a lot of bundled in extras included.
Crucial Cloud Hosting
If you're in Australia, Crucial Cloud Hosting offers some pretty impressive speeds and excellent reliability. This website is hosted by Crucial at their Sydney Web Servers.
Productivity Suites
Both of these service providers have their strong points and different pricing structures. Whilst most businesses go for Office 365, Google Apps for Business is definitely worth a look.
Office 365
With the familiar Outlook interface businesses like using, hosted exchange and strong ties to SharePoint and Lync, Microsoft's cloud based productivity suite is replacing internally hosted email in many businesses.
Google Apps for Business
Google Apps provides similar email, calendar and task functionality to Office 365 however it has stronger integration to other cloud based solutions. Cloud storage is plentiful and very cost effective.
Backup & Business Continuity
Which backup solution you choose to protect your business will depend on the types of services your business uses.