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Best Free Business Cloud Apps You Probably Haven't Heard of

By Joseph Walker

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 02Feb2012 Word count: 1041 Viewed: 67 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

The title might sound a bit presumptuous, but the writers at Cloud Nation have recently compiled a list of cloud apps that most folks who don't live in the cloud haven't heard of. All of these cloud computing apps are free, but some of them do follow the freemium model of app distribution. In other words, the apps' core features function forever for free, but additional premium features are available with subscription or other pay-as-you go plan.

Mail Chimp: Tired of paying a premium price for email list management tools like Constant Contact? Then MailChimp might be for you. The "forever free" version of MailChimp allows users to store up to 2,000 subscribers and send as many as 12,000 emails per month—no contracts, no fees, no credit cards, no trial expirations. MailChimp also offers reasonable monthly, pay-as-you-go, and high volume plans.

Cloudo, eyeOS: These are from two separate companies offering virtually the same service: Host your computer in the cloud and access it from any Internet-connected computer or mobile device. That's right; both of these free services allow you to deploy and configure a virtual computer and host it in their data centers. Manage files, run applications, and do whatever you normally would do on your computer—all within a web browser. The main difference between these two solutions is that CloudO is free while in beta, whereas eyeOS is a committed open source project offering both free and professional versions and a partner program.

Pixlr: This photo editing cloud application rocks. I used to carry a USB key with a portable version of Photoshop stored on it. No longer! Thanks to Pixlr. (Seriously, and I'm not being paid by Pixlr to write this—nor am I in any way associated with them.) Pixlr's web-based photo editor is one of the most responsive cloud applications I've ever used. Given a decent Internet connection, there's virtually no lag at all. It's like Photoshop lite, offering many of the same image adjustment, layer, and filter functions that I use all the time with Photoshop. They also offer a free Android and iOS app.

Picnik: Another free cloud hosted graphic editing app similar to Pixlr, the chief difference between the two is Picnik's premium offerings that add even more powerful functionality. Picnik also offers a "Chrome App" which worked great on an underpowered Lenovo x120e laptop.

HootSuite: While growing quickly in popularity, it's possible you haven't heard of HootSuite yet. This SaaS solution allows you to manage all of your social media accounts from a single easy-to-use dashboard. I actually prefer HootSuite's interface to Facebook's own native one. Using HootSuite, IT consultants could tiptoe into the online identity or brand management sectors, offering profile management services for SMB owners who don't have the time to deal with it themselves.

Mint: While no QuickBooks replacement, Mint's accounting software is a great Quicken replacement. It offers investment management and personal finance functions that allow for easy budgeting and investment planning. While it can't handle the accounting needs of an SMB with significant inventory, a high volume of transactions, or employees, it could work well for an independent service provider.

SoundCloud: Similar to web-hosted audio streaming services like GrooveShark, SoundCloud goes a step further and enables you to stream and share any sound. It has simple voice and sound capture functions and allows for the upload of virtually any sound file. For businesses that want to share audio files on their websites, SoundCloud is a perfect match. The service also offers a widget that makes streaming audio files on your website easy-breezy.

Hitman Pro: Despite the name, this software from the Netherlands is actually intended for users' security. Hitman Pro is a malware removal solution that scans users' computers, uploads suspicious files to the cloud, and leverages the power of a significant number of other security companies' software to identify and remove malicious software. I've seen Hitman Pro remove run-of-the-mill malware, rootkits, and even bootkits. The software has a 30-day free full functionality period, but will identify (without removing) suspicious files forever.

Megaupload: Want an easy way to share very large files with Internet users? Then Megaupload could be a great fit. The free service gives 200GB of storage for individual files as large as 2GB. Premium options eliminate wait times and download throttling.

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