Bloomberg News / Business Report -Thursday, December 29, 2011

So as an authorized SMB “Google Apps For Business” Reseller we’re often asked the question, “Is Google+ a personal (consumer) social networking tool or a business marketing / social networking tool?”  Honestly it works very well for both.  Here are 3 core reasons why;

1. It has “social networking” at its heart.  People familiar with Facebook and other social networking tools quickly understand its primary purpose – to execute genuine 2-way sharing of content.
2. The primary feature that makes it uniquely different from Facebook and other social networking systems is “how you manage your audience”.  Personal and business audiences have very different needs.  The Circles concept used in Google+ is a simple to understand yet elegant solution for handling those differences.
3. Google+ is Simple, Free and works as part of any Google Account.  It is also Scalable, Flexible and can cross the boundaries of other services in the Google Universe.

Here is an entertaining 2 min animated video about “What is Google+”. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC_M6PzXS9g

The “Circles concept” is what allows managing our connections in a way that makes our “virtual cyber life” more closely mirror our “everyday real life”, just as described in the video.   In Facebook and Twitter connections are more black and white, a person is either a Friend (Facebook), a Follower (Twitter) or not. It’s more of an all-or-nothing approach, where everyone that is connected sees everything – and those not connected see nothing (some filtering is available but it takes some real learning to figure out).

Item 3 is not referenced in the video but in my opinion is where the real power and future opportunity of Google+ lies.  Lets face it, Simple and Free will initially make (and keep) this offering attractive to the consumer world.  Scalable and Flexible help win over the business world – so it works whether you are a 2 employee/20 client company or a 10,000 employee/million client company. But the ultimate value that benefits all markets is how transparently it can integrate with Google’s powerful cloud services.  I’ll explain what I mean by “transparently” using Google Search.

Google Search can be thought of as stand alone simple service – namely the fastest and leading way to locate Web site pages.  But their Search technology is actually a feature in virtually all major Google offerings (Gmail, Maps, Docs, YouTube, News, Calendar, Books etc.).  So Search is specific in task (just does search) but generic in use (can search any kind of content).  When we use a feature routinely across many products we tend to stop consciously thinking of it as a service, we just “search”.  The Search service as such, becomes transparent as we focus on getting work done, we simply don’t worry about the details of how the process happens.

As Google+ integrates with Google’s other major cloud services (gmail, calendar, docs etc.) it will eventually become something we don’t think about – we just “Google +”.  The issue of sharing mobile phone photos is a good example.  Today, the amount of learning and plodding through steps required to share a mobile phone picture to specific individuals keeps many from doing it.  First you need to load all the right apps, transfer the picture to some computer, upload it to personal Web storage area, link to the storage area, download to the Facebook album etc.  How about this technique instead:

1. Snap a picture using the mobile smart-phone
2. use Google+ mobile to select the Circle (audience of people) to share with
3. Done, that’s it.

This can happen because behind the scenes Google data services have been integrated (programmed) to automatically do the busy and boring work. The Android phone knows a picture was taken, it knows who you are and it has a live connection to the Internet.  So it automatically transports the picture to a private Picasa account (Google cloud service for storing pictures). It knows you share pics on Google+ so it automatically links your Picasa picture library storage and then serves up only the necessary picture(s) to the audience (Circle) you selected.

The tedium tasks (upload, file, label, lookup, address, download etc) are instantly and automatically taken care of – don’t think about it, just “Google+”.  This is just one example of how Google+ could become as prevalent in everyday use as “search”.  This opportunity to leverage the  collection of Google services has tremendous potential value for business market users.

In a followup post I’ll discuss how any company can gain all the features of Google+ and ALSO gain DOMAIN PRIVACY for Proprietary / Confidential company information. GAFYD.net (Google Apps For Your Domain) has the potential to really differentiate how Google+ is used within the business marketplace.

Google+

As announced this week on their Google+ page, Monday 1/30/12 President Obama will join a special Google+ Hangout from the West Wing of the White House.  This is a natural extension of President Obama creating his own personal Google+ page during Nov 2011.

Social networking has become extremely influential in the world of politics.  Likely the most cost effective alternative ever for reaching literally millions of people.  However it is not always about the largest number of people, often there is a need to focus or limit your audience.  This is what Google+ does a fantastic job of via “Circles” and will make it very popular at the White House.

A circle is a specific limited audience that has been defined by you.  With Google+ you gain the benefit of a social network tool (simplicity, flexibility, and power) while retaining type control of who participates in a specific circle.  Google+’s real potential for the White House lies in the ability of staff, committee members, cabinet personnel etc to have mini internal social networks where they share and discuss, but keep certain things limited to and confined within a pre-defined audience.

Lets face it, anything that improves the effectiveness and frequency of how our elected officials and their staff communicate amongst each another and the world is a plus.  Partisan politics is at an all time high and that has to change.  Instead of building fences between people we need to build gates, pathways for communication and transparency.  The Google+ service is a great enabler of this, as any group – be it 2 people or 2000 people, can now have the immediacy of shared rich media exchange.  And do it without any more cost than having an internet connected device.

Hang on because things are just getting rolling for social networking that suits Personal AND Business situations. If you have not yet considered how your company can benefit from Google Apps For Business (cloud computing / social networking) please give us a call 303-932-8146.

—–UPDATE 2/6/12 ——  Very often first-time technology events encounter unknown problems, but nothing major went wrong in the near 50 minute long  first Google+ Hangout from the White House with the President of the US on 1/30/12.

• 228,102 people submitted 133,153 questions in advance of the night
• Then 1,630,067 votes were cast to select which questions would be addressed
• And approximately 250,000 viewers saw the 7 participant Hangout live via a Youtube Livestream broadcast

With only a slight technical difficulty at the beginning (speaker button was not turned on), the event (CLICK to see entire playback) went off flawlessly.  Viewers of the livestream watched the Hangout screen which had one large picture and seven small pictures at the bottom of the computer screen. One for the moderator, five for the individual Americans invited to participate, and the seventh box showing the president.

All Livestream viewers could see the 7 live participants which displayed equally.  The larger image on the upper screen would then change and focus on which ever of the 7 participants was speaking.  This was a proud moment for the Google+ team, and so liked by the White House they are holding another Hangout today 2/6/12  White House Takes To Google+ Hangout Again To Speak To Entrepreneurs (And Us) About Startup America

Reading about SOPA helped me learn about something I was not aware existed, the  ”Creative Commons License“.  The group’s mission statement says:  “Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical  infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.” Essentially they’ve developed tools that allow artists, authors and creators multiple levels of copyright restriction regarding their content on the Internet.  Instead of applying the single traditional Copyright standard of “All Rights Reserved” – these tools give everyone (from individual creators to companies and institutions) a simple, standardized way to retain their copyright while allowing certain uses of their work — a “some rights reserved” approach to copyright.

The Info-graphic viewable by clicking on the image to the right contains very useful “How To” steps for Google search users.  This creative work was established and copyrighted by a university using this “some rights reserved” approach.

Of the 6 different licenses available it is being shared under the  Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, the details of which are explained here.   So while the future of Copyright law regarding Internet content continues to be determined by politicians, click on the image to access a very useful Info-graphic about “Getting More Out Of Google”.  And after you seek out the details via Google – be sure to contact your elected representative and express your opinion of how the Internet should be governed.

• Cloud Computing – using the internet to access remote based computing resources that include the server computers, all storage and software applications.
• SAAS – Software As A Service – a business model that allows “pay as you go, only for what you use” versus large capital costs to purchase capacity in advance.
• Google Apps  For Business – Google’s bundled group of “cloud based computing services” offered for Private Domains via SAAS business model.  Highly affordable and available for all desktop or mobile devices and comes with a 99.9% uptime SLA.

We hear others say these terms, we see them in articles and even use versions of them (often without knowing it) but people still wonder. Who is this stuff for ?  How does it work?  Answer to Ques 1 is;  “this stuff is for anyone that needs affordable, flexible, available from anywhere reliable computing capacity”.  Answer to Ques 2 is “you don’t need to know how it works to get the benefit”.

Below are 3 recent adopters of Google Apps.  Highly diverse in their location, users and needs – ranging from government to education to private business.  But all using the same solution to meet their needs, it illustrates how adaptable this new form of computing is. It may help to think of Google Apps (SAAS/Cloud computing) as buying electricity from an Electric Power Utility company.  Every customer gets the same kind of electricity, but how they put it to work to meet their unique requirements is what makes them different. The same is true with cloud computing.

Lake Havasu AZ (city known as the American home of the historic London Bridge) Police Department dedicates itself to creating a safe and secure local resort, business and residential community. Most officers are primarily on the road of water doing patrol – being mobile is critical.

However staff could only check email before they started a shift or after they returned. Mobile computing demands combined with a need for easy fluid information exchange between 24×7 work shift people and typical 8 hour day shift office personnel drove them to look for new solutions.   Regarding the question “is data secure in the cloud” which the Police Chief was asked repeatedly, he response is “By moving our data to the Google cloud, we are able to take advantage of Google’s FISMA certified security infrastructure. A far more robust system than most mid to small agencies (like ours) are able to build and maintain.

Utah K-12 Schools in all  Districts is being encouraged by the Utah State Board of Education to offer support for Google Apps (for Education edition) to all K-12 schools across 42 state school districts, with  full support of the Utah Technology Coordinators Council (TCC).  Terms were worked out with Google for providing Google Apps to over 575,000 students and 25,000 teachers statewide.

Utah joins eight other states with statewide support for Google Apps for Education: Colorado (was state #3), Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

This for-profit company sets-up, manages and promotes over 300,000 events annually. While based in Harlowton, Montana, their teams are distributed across North America and Argentina plus have fulfillment partners in Australia and the U.K.

They develop and built their proprietary LOB (Line of Business) software to be used from “the cloud” but they didn’t want to build their own email system.   Their Microsoft® Exchange system was becoming more of a constraint and expense, by having to maintain their own systems.  As a relatively small business with teams spread across six countries on three continents, Google Apps enabled them to be much more efficient in communicating across time zones and continents

Employees now have easy access to email on Androids, iPhones and iPads allowing them to be on top of important issues regardless of location with little or no IT support.  It gave a 38% reduction in the average number of responses needed to resolve a customer issue, decreased the IT operating budget by about 28%.

This image of the new left panel reflects some of the obvious cosmetic changes in appearance. But one image can hardly show the new dynamic functional changes. Google is making too many changes, and making them to quickly for my liking but alas there is a sound reason behind them.  Automatic “Device Adaptation” is one of the most core reasons

New computing devices – desktop, mobile and everything inbetween are being introduced to market with unprecidented speed and variety.  Given that AAA computing (Anywhere, Anytime, Any device) is a basic objective for Gmail and all other Google Apps services, the software must be designed to work effectively on a large variety of devices and form factors.

It is no small effort to design a single program and user interface that makes  sense and is useable on everything from a big 24” wide screen PC monitor to a 10” tablet screen to a 3.5” mobile phone screen.  But these changes are an effort to move in that direction.

The list of changes is rather extensive, some very obvious, others so subtle you’ll never notice them.  The navigation panel is a critical part of Gmail so I thought it useful to highlight its functional changes -best explained in this Google gmailBlog Post which closes saying;

“The end result is a system that is more flexible, more responsive, and always keeps your chat contacts and unread count visible without adding a lot of complexity or requiring too much clicking around.”

Hopefully you agree and the changes aren’t making you as cranky as they make me sometimes.  I know we all have our “limits for change” and I’m reaching my limit, but things will settle down.  Overall my time and learning investment will have a big payoff, I’ll be able to access my data on a wide variety of devices without relearning the app to do so.

2007 D5 Conference - historic joint appearance of Steve Job's and Bill Gates

“…If there was a single moment where the destinies of Microsoft and Apple diverged, it was D5. Nearly all of the buzz of D5 was centered around two products: 1.) The Microsoft Surface, which Steve Ballmer unveiled to the public on the opening day of the event, and 2.) The iPhone, which Apple had announced earlier in the year and which was about to go on sale a month later…”

The above quote is from; iPhone and Surface: The moment Apple and Microsoft diverged (from TechRepbulic by Jasson Hineron Hiner Nov 21, 2011) and highlights how dramatically the scales of fortune can shift.  The article details how similar changes have happened in both revenue and Market Cap.

The “Market Cap line chart” below illustrates how extraordinary the shift has been – in 4 years a reversal of value to the tune of $300B (Apple up $250B and Microsoft down $50-75B).  If the rate and direction of the trend during those 4 years continues for a 5th year – the result may be a complete reversal of position:

• from 2007 where Microsoft’s Market Cap exceeded Apple’s by $200B
• to 2012 where Apple’s Market Cap may exceed Microsoft’s by $200B or more!

Change of this magnitude can completely re-define who dictates market direction and who sets design criteria for the future. Yet we all know the tech industry is fickle – nothing is totally predictable – other than 2012 promises to be more of the same – large amounts of change in how we use and benefit from technology in our daily lives.

Radical changes as significant as the iPhone introduction are again underway – known as Cloud Computing and SAAS (Software As A Service).  They hold potential to radically shift or impact the fortunes of key companies – including your company!

• Have you considered the impact on your company if you don’t incorporate or adopt at least some key elements of Cloud Computing?
• Do you have a strategy for evaluating or reviewing its benefits for you?
• What about the impact it has on your mobile computing?

To reap maximum benefit from “riding a wave of change” (do you wish you bought Apple stock in 2007?) you must not wait until it has already passed.  If you have questions or want information about Cloud Computing and Google’s “Google Apps For Business” solution from people that have been doing it for years – call Tom at 303-932-8146, creator of GAFYD.net (Google Apps For Your Domain).

Yet, certain products of these companies can be described as BFF (Best Friends Forever).  Consider how well Apple’s iPhone, iPad and IOS 5 based MAC products work with the Google Apps For Business cloud computing solution.  Google Apps brings enterprise quality multi-user app integration across all the platforms while also allowing companies to support a mix of Apple and non-Apple hardware devices.  Here are some reasons why.

Eric Schmidt Google’s CEO from 2001-2011 (now Executive Chairman) often refers to himself as a “Proud Former Member” of Apple’s Board of Directors, a role he held for 3 years.  And he holds the work of Steve Jobs in high regard.

What Steve has done at Apple is certainly the best performance of a CEO for over fifty years, maybe a hundred years,” Schmidt proclaimed

Equally, Larry Page, Google co-founder and current CEO, is not shy about expressing respect and admiration of Steve Jobs, Apple CEO and creator of the iPhone.

The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs reached out to offer Google CEO Larry Page support as he took the reins at Google. The classy move showed strength of his character, despite the rivalries between Google and Apple.

Another demonstration of this is the technology market itself, as outlined in this GIGOOM.com article. It’s not Google vs. Apple. It is Apple & Google vs. the old way highlights how rapid adoption of smart-phones with Internet connectivity as a core element of their genetic make-up play a role in causing Apple and Google to often think alike vs differently.  Yet each company has its own market focus – Apple is primarily a device and product company, while Google more a software and services company.

Ultimately this is all good news for users of Cloud Computing solutions. Particularly Google Apps For Business – today’s leading Cloud-based productivity apps offering for businesses.  Availability of advanced standard protocols has allowed iPhone users to reap benefit of “enterprise category” services made available on their iPhone with no additional carrier service costs.  When properly configured, iPhone users can the device’s native mail, contact and calendar apps while still gaining 100% wireless sync of Google Apps for Business data between all desktop and/or mobile devices.

This critical synchronization process of daily operations data (Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Docs, Videos, Map and more) can all be layered under protection of the company’s private Domain.  Using GAFYD.net – Google Apps For Your Domain gives benefit of centralized administrative management and control of all cloud resources no matter what size the user community is.  Data is current and consistent, regardless of the mobile device (iPhone or Android), the wireless carrier used or the PC operating system.

For example, the enterprise quality sharing Calendaring adjusts appointment times for any global time-zone a traveler might visit, and phone numbers are immediately available even if just a WiFi connection exists. Companies using “Google Apps For Business” as their foundation data communication system even provide their individual employees automatic backup of their critical data for when their mobile device is lost, stolen or inoperable.

As we do more mobile computing with unending variety of new devices you want to have a strategy for keeping data secure, consistently synchronized and recoverable!  Be sure to obtain professional guidance and advice about what the best solution is for your company.

Laptop / iPad / iPhone - courtesy of "House & Home - Digital" 3 formats

For those who think “required logins” on desktop PC’s to assure good security can be annoying – check out what highly mobile users deal with.  Think about the synchronization and data backup issues that arise when you have multiple access points to related data.

Recently I chatted with two successful VP level sales professionals from large well known companies (Polycom and Tellabs).  Both are tenured pros, having lots of “travel miles” and laptop computing time in their history.  How surprised was I to find that today, being mobile means carrying 3, even 4 mobile computing devices – not just a laptop PC.

This reality was further driven home by some other events.  As the above picture illustrates, today “House & Home” magazine found they must develop 3 presentation formats for one E-magazine (PC/Laptop, Pad/Tablet, Smartphone).  Also the Road Warrior 2.0 Challenge contest, sponsored by Hyatt Place (asking real-world business travelers to help redefine today’s Road Warrior)!  In addition to the expected Free plane tickets, 10 Free nights at their hotel etc. the prize package included – you guessed it, 3 mobile devices:

Lenovo Thinkpad X1    /   Apple iPad 2    /   Samsung Infuse 4G smartphone

The only item missing was a wireless carrier’s portable Aircard / WiFi Hotspot device (the 4^th item one of the above mentioned sales professionals sometimes carries).  I’m not going to argue the logic of the approach one way or the other – I’m just presenting that it’s a fact of life for today’s highly mobile professional.  Plus it is amazing what the combination of devices allows them to achieve.

Example: the Tellabs gentlemen uses his portable Verizon Aircard to give Internet access to ALL his WiFi enabled devices anywhere he wants while paying only one service carrier charge.  The laptop PC, iPad (and Blackberry if desired) each have unique device benefits – but can all be online anywhere his cell service signal exists.  On occasion he has provided internet access (WiFi) to 2-3 client visitors during a quick meeting in an airport lobby.  Thus allowing each guest to avoid paying for a generic public WiFi signal – and making Internet login quick and easy for all.

Yet, the even BIGGER question is – how does one keep their address book, calendar and docs (Contracts, Presentations etc) files synchronized across all those mobile devices?  Knowing you may need the latest data from any one device at any given moment in a day?Even more important – how do you successfully backup all your data routinely on 3 different mobile devices?  Many people find themselves strained to routinely backup just their desktop PC.

Since Halloween is close let me give you the SCARY ANSWER first – buy some big multi-legged Octopus type sync cable that might fit all the different devices, then spend hours plugging and unplugging cables prior to and after each trip to keep everything in order!

A much less scary answer is - implement a Cloud Computing solution of enterprise quality, that handles not only sharing files (i.e. Dropbox, Box.net etc) – but also contacts, calendars and applications that also comes with a SLA (Service Level Agreement guarantee).  Get everything fully synchronized in wireless fashion, regardless of where you are in the world and achieved via a single sign-on account.   Google Apps For Business (GAFYD.net a professionally “managed services” version) will provide these features.

The same truth holds for messaging systems. Increasing announcement length or message count storage alone adds limited value to a messaging product.   I imagine all the feet shown can stand and walk – we’ll just assume that basic.  But which ones can sprint, run great distance, play complex sports or maybe do ballet steps or other dance?  That all depends on what body they are attached to.

What’s your mobile device messaging system attached to?  If only your wireless carrier facility, then it’s limited by definition.  If connected (integrated) into the Web, it gains virtually unlimited storage, software sophistication, global connectivity and becomes part of an ever expanding and improving environment.  If your mobile messaging isn’t integrated (connected) to the Web – then like the feet shown above you have to assume it only does the basics, stand and walk (or even less!)

My first post (9/13/11) on this topic referenced specific wireless carrier messaging limitations.  My Part 2 post (9/22/11) identified how Google Maps (Internet Integrated App) on a mobile devices advances a simple App to levels of “Super App and On Steriods” App.  Using an Internet based messaging system for your Cell (mobile) Phones can do the same thing.

As a Simple Mobile Messaging App (use wireless carrier facility)

• 1 announcement, voice mails are 2 min duration max, only retained for 30 days
• requires a telephone to hear voice messages, must play messages in fixed sequence
• memorize telephone keypad commands, no search ability, overseas retrieval adds cost
• no management tools for locating or archiving historic (or lost) text messages
• no access to text messages if mobile device isn’t powered and present

As a Super Mobile Messaging App (incorporate basic Internet integration)

• use home, work or other phone to directly access voice messages
• receive voice message via email (audio file) or text message (transcribed to written form)
• have inbound call options (announcement based on caller id), extended length messages allowed, listen in / cut in on active message, read transcribed messages
• retrieve messages from telephone, PC or other mobile device (i.e. tablet, iPad etc)
• archive messages to save for any length of time
• one calling directory for voice and text messaging
• “visual voicemail” directly play any message, in sequence play not required

As a Mobile Messaging App On Steriods (Full Internet and Voice Cloud integration)

• Equal access to all messages from Mobile Device(s) or password protected desktop device
• Contacts directory wireless sync’ed between all desktop and mobile devices
• Ability to redirect calls to other phones (mobile or land) prior to forcing to voice mail
• Multi Party conferencing and Call Recording (to voice mail inbox)
• Full visual viewing, word search and external archiving of voice and/or text messages
• Message Sharing – via download to MP3, send via email or embed on a  web page
• Annotate stored voice messages with personal notes or reminders
• Automatic disaster recovery and backup (of Contacts Directory and all messages)
• Easily block (mark as Spam) calls you never want to get again
• Can establish password protected “limited delegation” to admin assistant

The On Steriods feature list is hardly exhaustive.  In addition, creative combination of listed features establishes unique never thought of business solutions for tough problems.   These features have be called life saving by highly mobile “solo professional practitioners”, and at minimum handy for personal cell phone users.

Benefits are further multiplied when implemented under a company domain via *GAFYD.net (Google Apps For Your Domain).  WHY?  Services (powered by Google Voice) are centrally managed and ALL mobile messaging is retained under Domain protection regardless of wireless carrier or mobile device used.  Company owners are assured critical and/or proprietary data exchanged via voice and text messages will always be accessible to them, even if when employees leave or devices are lost or stolen.

Just like Google Maps continues revolutionizing how we find our way from point A to point B, Web integrated mobile messaging will revolutionize business use of Cell (mobile) phone messaging. Whether for personal or business communication, the fact these features can now be added to even inexpensive and basic cell phones (smart phone NOT required) further assures Cell Phone messaging will continue to change how we communicate and live.

Highlights from the article

Much of the mobile companies’ new business will come from the developing world, where they are unable to charge the same level of fees as they do in western markets…  Delusions that this industry will continue to grow astronomically have to be thrown out of the window now…  We can safely say that the telecoms industry is now mature, and what we have here is a utility sector…  Western Europe is predicted to be the worst performing region and the only one to experience revenue decline…  It is time for operators to embrace the fact that their data revenues are going to replace their voice revenues”

So while phone connections may grow by nearly 30%, total new revenue is predicted to grow less than 10%. This places pressure on profit margins and all but eliminates R&D dollars for non-direct revenue services (like voice mail). So how do customers overcome inadequacies and limitations of the wireless carrier aging voice mail / messaging services?  ANSWER: Use a mobile phone’s “data (internet) connection” to tap into and integrate the mobile device with advanced data / messaging systems that are integrated with the Internet.

In a word – Apps!  think Simple, Super and On Steroids Apps. Smart-phones have access to 10,000s of apps (standalone and Internet based) that are independent of wireless carrier offerings. They dramatically enhance the value of your mobile phone, are low cost (many are Free) and can even have complementary versions available on the PC. Google Maps is a great example.

• as a Simple App, Google Maps provides instant access to an enormous database of classic road and terrain information for nearly the entire Globe.
• as a Super App, it adds the ability to search those Maps (even by voice) to find places, businesses and get directions to any location
• with the mobile device GPS location feature you get an App on Steroids. The app can now provide detailed voice guided navigation while you are driving

Wireless mobile phone carriers cannot afford the cost of creating advanced mapping / navigation systems like Google has (provided FREE via being subsidized by Google Ads).  Google also specifically built a mobile version of this extremely complex and data-intensive Maps app.  It works seamlessly on a wide variety of mobile phones.

This approach of seamless integration to advanced Internet technology (i.e. Google Apps related) will give mobile devices Simple / Super / on Steroids Apps for Cell Phone messaging.  In my first post (AllThingsIp.com 9/13/11) I referenced specific limitations of today’s wireless carrier mail / messaging systems.  The following excerpt from AT&T’s – Voice Mail Quick Start Guide / Terms And Conditions (para 4, page 10) pretty much sums up the whole situation.

– your Service will retain only a limited number of messages and will store messages only for a limited number of days. AT&T retains the right, at AT&T’s sole discretion and at any time, to change any of the capacity limits on message exchange and storage.

* GAFYD.net – Google Apps For Your Domain added to your mobile system will not only provide better voice mail and text services but will do so under the branding and protection of a company’s private domain.  Read our coming PART 3 post to learn more about the specific features.