albahk

I have been asked by a trusted contact to implement a complete technology solution for over 15 real estate agency franchises he is acquiring. They all run on their own ad-hoc systems at the moment so they are basically 15 different systems. The goal is to get up and running with a robust platform that can cover the following and expand as and when new offices open:

- managing all customer data (crm functionality)

- storing all documentation centrally and securely (contracts, documents etc for each office plus shared documents provided by the master franchiser)

- email with calendars, blackberry support etc (I think hosted Exchange?)

- managing property listings, photos, floorplans, data sheets, flyers etc

- a shared collaboration space like MS sharepoint but I personally don't think SP is useable for the target audience, likewise wiki might be too technical

- conference calls, video conference (is Skype viable for business use?)

This is a lot more low tech than the usual HN startup but I wonder if the good people of HN could share their thoughts or recommendations. Thanks.

I purchased a domain name 12 years ago that you could say is as good or even better than about.me but in Chinese (pinyin) and its the .com . My original plan was to do something like about.me but I "never got round to it".

My question is, now, having seen market successes such as about.me and flavors.me prove there is demand, and given the Chinese web is a large enough size, would you go ahead and basically create it now purely to take advantage of the business opportunity as opposed to actually being passionate about it?

edit: Would rather not disclose the domain - trying to keep the discussion on the concept rather than specifics.

Is there a service or website where I can look for a freelance Server Admin who would take a fresh Amazon EC2 AMI under my account and install the web stack I want, download/install all the packages I need, remove or stop the ones I don't want (like ftp etc), setup firewall iptables and block ports etc maybe munin and I pay them? Do Server Admins usually accept this kind of one-off freelance work?