Articles about Small Business

Less than a week after announcing a major Desktop-as-a-Service product in Simplified DaaS, Dell said Tuesday it would offer methods to securely sync sensitive data across disparate cloud services. Called Integration Packs, Dell initially is offering synchronization services between Salesforce CRM and the software version of QuickBooks.

An integration pack for synchronization between the online version of QuickBooks and Salesforce CRM and Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce CRM is due in June. All three packs have a $65 monthly service charge, Dell says.

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Poor technology purchasing happens when a company buys products that do not properly meet their requirements. It happens with things like enterprise software and cloud services, and sometimes even with things like datacenters, hardware and phone systems. It happens more often than you realize but you don’t hear much about it. People love to talk about their purchasing successes, but they are far more reluctant to talk about their purchasing failures.

The infrequent nature of these types of purchases is the root cause of the problem. While employees may have deep system experience, they are often not up to date with competing products in the market simply because these types of purchases happen so seldom. This can lead to a gap between what the selected product delivers and what the business requires. When this gap gets too large, you have a technology purchasing failure.

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We have talked a lot about cloud computing recently here on the pages of BetaNews. That's not surprising since it is one of the fastest growing segments of the tech industry today. Missing, however: A more personal story on how we're using the cloud in our day-to-day business.

I run a small freelance writing and media consulting business out of my home, Oz Media Inc. While being my own boss is fun, it also requires me to be owner, CEO, CFO, IT administrator, and employee. It's a company of one. Cloud computing has definitely paid off and made running my business a lot easier, and here's why.

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Small and medium sized business are quickly moving to the cloud to reduce IT costs, a new study shows. The number of cloud services is expected to double over the next five years, and the number of small business using at least one cloud service will triple during that same period.

Cloud computing offers small business the opportunity to access the computing power of much larger corporations at a fraction of the cost. In fact, the survey shows that half of all SMBs see the cloud as becoming more important to their business.

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As a software developer I can appreciate how important it is to have good ideas. The challenge is making them reality. Also it is not enough just to be taught a skill, one needs to be able to put it to work doing something valuable to others. Some of the best ideas come from people who aren't just trying to make a buck, but who love what they are doing and see the real value in it.

Sadly many a good idea never makes it beyond the drawing board. But some people don't give up so easily and with a little Kickstarter amazing things can happen. Recently, I discovered two unique examples of very good ideas turned into reality by taking advantage of this unique website.

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Good small business websites build brands and bring in customers. In order for this to happen, people to actually visit, and for that to happen, a website needs to be designed around the principles of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.

SEO, put simply, is how to make it easier for web users to come across your website when searching on Google, Bing, or any popular search engine. We’re not talking about Googling "Jerry’s Taco Kingdom" and seeing if you actually find Jerry’s website (if that’s not happening, then Jerry has other problems to worry about). If Jerry has effective SEO, then a web search for simply "tacos", "Mexican food" or "restaurants with tortillas" ought to bring up his site as an early result, thus bringing hungry new visitors to his page.

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Virtualization is one of the hottest IT topics today. Everyone's talking about it, but few are really doing it -- and there's a big gulf between enterprise and small business adoption, even though many of the benefits are the same. Small business is one of my favorite technology segments, because of its diversity, unique needs, large size, yet small IT footprint. When working as an analyst during the mid-Noughties I launched JupiterResearch's SMB practice. I've been remiss by not writing more about small business tech at BetaNews.

There is much confusion about what is a small business -- how official statisticians and high-tech vendors segment sizes. Small businesses account for 97 percent of employee firms, according to US government agencies. But that segmentation counts firms with fewer than 500 employees as small business -- large by my measure -- and ignores the enormous number of operations with non-payroll employees. This segment is often overlooked by high-tech vendors, many of which count them as consumers. By the US Census Bureau's reckoning, there are nearly 27.3 million small businesses, but only 5.9 million have payrolls and 3.62 million employ fewer than five people. So there are 21.4 million businesses employing less than 5 people -- that's 78 percent of them.

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The hallmark of effective security in any field, especially computers, is defense-in-depth. There is always a way around any particular defensive measure, so you need multiple defenses in order to stop attacks with a high level of confidence. Large organizations are full of multilayered defenses, but they are no less essential to small businesses.

It's never big news, but small businesses get hit all the time by cybercrime. Reporter and analyst Brian Krebs has many stories of small businesses that fell victim to attacks, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Specialized malware (malicious programs) named Zeus and SpyEye find ways to get into your bank accounts and steal your money. In some cases, businesses have sued their banks to get their money back, but the courts have sided with the bank. It's the business's responsibility to secure the access the bank has given to the account.

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