Fellow SMB analyst Sanjeev Aggarwal published our top ten SMB technology related predictions--plus three bonus predictions--here yesterday. But hey, it's all about the wisdom of crowds--and we want to know what you think. Vote here! [polldaddy poll=2389107]
Category: Blog – Laurie McCabe
2010 Top 10 SMB Technology Market Predictions
Fellow SMB analyst Sanjeev Aggarwal and I have teamed up to bring you our top ten technology related predictions-plus three bonus predictions--for the SMB (companies with 1-1000 employees) market for 2010. Details for each prediction follow the list below. Remember to vote for your top prediction
What is SEM, and Why Should You Care?
(Originally published in Small Business Computing, November 30, 2009) Technology insiders tend to throw around technical terms and business jargon, assuming people outside the industry understand what it all means. By its nature, technology vocabulary is often confusing and complicated, and insiders often add ...
Flying Through the Cloud: Dreamforce Takeaways at 50,000 Feet
A couple of weeks ago, I attended Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce event--along with about 19,000 other people. Having had a chance to digest the proceedings (as well as Thanksgiving dinner), here’s my commentary on what stood out as the top takeaways from the conference in terms of where Salesforce is headed and what it means for the sof...
Top Takeaways from IBM’s General Business Influencer Summit
Last week, I attended IBM’s General Business (GB) Influencer Summit for analysts covering the mid-market (companies with 100 to 1000 employees and larger enterprises that are not currently spending a lot with IBM, sometimes termed “white space” accounts). I’ve attended this event since IBM began holding them a few years back. IBM recently split GB into two groups, creating separate sales and ...
Small Business Has a Big Appetite for Digital and Social Media Marketing
Small business adoption of technology-based solutions rarely keeps pace with the expectations of vendors, analysts and pundits. When it comes adoption of digital marketing and social media tools, however, small business adoption is fast and furious. Recently, we (Hurwitz & Associates) conducted a survey sponsored by email marketing vendor
Another Plea for Plain English!
Yesterday, I was listening to NPR’s Here and Now at lunch time while running a few errands in my car. I tuned into a great story about the “Plain English Campaign”, which was founded in 1979 by now 71-year old Chrissie Maher. The organization’s mi...
PDFSalesLeads-A Clever Solution to the Pesky .PDF Problem
In our industry, vendors spend a lot of time and money developing white papers to educate prospects about new technologies. White papers that are well-researched and clearly written can help explain the value of new or complex solutions to the audiences that can potentially benefit from them. Of course, vendors also want to generate qualified sales leads from their white papers. But when it c...
Workingpoint’s New Twist on SaaS Pricing for Small Businesses
In a post earlier this month, I raised the issue that SaaS vendors targeting small businesses need to start experimenting with different pricing options if they want to create a true volume market for their solutions (Prescription for Subscription Fatigue? Time for New ...
FinancialForce: A New Force in Cloud-based Accounting
Last week, Unit 4 Aggresso, parent company of CODA, announced that it has teamed up with Salesforce.com to launch FinancialForce.com. FinancialForce.com is actually Coda2Go, the cloud based accounting application that CODA built from the ground up on the Force.com platform, and sold through AppExchange. The deal pushes FinancialForce into the spotlight as a poster child for Force.com, and under...