The SMB Group and CRM Essentials recently completed the 2011 SMB Collaboration and Communications Study. We asked more than 800 SMB (small business is 1-99 employees; medium business is 100-999 employees) decision-makers and influencers how they collaborate, what t...
Category: SMB
Smarter Commerce for the Midmarket: An Interview with IBM’s Ron Kline
In conjunction with IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative, the SMB Group and CRM Essentials are working on a series of posts discussing how technology is empowering today's customer, and why companies have to change their approach in order to build strong relationships with them. This is the third post in the series, which is a summarize transcript o...
Are You Ready? Transforming Your Business for the Smarter Customer
—by Laurie McCabe, SMB Group In conjunction with IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative, the SMB Group and CRM Essentials are working on a series of posts discussing how technology is empowering today's customer, and why companies have to change their approach in order to build strong relationships with them. This is the secon...
Dell Boomi: A Microcosm of Dell’s New Virtual Era
After attending Dell World, Dell’s first ever user conference a couple of weeks ago, it’s apparent that Dell’s progression towards becoming a pivotal vendor in what it terms the “virtual era” is well underway. And, last week’s announcement of Dell Boomi’s Fall 2011 release provides a prime example of how Dell is crossing the chasm from a product-centric hardware vendor to a sol...
Key Themes from SAP TechEd 2011–How Do They Relate to SMBs?
As the name implies, SAP TechEd offers technical education, such as hands-on workshops, deep-dive lectures and sessions with SAP technical experts about all things SAP. That said, TechEd isn't for everyone, and it’s no wonder that most of the 6,500+ attendees at SAP TechEd 2011, held the week of September 12 in Las Vegas, were SAP partners and technology specialists from the vendor’s large ente...
Take the Poll: Is Salesforce.com becoming too complex for your SMB?
In the post, Is Salesforce Outgrowing SMBs? I discussed Salesforce.com's new social enterprise vision, and questioned how it will work for SMBs. If you are part of a small or medium business, I'd like your thoughts! [polldaddy poll=5484341]
Is Salesforce.com Outgrowing SMBs?
Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff is a great visionary with a big appetite for change. From packaged software to the cloud, from CRM to platform-as-a-service, he's painted a color by number picture for businesses to emulate. But does his latest work, “the social enterprise" come with an easy enough guide for small businesses to paint it? The Paint-by-Numbers Social Enterprise Be...
The Impact of HP’s New Direction—An SMB Market Perspective
--by Sanjeev Aggarwal and Laurie McCabe, SMB Group After HP’s announcement that it would ditch it’s new Touchpad and put WebOS in mothballs, rumors leaked about it's intentions to spin-off or sell it’s Personal Systems Group (PSG) PC business and acquire information management software vendor Autonomy for $10.2B. Combined, these moves confirm HP’s CEO, Leo Apotheker’s strategy to get ...
Dell KACE M300 Appliance Enables Small Businesses to Take a Proactive Approach to IT Asset Management
Dell KACE recently introduced a new series of System Management Appliances targeted at small businesses with 20-200 employees. The Dell KACE M300 Asset Management Appliance is designed to deliver an affordable, plug-and-play IT asset management solution that reduces the repetitive, time consuming task of managing PC inventory and software licenses. The...
Sage Summit 2011: Tackling the Sage NA Branding Challenge
A couple of weeks ago, I attended Sage Summit 2011, Sage’s first combination partner and customer event. I’ve been attending Sage partner, customer and analyst events for several years, observing and commenting on its ongoing attempts to unify it’s corporate brand across multiple small and medium business (SMB) solutions. Earlier this year, following Sue Swenson’s retirement, Pascal Houillon to...