Category: SMB

Are You Ready to Move Beyond Email? Assessing Online Collaboration Suites for SMBs

(Part 1 of a 3 part blog series "Are You Ready to Move Beyond Email?" which focuses on Online Collaboration Suites for SMBs) Collaboration is probably the only activity that everyone in every company engages in every day. Whether a CEO or new hire, an accountant or a construction worker, everyone needs to share and manage information, ideas, resources, and connections to get their job...

What is Mobile Commerce, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published September 13, 2010 in Small Business Computing) What is Mobile Commerce? Mobile commerce (also known as mobile ecommerce, m-commerce and other variations) consists of two primary components. The first is the ability ...

Dimdim–A Bright Light In the Web Conferencing Market

With the recession stubbornly lingering, many small and medium businesses (SMBs) are still pinching pennies and looking to trim expenses. Dimdim, which provides free Web conferencing for up to 20 users, and charges just $25 per month for Dimdim Pro (which supports unlimited meetings for up to 50 users) gives SMBs a way to eliminate or cut Web conferencing cos...

What is an Online Collaboration Suite, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published on June 30, 2010 in Small Business Computing) What is an Online Collaboration Suite? An online collaboration suite provides businesses with an integrated set of tools that span a range of collaboration needs. While not every collaboration suite includes the same capabilities,...

Will the Appliance Approach Gain Traction in the Wake of Recent Cloud Outages?

This week’s service outage at Intuit is fueling a new round of speculation about the dark side of cloud computing--and whether businesses can depend on cloud-based services to run their businesses. Intuit’s problems come on the heels of other service outages this month at Wordpress and Sage, and as well as service outages earlier this year at

What is Hybrid Computing, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published on June 9, 2010, in Small Business Computing) What is Hybrid Computing? A hybrid computing platform lets customers connect the packaged small business software applications that they run on their own internal desktops or servers to applications that run in the cloud. As discussed in

Dell’s New Vostro 3000 Laptops: Designed for Small Businesses

The realities of a lingering recession and a do-it-yourself (DIY) ethos continue to frame today's economic climate. As entrepreneurs and small businesses went into financial shock beginning in mid-2008, they hunkered down and made do with older laptops (the dominant computing platform for these businesses) and other hardware instead of spending precious cash on new equipment. But with hints of ...

What is Unified Communications, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published in Small Business Computing, July 27, 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 ins...