Tag: cloud

What is Social Media Management, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published on March 4, 2010, in Small Business Computing) What is Social Media Management? As described in the column “

What is Total Cost of Ownership, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published in Small Business Computing, January 29, 2010) 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 of...

SMB Collaboration Battle Heats Up: VMware Announces Deal to Acquire Zimbra

As we predicted just a couple of weeks ago in our 2010 Top 10 SMB Technology Predictions, the collaboration battle is heating up! VMware just announced that has entered into a definitive agreement with Yahoo! to acquire

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

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 ...

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...

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...

Prescription for Subscription Fatigue? Time for New SaaS Pricing Models

As an analyst that’s covered the software-as-service (SaaS) market since 1999, I am briefed by vendors introducing new subscription services into the market on a regular basis. Many of these solutions provide small businesses with real solutions to real problems—whether helping you market your business, keep your books, manage projects or pay your bills (just to mention few). In many ways, SaaS...

What’s a Business App Appliance, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published June 18, 2009 in Small Business Computing) 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 to the confusion by over...