(Originally published on July 30, 2010 in Small Business Computing) What is Business Intelligence? Business intelligence (BI) is an umbrella term used to encompass the processes, methods, measureme...
Tag: SMB
Technology Solution and Services Purchasing Cycle Decision Markers in Small Businesses
Small companies will tend to have a less formal purchasing process than their larger counterparts Typically only one or two people will have purchasing authority—usually the company officers in small businesses with the guidance of the IT person, if there is one. How a company purchases or acquires technology products and services is affected by company size. The size of an SMB and the type ...
A Clear Message for Vendors In the SMB Technology Market
We recently wrapped up the SMB Group's "2010 Small and Medium Businesses Routes to Market Study”, which uncovered quite a few interesting trends about how SMBs discover, learn about, evaluate and buy technology solutions and services. We are publishing free research briefs on the SMB Group site on some ...
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
Recent Vendor Briefing Highlights: IBM’s Cast Iron Acquisition
We are publishing recent vendor highlights on the SMB Group web site. As time permits, we discuss our key take-aways from more interesting briefings. I will try to remember to post them here as well. Here is the most recent one. Highlights: In May of this year, I
There’s an App Store for That!
App stores focused on the needs of small and medium businesses (SMBs) seem to be proliferating quickly as cloud computing takes off. As discussed in “What is an App Store, and Why Should You Care,” a marquee SMB vendor, such as Google or Intuit typically builds the app sto...
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
What Does Cloud Computing Mean for the Channel? Presentation at Sage Insights 2010
What Does Cloud Computing Mean for the Channel? Last week I attended 2010 Sage Insights, Sage Software's annual partner conference, and had the opportunity to present
Acumatica’s Best of Both Worlds ERP Story
Just want to let you know that we are publishing highlights from recent vendor briefings on the SMB Group web site. As time permits, we discuss our takeaways from the more interesting briefings. I'll try to remember to post them here as well....