Pedro Hernandez

Anyone keeping tabs on current events knows that the U.S. Supreme Court recently handed down major decisions that affect the labor market. Even local governments are passing new rules affecting workers’ compensation. But what impact do those rulings have on small businesses? Paychex, the payroll processing and human resources specialist, has identified a handful of […]

Hewlett-Packard today unveiled a new slate of PCs and printers that help tackle some of the biggest challenges faced by small and midsized businesses (SMBs). According to an HP BusinessNow survey, top small business IT priorities include boosting productivity, managing costs and thwarting security threats. Often, a sheer lack of IT personnel prevents SMBs from […]

In the corporate world, a sense of community and strengthening ties with locals sometimes takes a back seat to profits. A new survey from Sage shows that in the U.S., small businesses lead the charge in boosting local economies and giving back. A whopping 92 percent of U.S. small business owners polled by the accounting […]

The Microsoft Retail Experience Center lies within the company’s sprawling Redmond, Wash., headquarters. A portion of the warehouse-sized building is devoted to demonstrating how merchants can increase consumer engagement—and ultimately sales—by employing cloud services and converting the iPhone and other smartphones from devices that merchants fear into virtual sales staff. A major problem that brick-and-mortar […]

By now, U.S. consumers are starting to receive replacement credit and debit cards with embedded chip technology in the mail, if they haven’t already. These EMV cards—EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa—make it tougher to commit credit card fraud. Used in other countries for years, the technology also helps small businesses avoid getting stung […]

For years, QuickBooks Online has helped small business owners manage their companies’ finances on the go. While it’s an undeniably handy ability, there are some tradeoffs to browser-based accounting. Even the brawniest cloud servers and the most generous Internet connections cannot replicate the speed of a native app. Despite huge advances in developing Web applications […]

Watching clueless, tech-challenged business owners flail their way through the workday is good for a laugh on sitcoms. Although PCs have been a staple of the desktop for decades—Windows 95 turned 20 this week, for instance—TV shows often portray small business owners (SMBs) as unable to come to terms with the Internet, cloud services, and […]

As odd as it sounds given its desktop PC roots, Windows may truly catapult small businesses into the mobile era. Entrepreneurs, startups, and fledgling firms are already hip to the productivity-enhancing effects of mobile accounting, invoicing on the go, and various other business processes that workers can complete on their iPads and Galaxy smartphones. However, […]

Any business owner knows that IT can be both a blessing and a curse. PCs, mobile devices, business applications, and cloud services improve efficiency and productivity, and they help level the competitive playing field. But those same technologies, when not properly managed, can be a huge time sink. Small businesses are often stuck in a […]

Say good-bye to the last-minute dash to the office supply store to buy expensive ink cartridges. Epson’s latest line of all-in-one printers doesn’t use replacement ink cartridges, but rather large reservoirs that can last up to a couple of years before they need to be refilled. Branded EcoTank, the new all-in-one printers cost more upfront, […]

Many small and midsized businesses (SMBs) have a danger lurking in their server room can that undermine their best efforts to keep their users and data safe. Microsoft stopped supporting Windows Server 2003 on July 14. Similar to Windows XP’s retirement a year before, this means that the software giant won’t issue any more security […]

Microsoft finally released Windows 10 today, an operating system (OS) that builds on Windows 8.x while undoing many of the idiosyncrasies that kept many businesses away. The new OS blends the best aspects of Windows 7 and 8 so that diehard holdouts of the former get the desktop experience they love while enjoying the many […]