Small Business Computing Staff

AllBusiness: The Smartphone Revolution – How It Will Affect Your Small Business The smartphone revolution means customers will want to access your Website from their mobile phones and employees will want to leave the laptop behind, Ramon Ray says. You need to be prepared. “Smartphone use is on the rise. But then again you probably […]

PCmag@Work (Small Business): The Case For SharePoint 2010 In SMBs SharePoint 2010 introduces new collaboration features, an Office-like ribbon user interface, which Microsoft claims makes users, especially new users, more productive, and improved tools for building internal company Web sites. “SharePoint is a business collaboration and content management platform. It is used for document collaboration, […]

PCWorld: First 4G Phone Coming Soon From Sprint Sprint which operates 4G WiMax networks in several major U.S. cities will release the HTC EVO 4G phone on June 4. It can make phone calls and also send and receive data over the Internet at speeds rivaling wireline broadband services. The price is $200. “Sprint’s first […]

ZDNet: Dell Launches Desktop PC With Blazingly Fast AMD Processor Dell’s new Studio XPS 7100 desktop PC packs the six-core AMD Phenom II CPU, a new generation of very fast, multi-core processors. Prices start at $749. The XPS 7100 begins shipping later this month. “AMD officially (and finally) unleashed its 2010 processor lineup yesterday, and […]

InformationWeek SMB: Choosing The Right Hosting Provider For Your Small Business You need to evaluate prospective hosting providers on a number of criteria, including reliability, security, customer service, business continuity capabilities, and response time and site performance. This article tells you how. “If only a trusted Consumer Reports-like magazine evaluated web hosting providers. Small- and […]

PCWorld: Can Rivals Substitute For Office 2010? Capsule reviews and rankings of several Office competitors, including Lotus Symphony, Lotus Live, Zoho and OpenOffice. A linked story looks more closely at the ‘cloud apps war’ between Google and Microsoft. “While Google Apps may not be a knockout threat to Microsoft’s enterprise business this year, a cloud […]

PCmag@Work (Small Business): Office 2010 – ‘Dazzlingly Attractive’ But No Upgrade Price It’s available starting today. This story links to a full review of the new product and a chart analyzing pricing of various Office editions. “Microsoft officially launched Office 2010 today: It’s a dazzlingly attractive upgrade that will please power users. Corporate customers can […]

ABI Research: Mobile Phone App Store Mania Will Cool: ABI A new “Mobile Application Storefronts” study from ABI shows that downloads from mobile phone app stores will start to decline after 2013 when the company expects them to peak at just below 7 billion. “Today most mobile applications for smartphones are downloaded from “app stores.” […]

The New York Times: Free MS Office On The Web In 2010 Prices for the new Office, which combines online and on-your-computer functionality, range from free to a $500. Do you need to upgrade? “Microsoft has created a chimera in its new Office 2010 software, part desktop software and part Web app. This latest version […]

InformationWeek SMB: Managing The Cloud In this first in a two-part excerpt from the book, Babcock explains how SMBs can bring shape to and begin to rationally manage their resources in the cloud. “Native Americans had no trouble believing that creatures from the spiritual world roamed at will among those of the physical. At night, […]

Entrpreneur: How To Turn Online Contacts Into Customers Columnist Starr Hall’s tips include being generous in sharing knowledge and expertise with online contacts before they become customers, but not too generous, avoiding slipping into spamming contacts and not acting ‘desperate.’ “Misguided marketers are trying to use “old-school” marketing tactics in a new, consumer-driven business landscape. […]

InformationWeek SMB: It’s Official – Cloud Computing Is Cheaper, Maybe The study, by Hurwitz & Associates, commissioned by Adaptive Planning, an on-demand financial planning and reporting vendor, also found that the TCO advantage for SaaS tails off as the number of users increases. “Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) corporate performance management (CPM) solutions have a significantly lower total […]