File this under "you get what you pay for". You know all those nifty Web 2.0 tools you've implemented into your company as business tools? Some, you may be using for free and then others you may be using for a modest subscription fee.

Many (Most?) of those tools are offered by fledgling companies; depending on their next round of funding to survive. Others may be a little safer; having been acquired by a larger company (ex. EBay owns Skype. But there's some speculation EBay is looking to dump Skype.). Bottom line: in this economy, you can expect a lot of these little companies to do a fast fade with VC money drying up faster than quilted Bounty quicker picker-upper. If this happens to the company behind your "little app that can", where does that leave your business?

Best advice:

Chances are your employees are using Web 2.0 tools from fledgling companies that you don't even know about right now. Now is the time to find out who is using what. How critical has that tool become for them to get their work done. What tools are being used company-wide that you do know about and how secure is the provider? Now is the time to do a little home work on those companies (The good news is that Google's not going anywhere anytime soon. So, research should be a breeze.).

After taking an inventory, weigh the risks and migrate to the tools of a more stable company as common sense would dictate. Do it now. It will be a lot less painful than getting caught flat-footed.

When I say new economy, of course, I'm referring to a very fragile, precarious economy you might describe as heading over a bridge to nowhere fast.

No one is in the mood to talk about spending right now. Here's some other keywords in your blog postings, youtube videos, etc. that may up your rankings in Google; but won't endear you to new customers or help you retain the old ones:

- Upgrade
- Product launch
- New version
- Expansion
- Beta
- Pilot program
- New tool
- Venture capitol
- Second round of funding
- Cutting edge
- Implementation

You're getting the idea, I'm sure.

The thing is that the technology sector is poised to be the real heroes helping businesses stay alive these days. Here are some keywords to help make that point:

- Streamline
- Off load
- Elasticity
- Scalable
- Pay per use
- Minimal start-up costs
- Outsource
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
- Cloud Computing
- Business Intelligence
- Thin clients
- Energy efficient
- Reduce costs
- Lower head count
- Virtualization
- Free tools

Notice the second list is longer the first.

I rest my case.

The market research firm NPD has released its most recent U.S. sales figures for mobile devices (from June to August 2008). The iPhone hasn't made it to the top spot (and I'm not convinced it will; more on that later), but it has impressively catapulted itself to the #2 position. Would you like to guess which handset is #1?

Hint: It's not a Blackberry,

Or one of the fancy Nokia models.

It's the RAZR V3 by Motorola

The story behind the story

While everyone looks to Apple, bragging that they've already hit their goal to sell 10 million iPhones this year, it may be that AT&T is the even bigger winner in all of this. Apple remains locked in that five year exclusive deal with AT&T.

While Apple is racking up the iPhone sales, AT&T is stealing customers left and right from the other carriers. 30% of those new iPhone owners switched carriers during that same sales period. Verizon took the biggest hit with 47% of those iPhone converts jumping ship. T-Mobile was the second biggest loser, followed by Sprint. Ouch!

Why the iPhone juggernaut may not last:

- Two words: Google Android. The first handset with the new Google mobile operating system, Android, debuts later this month and will be sold by T-Mobile. Android is not locked in with an exclusive deal with T-Mobile. Look for the other carriers to quickly start offering mobile devices with Android. The iPhone may find itself suddenly very limited by being hitched to one single carrier for a remaining four years.

- Smartphones are coming down in price. NPD reports that the average price has dropped to about $174 from $236 during those same summer months a year ago.

- The economy. Money to throw down on a new iPhone and a pricey AT&T service contract is becoming more scarce. For businesses, owners would be wise to not lock themselves into any long contracts with a single carrier. Given the economy, the telcos will only become more competitive in the months, if not the next couple of years.

- Don't count out Blackberry. Blackberry is hurting right now. Just look at what parent company, RIMM, was trading at a few months ago and now. It's dropped by more than half since July (about the time the iPhone 3G launched). Another immediate problem for Blackberry; what was once a blessing is now a curse. Blackberry's bread and butter has always been the corporate crowd. You know, the people facing layoffs right now! Still, Blackberry has great products and a loyal base (a.k.a. Crackberries).

Coming full circle

Why the RAZR sits at the top of the heap and may be there for awhile:

- even though it's not a smartphone.
- even though it doesn't have a touch screen.
- even though it's not a show stopper at every networking cocktail party.

It's cheap!

As if the "R" word wasn't bad enough, the "D" word is apparantly being discussed at more than a mere whisper.

A new poll put out by CNN found that 60% of the American public thinks it's likely we're heading into a depression; not a recession, but depression. And I don't mean the kind that can be eased by Prozac.

At the same time, the Small Business Association (SBA) says small business loans have dropped 30% this fiscal year (which just ended on September 30) from a year ago.

Get Smart

Now that I've depressed the H-E-double hockey sticks out of you; here's where technology comes in to help tighten the budget for a bumpy ride. Look for technologies that shave money off the bottomline:

-Software as a Service
-Cloud Computing
-Off-site data storage
-Thin clients

By offloading as much of the IT department somewhere else; businesses can save on lower head count, less money on IT consultants, fewer servers and other racks of hardware taking up valuable office square footage. Less gear means less money. Less gear means less money on utilities to keep all those boxes cool.

Whether we're heading into a protracted recession or depression is up to the economists to call. But, it doesn't take the ghost of Milton Friedman to see our ox is in a ditch.

Three words: simplify, simplify, simplify. What you do with your IT department now could mean the difference between life or death for your company in the months to come.

For businesses with a fleet of delivery trucks or account executives who burn a lot of miles making client calls, the price of gas is obviously taking a toll.

Here's a way to at least budget for the pain at the pump.

AAA has a great little online calculator for tallying the cost in gas from here to there based on mileage, the make and model of the car and the cost per gallon by the region.

For businesses looking to switch out cars and trucks that get lower gas mileage, this little calculator is a good reality check in calculating savings. For example, I compared my mini-van to a Camry Hybrid driving round trip from Connecticut to Florida (Hi Mom!). The savings added up to more than a hundred dollars round trip. Not bad!

Note: there is also a service for cell phone users to search for the lowest gas prices in their zip code from their mobile device. Tip: make sure your drivers know about it. Companies with a dispatcher can look up the price for drivers and tell them where to divert to for a fill-up.

Weird Science

I'm all for thinking out the box. It's why I enjoy writing for this site; a perfect mashup of tech innovation and entrepreneural spirit. But every once in awhile I hear of someone's pipe dream and wonder just how much of the pipe they've been smoking.

CNN is reporting that a conference of scientists from allover the world will be held in Japan next month to seriously (keyword: seriously) discuss the possiblity of building an elevator to outer space. Yes, you read correctly; an elevator.

That's a lot of titanium (Callaway will have to find something else for manufacturing all those Big Bertha clubs).

Questions that come to mind:

1, What happens when the elevator gets stuck on the 76,000th floor?
2. Will this change elevator music as a genre? (Rocket Man, Space Oddity, Love in an Elevator, etc.)
3. Why not an escalator?
4. Is there a food court off the top floor?
5. Is it me or would this mean Earth would look like a ball of yarn with a knitting needle sticking out of it from the other planets? Why don't we just put a goofy sweater on mother earth while we're at it. Isn't global warming bad enough? Must we add insult to injury.
6. If we install an elevator to the moon and one from the moon to Mars, etc.; how long before we've built the universe's largest high school chemistry class molecular model of salt?

But I digress...

Wakcopa is yet another Web 2.0 tool; one among gazillions. But, this one is worth a look.

Wakcopa is a mashup/social network that combines a time management tool to monitor what apps you are using the most on your PC (And I do mean PC, it's for Windows only) and a way to see what other apps subscribers are using and recommending. It's a way to find new apps and add-ons through word of mouth.

I don't really care about the social network part of the site.

Must everything be a social network now?

However, I do like the time tracker that tells me how much time I'm spending using each app on my computer. Let's face it; much of our day is spent tippy-tapping on a keyboard or thumbing away on a little bitty keypad. This is a way to get a reality check on just how much time you're spending on Facebook, dinking with fonts and backgrounds on a PowerPoint file, etc.

There's something about Wakcopa that I like even better. I don't know about you; but my computer is always running much slower than it seems like it should. The culprit(s) slowing things down can usually be found in that little strip of icons in the bottom right hand corner of your screen.

Wakcopa also tracks what apps are running in the background and for how long. It's a great way to figure out what needs to be turned off and what shouldn't be there in the first place.

Check it out!

If you have more than 1000 e-mails currently sitting in your inbox, then this posting is for you. Believe me, I've been there.

Here are some of the biggest reasons it happens:

1. I don't have time to read this now. I better save it to read later, just in case. (You probably won't. Ever.)

5. I may need to document this conversation some day. CYA! (question: what are the chances? Solution: folder)