Tag Archives: Cisco Systems Inc.

About 1010 days ago Internet and Online Business

The New Small Business On-Ramp to Social CRM

Over the past 12-18 months, major customer relationship management (CRM) players like Salesforce.com, Sage, SAP and others have been adding “social” abilities to traditional CRM applications — like viewing social profile information from Twitter and Facebook.  Additionally, newer services such as BatchBook, BantamLive, and others are creating CRM applications on a social foundation aimed at the small and mid-sized business market.  And with every passing day, social technologies are merging with traditional CRM functionality, giving companies more efficient ways of transforming clicks into valuable customer relationships.  A little over two years ago I wrote about the Three A’s of Social CRM.  Back then most people were focused on social media, but not so much on its impact on customer relationship management tools and strategies.  Even a year ago when I compared traditional CRM with Social CRM the interest was pretty much limited to industry insiders.  That’s not the case today, as the topic of Social CRM has become the focus of many in business.  Having focused on CRM for almost two decades — as an application developer, early Salesforce.com certified implementation partner, and finally as an industry watcher — this may be the most important development I’ve seen.  I say this because technology has amplified the voice of the customer, and given them greater control over who they engage with, when they do, and how they do so.  This in turn is forcing those charged with engaging them to change their approach:  in order to connect with customers who Tweet to thousands of followers, watch videos on mobile phones, and form their own online communities.  This also is forcing CRM vendors to provide services that do more than just store customer information and track activities.  But there’s one company that looks to be creating a platform small businesses can use to turn a variety of online interactions into stronger customer relationships — and it’s not even a CRM company, in the traditional sense. Keeping with the AAA theme from a couple of years back, below are a few reasons why Google is becoming the onramp to Social CRM success for small and mid-sized businesses. Apps — Internal Even with Facebook hitting the 500 million member mark — with billions of interactions taking place weekly — the majority of people in business-to-business (B2B) organizations  I’ve come across say no more than 15-20 percent of their total interactions on Facebook are business related.  Conversely, about 80-90 percent of e-mail interactions these same folks have are business related, and with much higher frequency.  And in many cases, the e-mail exchanges are more intimate in nature, from a business perspective.  This may be because the conversations are more direct and focused, and the people engaged in the conversations are more focused on each other — not the overall community — during these interaction.  So even today, a large percentage of customer relationship building takes place in our inboxes. Just as Microsoft Outlook was (and still is) key to increasing CRM user adoption over the past decade, Gmail is looking to be that key in the Social Age. More small companies are using Google’s low-cost e-mail hosting services — making Gmail the fastest growing of the big online e-mail providers, closing in on 180 million accounts.  But the choice to use Gmail goes well beyond price.  Google has turned the inbox into a relationship-building platform enabling multiple points of contact, and increased opportunities for meaningful interactions. When you exchange e-mails with other Gmail users, Google can (based on your security settings) connect you with them if you both use Google Reader — giving you the ability to see what kind of information they are interested in, and start feeding them more of it.  And when you go to YouTube, Google lists the YouTube channels of those you interact with via Gmail at the top of the page — giving you a chance to subscribe to them.  So Google is building an interaction-based platform on the bedrock of Gmail.  And as you exchange emails, you can grow the relationship wider by engaging across apps like Reader and Youtube.  You can also deepen the engagement with real-time collaborative interactions via Google Docs, Sheets and Sites. Apps – External Not only has Google created a business interaction-based platform with their dizzying array of applications, but they’ve invited third-party application developers to extend that foundation through the Google Apps Marketplace.  And according to a recent post on the Official Google Apps blog, the top search term for installable apps in the marketplace is CRM. Of the thirteen CRM apps in the marketplace, five of them are under the Social CRM umbrella, including Gist, BatchBook, and BantamLive.  Vendors like Zoho and Tactile add more traditional CRM functionality to Google’s interaction platform.  These and a growing group of application developers will continue building the CRM functionality Google doesn’t build itself. Android While everyone has been captivated by the developments surrounding the iPhone4 release, worldwide sales of phones with Google’s Android operating system crossed over the five million unit mark, according to Gartner.  Google recently announced that 160,000 Android units get activated every day, and it expects Android to eventually be a $10 billion business. No doubt the same apps being used on Web browsers are also driving up Android activations, as people are able to work from wherever they need to.  But Android tablet devices haven’t even hit the market yet.  And with multiple vendors like Cisco, LG, and others committing to running Android on their upcoming tablets, Google will effectively be extending their business interaction platform to new areas.  Cisco’s tablet — The Cius — is a key piece in the company’s push to enable the social enterprise.  The device will be optimized for collaboration via video chat, Webex meetings, and conference calls.  So the device will be optimized for video interactions, while other vendors may optimize their devices for different kinds of interactions.  But the bottom line is Android will be extended to cover more ground, while still offering Apps people can run across vendor-specific tablet devices. Analytics Google Analytics has become of staple of many businesses to track their Web traffic.  And Google’s ability to turn text into context to serve up ads when we do searches and read emails has driven targeted traffic via Google Adwords.  And with this ability to analyze text for ads, Google should also be able to analyze text for sentiment.  Just imagine if Google (or a third party developer) could analyze the interactions we’ve had with someone across all the Google channels we engage them over so we can know what’s on their mind, and also what is their state of mind — and how they feel about us.  Or even being able to take a group of people we communicate with on Google channels, say VP’s of marketing in the retail industry, to find out what those interactions can reveal.  This could lead to more targeted, efficient and meaningful interactions with those we’re trying to create relationships with — based on a business interaction lifecycle taking place across Google’s services. Social CRM is about meaningful interaction as well as information management.  And while business interactions are taking place all over, Google — with search, e-mail, Web traffic, and collaborations via Docs, Sheets, etc. — has created an inexpensive platform for building relationships with customers in the Social Age.  Through Apps (including third party apps), Android, and Analytics, Google is as much a Social CRM player as anyone else.  And for small businesses it may be the most important player. Brent Leary is a small-business technology analyst, adviser, and award-winning blogger. He is the co-author of Barack 2.0: Social Media Lessons for Small Business. His blog can be found at http://brentleary.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/brentleary .

About 1024 days ago Cloud Computing

The Great Cloud Migration: How to Stay Ahead of the Pack

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For the small and mid-sized business, the “cloud” is already a familiar friend. Small businesses have increasingly found ways to reduce capital expenditures and operating costs through cloud computing, in which computing is provided by shared resources and software on the Internet on an on-demand model. As a result, they continue to move many business functions from on-site servers to the Web. However, few businesses truly have a cloud “migration” strategy and even fewer have successfully leveraged the cloud in vendor relations. Cloud-based outsourcing Maybe you’ve ditched the Microsoft Exchange server in favor of Google Apps.  That was easy. It’s just like your Gmail account, but for work. Or perhaps all of your files are securely backed up — not on a bulky external hard drive, but on Box.net. And they’re accessible from any Internet browser on any computer.Whether you realize it or not, your business has already begun an important migration. But few small businesses have thoughtfully managed this transition and even fewer are fully taking advantage of business in the cloud. Using the cloud as a cost reduction tool is increasingly common — reducing paperwork, lowering transaction costs, and investing in less hardware (and with fewer resources to manage it) can yield immediate impact in accelerating your growth. Less understood, however, is how to use the cloud as a business enabler. On this front, companies like Salesforce.com and SuccessFators continue to push forward. Without installing any software, vendors can manage the entire customer lifecycle or HR processes with greater data detail and accuracy than ever before. No longer do you need a file cabinet of paperwork or indecipherable database for these important business processes. Outsourced to the cloud, your data becomes globally accessible and more secure and redundant — all while saving you real money. But as the cloud becomes more pervasive, maximizing the value for your business means going beyond Salesforce.com and Gmail.  What if the cloud could help you keep your business on the cutting edge? Start thinking about the cloud as more than just a tool you use — anyone you do business with should be in the cloud as well. The cloud can level the playing field Small and mid-sized businesses have long missed out because of their size: they don’t have the budget to buy hardware and don’t have the scale to show up on the radar of innovative software vendors. The cloud is leveling this playing field. As an executive, your number-one job is to sell your product — and there are hundreds of hardware and software solutions that could potentially help you achieve that goal. If only it was easy to decide which one to choose. It’s not. You are inundated with calls, e-mails, and advertisements from countless vendors and, if you’re like me, ignore most of them. Or, you select a few to try and next thing you know, your team has invested days or weeks evaluating products. But here too, the cloud can help. There is a new cloud model for software sales that is enabled by what we call IT as a Service (ITaS).  ITaS changes the economics of product demos and evaluations significantly — instead of days, they take minutes to set up. Using ITaS , software vendors can provide actual, hands-on IT (such as fully functional product demos) to multiple end-users in minutes without any on-site presence.  In the end, it’s you (the buyer) who benefits most because you can test each product without the tribulations of costly and time-consuming on-site evaluations and ensure that ultimately you receive the best product for you. Some of the largest software vendors in the world have embraced this vision of using the cloud to optimize and speed sales cycles (Cisco, SAP, and McAfee are early adopters). This is where the cloud is going. Imagine if, instead of having to endure countless marketing pitches, you can get your hands on any IT product you are interested in and try it within minutes — without delay or download. This is yet another way the cloud can save you time and, as a result, money. Products that enable ITaS are by no means the first non-traditional uses of the cloud to make your life easier. Salesforce, Google, Ooyala, Discus, and Cordys for instance all deliver relevant cloud services to the small business market. Your business’s size is no longer a limiting factor. As we see more SaaS and ITaS, even a two-person company can buy from the big boys — the Ferrari’s of enterprise software — and test-drive before they buy. The cloud can help you gain access to new solutions and ensure they match your business needs — all without wasting your valuable time. SIDEBAR: Tips for proactively managing your Cloud migration If you can hold it, question it.  Physical assets cost you money. In many instances, there is no longer a reason to have hardware. Wave goodbye to external hard drives, e-mail/Web servers and filing cabinets. Your business will be lower¬-cost in the cloud. Do what you do best. You have limited hours — spend them wisely. Why waste time with tedious CRM or HR processes — it’s not what you like to do OR what you are best at. Outsource those tasks — Saleforce.com and SuccessFactors would be happy to do it for you — and focus on your core business instead. Don’t just save money — make money. Be proactive. Don’t get caught up treating the cloud as merely a vehicle for cost reduction. Executing core functions in the cloud can make your company more agile and more effective. Expect others to move to the cloud. To fully capitalize on the cloud, you should ensure that your business partners are leveraging the cloud in their interactions with you. Expect instantaneous demos of software you are considering buying. (Zvi Guterman, is CEO and co-founder of CloudShare, a cloud computing service provider. Previously, Guterman co-founded and served as CTO of Safend, an endpoint security company. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Hebrew University.)  

About 1329 days ago Wireless Networks

Tech Talk: Biochem Firm Shares Network

BBC Biochemical, based in Mount Vernon, Wash., is a maker of the stains, reagents, and fixatives used for diagnostic and medical lab testing. The company shares a building and a network and phone system with its sister company, Medical Diagnostic Labs, which collects specimens and performs patient testing. Adrian Biesecker, CEO of BBC, tells IncTechnology.com that a new network and phone system helped the firm better protect patient data while improving customer service and productivity. Elizabeth Wasserman: What does your firm do? Adrian Biesecker: We make the stains, reagents, fixatives, and lots of solvents that are used in testing medical samples. If you go to the doctor to get a mole removed, the doctor puts the piece of tissue in a bottle. They bring that bottle to a lab. The lab runs it with different stains and fixatives and other chemicals used to determine an accurate diagnosis. We make the products that improve the accuracy for many different diagnoses — cancers, tumors, you name it. Wasserman: Your business is located in the same building as a sister company. How does that work? Biesecker: I own BBC Biochemical. My Dad owns Medical Diagnostic Labs. They’re housed under the same roof. Medical Diagnostic Labs is a clinical lab that runs tissue samples and blood culture. All that data has to stay very secure. , There are lots of regulatory agencies that require patient information held close to the heart. HIPAA [the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act] is one such regulation. With the two businesses being on the same network, we needed to make sure we could share results of how our products performed but not share patient information. Being able to be on the same network but only being able to share parts of information was a challenge. Wasserman: How did you address that challenge? Biesecker: We looked at many different options. We looked at many companies but they couldn’t provide the solution that Cisco was able to provide, encompassing everything including network, phone, mobility — all of the great things that we use today. Only one company could come to the table with all the appropriate technology. They were able to separate the information on a network with multiple VLANs to house the phone system across both companies and have it act like separate companies. We have routers here that have VLANs [virtual local area networks] and they keep all the data separate except what we choose to share. We can have multiple networks, subnets on the same router, and you can choose when you want to traverse or cross over to another VLAN. It keeps the information completely separate 24 hours a day until you choose actively to go across the network to get pieces of information that you’re allowed to get. We have to have results on our chemicals and how they perform, but we don’t want to get patient results. We want to know whether the stain we produced is as strong and intense as it should be. We need to keep that data accurate as far as different lots of product. Wasserman: What have the results been? Biesecker: Flawless. We don’t have any problems. With regard to BBC, it used to be we had a phone system where you could page or activate a speaker phone on the other end to see if anyone was there. It often took a long time to find someone and pin them down. With this installation we are able to get people quickly. We have a wireless solution so people can take their phone anywhere in the building. Everyone has to have their “Batphone.” We have many people who don’t just sit at desks and this helps everyone be more productive. It also gave us peace of mind. We don’t have to worry about data leaving the building or leaving the network it’s housed on.

About 1512 days ago Business Accounting Software

Tech Talk: Circuit Maker Automates Accounting Processes

PLX Technology, of Sunnyvale, Calif., designs and makes integrated circuits for customers in the computer server, storage, communications, industrial, and consumer electronics industries. Arthur Whipple, chief financial officer of PLX, tells IncTechnology.com that upgrading to new financial software helps the publically-traded company ensure the proper internal controls that allow him to produce high quality financial statements. Elizabeth Wasserman: Tell us about your business. Arthur Whipple: We’re a high tech Silicon Valley company that builds integrated circuits, which are in an area of connectivity that goes into enterprise class electronics. Our major customers include Cisco, IBM, Huawei, Dell, and various customers that make big servers and big backbone systems. We make devices that stitch together components such as the microprocessor and memory to get them to talk to each other. We’re the glue in these systems. Wasserman: Why did you need new financial software? Whipple: We decided to go with BlackLine Systems. I’ve installed this twice now. First, at my previous company, Silicon Storage Technology. The issue here was initially about account reconciliations. In order to have reliable financial statements, you have to look at each account in the financial system and make sure each agrees with reality. If you have a petty cash box, you need to count it and make sure it’s there. You have to make sure somebody actually counted and made sure the receipts are there. If you have a bank statement, the bank doesn’t know about the checks you’ve written that haven’t been cashed yet. You have to do a reconciliation from outside to the general ledger. You’re looking for an external confirmation for an internal number.  Wasserman: Why is this important? Is it just because you’re a public company? Whipple: What you are trying to do is make sure that the financial statements you put out there are correct. A lot of judgment goes into financial statements. You want to make sure you don’t have mistakes in your financial statements. The reputational risk with poor financial statements can be a real problem. You can lose credibility with your shareholders and that creates huge opportunities for attorneys and other people to come in and make claims when people make mistakes in financial statements. Wasserman: What was behind the timing of the change? Whipple: People have been doing account reconciliations forever. But up until 20 years ago they were done with pencil and paper. They made lists of numbers and added them up and reconciled them to bank statements. Over the last 20 years, people have started to use spreadsheet technology, of which Excel is the most popular. But the programming is done by amateurs. In most financial systems, the code is done by professionals, and locked up, so that you can’t change the code without someone checking it thoroughly. With Excel, an accountant can decide to make a formula change and that can throw off all your numbers. Academics have done tests and found that up to 80 percent of the Excel spreadsheets out there have some error in them. We were able to get rid of all our Excel based reconciliations and move to a program that was hard-coded by people who know what they’re doing and locked down so people can’t make errors.  BlackLine automates the entire process, virtually eliminating manual errors. The other side of this is that we are also tracking tasks. We’re making sure that the things that need to get done actually get done. It’s a glorified to-do list. There are dozens or hundreds of things that have to happen and aren’t reflected as a balance in the financial statement. You have to check with the transfer agent to make sure equity is properly stated. You have to make sure you know the number of checks that are outstanding. The analyses in 10Ks or 10Qs need to be done reliably, and you need to have a history of what you did. In this case, if I write a memo to file regarding a fixed asset impairment, that impairment letter or memo can be stored for people who need access to it and it doesn’t get lost as you have with paper documents. Once we have uploaded the file, it’s protected from loss. Wasserman: What have the results been? Whipple: The results have been excellent. There are a couple of things you don’t know for many years. We haven’t had any issues at all in terms of account reconciliations not being done. I have a dashboard I can look at and I know that all the reconciliations and tasks have been completed and, if not, I know who to go to. When we get to filing SEC documents, everything that needs to be done has been done before I sign my certification that the financial statements have been properly done. CFOs and CEOs are now personally on the hook for the accuracy of those statements under Sarbanes Oxley. I am now confident that all the things required to be done have actually been done in these financial statements.

About 1602 days ago Telecom and Wireless

Tech Talk: Sports Stadium Saves with IP Phones

Ventura Sports Group, of Kansasville, Wis., owns three minor-league baseball teams and stadiums around the U.S. When the company built a new stadium for the Grand Prairie AirHogs in Texas last year, managing partner Roger W. Christoph tells IncTechnology.com that the decision to use IP phones allowed managers to increase functionality while allowing fans to order food and drink from stadium seats without missing a minute of the game. Elizabeth Wasserman: What type of technological innovations do sports fans expect from new stadiums these days? Roger Christoph: Customers going to minor league games now expect more. It used to be that a minor league ballpark was wooden benches, no suites, hot dogs, softdrinks and beer and popcorn. It was almost like going to the county fairgrounds. Today, they expect almost a micro major league park with suites, nice stadium seats and a variety of food and beverage concessions. When it comes to technology,  they only expect a fancy score board and video board. But I think today’s society expects more technology in everything they do. Whether they’re in their car, in their office, or in a ballpark, people today are looking for and expecting more technology. With that in mind, I want to be able to provide those services. I want to be able to use tech as a business owner. Wasserman: Tell us about the tech components in the Grand Prairie stadium. Christoph: In the newest stadium that we built, we wanted to use the latest and greatest technologies to make our business more competitive and provide a better fan experience. It is unique in that there are several entertainment zones in the stadium that have nothing to do with baseball. It has a 17,000 square foot kids zone, for kids aged 2 to 14 with basketball hoops, soccer goals, climbing walls, jungle gyms, etc. It’s a place where kids want to hang out when they come to the game with mom and dad.. Out in right field, there’s a swimming pool and deck where you can watch the game. We also have IP phones from Cisco throughout, backed by software from IPcelerate – in suites and all over the stadium. We went for IP phones versus traditional phones because, why build two networks throughout the stadium for voice and data when you can build just one data network? The advantage of the IP phone system is that it’s one network, one maintenance bill. Because it’s connected to the network, we can push software to the phone. It was explained to me that some of the software I could put on the phone is similar to what is in my pocket on my cell phone or BlackBerry. I wanted to have the capability of doing something like that, taking a leap forward technologically. Wasserman: How are you using the IP phones? Christoph: What we did with the IP phones in the suites is we put four applications with icons on the display screen of the phones. One of them is a picture of a waitress. You touch that phone where the icon is and a waitress is notified and comes to your suite. The fan in the suite now doesn’t have to have someone knocking on the door all the time to see if they want to order anything. For me, I was able to reduce the number of waitresses I had serving the suite holders. The waitresses were able to be more effective and more efficient and they like that because the more suites they can work, the bigger the tip. The suite holder also wins because they get better service. The next application on the phone is a little microphone icon so when you’re inside the suite, you can choose not to listen to the game or choose to listen to the game. By pushing this button, the PA announcer comes over the phone and you can listen to the game. But some people don’t want to listen to the game. They want to have a meeting, or have it be quiet, or listen to the Yankees’ game. There’s also a food and beverage icon that lets you order right over the phone, instead of having a waitress come by. The fourth icon is really neat. It’s the team roster icon. You hit that button and up pops a photograph of one of the players and a voice recording. “My name is John Doe. I’m from Pensacola, Fla. I’m 6’2″ and weigh 210 pounds. My favorite place in the stadium is the sports bar because that is where I can get Guinness on tap.” Wasserman: What kind of results have you seen? Christoph: What we’re doing here is getting the fans acquainted with the players. It’s important in that it creates a sense that they know the team, know the players. The second thing it does is it lets the fan know what’s available in the stadium. Before I put any applications on the phone system, it just carried someone’s voice. But just by making an incremental increase in spending, I’ve reduced my labor costs, increased my revenues by selling more food and beverages, increase my fan experience and increased my fan loyalty. What we’re doing now is considering putting an ad or two on the phone displays — from Budweiser, Coca-cola, or a local Chevrolet dealer. So we’ll actually get paid to have their ads on that phone. Wasserman: Do you also use the IP phones to run your business? Christoph: We also have the same phone system, just a different display, in our offices. But we have different applications. If the general manager wants to call a meeting of sales staff, he hits one icon and notifies all the sales people. He doesn’t have to send an e-mail. If he wants to record a phone call, he can be half way through the phone call, and hit one button and the entire phone call is recorded. We can send out text messages to alert our season ticket holders and our e-mail database that tonight is “Thirsty Thursday,” our dollar beer night. The reason I went with the IP phone is that they’re smart devices. I can put software on them, and these phones — in addition to carrying voice and taking voice mail — generate more revenue, cut my expenses, make a unique fan experience and help with promotion and marketing. The incremental cost to do that is pennies. I made the decision to invest in a smarter network with smarter phones. That combination is generating revenue for me, and giving my fans a great experience.

About 1633 days ago Computer Security

New Tactics in the War on Spam

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It’s depressing but true that most of the e-mail directed to your company is e-mail you don’t want. Overall, about 70 percent of the e-mail most businesses receive is spam, but that percentage can vary widely, depending on how well-known your business is, how available its e-mail addresses are, and how often employees submit their e-mail addresses on other websites. For a visible company with widely available e-mail addresses, the percentage can be much higher — 95 percent or even more. “At one company we worked with 99.7 percent of the e-mail received was spam,” notes Peter Firstbrook, research director at Gartner. Spam overall continues to grow, experts say, driven by a simple economic reality: spamming is a pretty good way to make money. “The spam industry, if you can call it that, has evolved over time,” notes Bill Kasje, vice president of development for spam solution Abaca. “There are now development programs for spammers and people and organizations who specialize in different areas of enabling spam. There are people who control botnets and rent time on their botnets to spammers.” A “botnet” is a group of computers that have been taken over by malware, usually without their owners’ knowledge, and can be set to secretly send out spam or perform other tasks. “Spam exists because it continues to provide real economic benefit to spammers,” Kasje says. Spam-fighting tools have grown more sophisticated as well, with two important weapons now available in the never-ending fight against spam — these should be components of whatever ant-spam solution you choose: Reputation Filter: A reputation filter examines the behavior of a website, automatically blocking those that send spam so that not only e-mail, but even mail connections are blocked; Tarpit: A tarpit slows down an incoming message, forcing the sending server to wait and retry after a few minutes. A legitimate e-mail application will do this, but spam generally won’t, since reaching the largest number of addresses in the shortest time is essential to spammers’ success. When it comes to fighting spam, there used to be three viable options, Firstbrook says: using a hosted anti-spam service, using a gateway device to block spam, or installing spam-blocking software. Though software solutions such as SpamAssassin remain quite popular, the need to constantly maintain the software and update information means software may not be the best approach for a small company, according to Firstbrook. Instead, he recommends either a gateway device that filters all incoming e-mail, or a hosted service, which filters your e-mail at its servers, and passes legitimate messages along. Gateway device The advantage of a gateway is that it may give you better control over spam filtering, and may provide some peace of mind if, for security reasons, you’re uncomfortable having your mail on someone else’s servers. On the other hand, you’re responsible for the hardware, and for providing enough bandwidth to handle ever-growing mail volumes. If you’re considering a gateway device, here are some questions to ask: How frequently do you update? Gateway devices generally come with a connection to the maker’s servers, which automatically download new spam definition lists. You should find out how often these new definitions go out. Spammers often use the window between when a vulnerability is discovered and when that hole is closed to launch as much spam as they can. Real or virtual gateway? These days, virtualization means never having to buy specific hardware, so it might make sense to consider using virtualization to create a virtual email gateway instead. What if I increase bandwidth? Limited bandwidth can act as a tarpit, discouraging spam because access to your system is too slow. Therefore, it’s best to make sure spam is under control before increasing that bandwidth. “I’ve talked to companies that scaled up their bandwidth to help handle spam volume — and their spam percentage immediately went up,” Firstbrook says. Hosted anti-spam service The argument for a hosted anti-spam service is that these services can respond to new spam threats instantly, with no delay while new information downloads to your gateway. They take most of the hassle out of fighting spam because you no longer have to worry about maintaining hardware or increasing bandwidth to handle e-mail. On the negative side, their system may not integrate quite as seamlessly with your e-mail application as a hardware solution would. If you’re interested in using hosted anti-spam, here are some questions to ask the provider: What are your guarantees? Does the provider offer a service level agreement (SLA) or other form of guarantee? If you can get one, an SLA provides added assurance that the service will work, and keep working. Is it customizable? Some services allow you to separately set filtering levels for messages that contain sexual words compared with, say, messages bearing business propositions from Nigeria. Given the particulars of your business, this might be handy: a medical practice, for instance, might not want to aggressively filter out messages mentioning body parts. What if I need other services later? Many anti-spam services have ancillary products such as archiving of (non-spam) e-mails, backup e-mail systems in case you are unable to use your usual e-mail software and other services. Even if you don’t need any of these right now, it’s a good idea to plan for the possibility that you might need them in the future, and negotiate option prices for the possible purchase of ancillary products at the same time as you make your original deal. “If you wait two years after you sign your contract, they’ll be less motivated to offer you a good deal,” Firstbrook says. SIDEBAR: Popular Spam-Fighting Products Here are some popular gateway appliances that fight spam: IronPort, now part of Cisco, provides gateway appliances for large corporations, but its lower-end boxes are both effective and affordable for small businesses. Secure Computing, recently acquired by McAfee, uses multi-layered techniques for added safety. Abaca’s gateway security comes with a 99 percent accuracy guarantee. There are also some hostedanti-spam services: Postini, now owned by Google, offers low-cost and flexible spam solutions for even the smallest of companies, with the ability to scale as your company grows. MessageLabs, recently acquired by Symantec, can both block spam and enforce company policy. The site keeps a monthly tally of spam percentage overall (69.7 percent in October). Microsoft Exchange Hosted Filtering (formerly FrontBridge) blocks both inbound and outbound spam, as well as disaster recovery.

About 1663 days ago Telecom and Wireless

Best Web Conferencing Tools for Your Buck

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Web conferencing has become essential in the age of higher travel costs, lower budgets, and online collaboration. But it’s easy to simply rely on conferencing tools as a kind-of stepped up instant messaging system. To wrest the most use of these systems, experts offer tips on how to best use them to communicate and collaborate. Barbara Thompson is training manager at USA Funds of Indianapolis, which trains financial aid administrators on new policies and procedures. Before bringing in Cisco’s WebEx conferencing tool she and her colleagues would use for long-distance training, she asked WebEx consultants for advice. Their main tip: keep it interesting. After all, they advised, the audience will be staring at a screen rather than interacting with a live person, so trainers need to ramp up the visuals and offer many opportunities for interaction. Getting through to employees “We knew that to be effective we had to be entertaining and provide good information and engage the audience,” Thompson says. “We changed the look of our PowerPoint slides to make them more visually appealing.” Changing the look included adding more graphics and brighter colors. Also, two USA Funds trainers now head each conferencing session. Thompson finds that having two people speaking makes the presentation more interesting to listeners.  Ruth Folit owns Chronicles Software Co., which makes the journaling software LifeJournal. She began using the GoToMeeting Web conferencing software to help walk her customer’s through LifeJournal’s ins and outs. During Web conferences Folit can actually demonstrate how the software functions. “In the past I’ve had to tell people how to do something by saying ‘look in the top right corner,’” she says. “Now I can point out and highlight and circle things with a bright yellow marker on screen.” And she can reach more users in one session rather than working individually over the phone, as she did in the past. Still, keep meeting sizes small, Folit says. She opens up hers to about 16 users, which allows everyone to ask questions and feel part of the group. Small business owners should consider the added value Web conferencing tools can bring to a business, she adds. “We charge revenue for the meetings and it’s a money maker,” she says. “It’s added value to our journal software because it gives people a let up in learning the best way to use it.” Right conferencing tool for your needs Begin by asking yourself why you’re looking to Web conferencing. Will it be primarily to save time, to save money, to meet with users, to train distant employees? These tools’ capabilities are often tailored to different uses, says Joyce Tang managing consultant at IT consulting company AgilisIT. She consults with customers on selecting the proper Web conferencing package for their needs and suggests asking yourself the following questions: How many people will you meet with online? Different tools allow for different numbers of participants, up to about 1,000. Will you need to access your participants’ desktops via the tool? Again, this capability varies by Web conferencing application. Does the tool need to run over a browser like Internet Explorer—and do all your participants run this browser–or can it be access via the Web itself? Will you need video and camera capabilities? For her larger medical clients, Tang recommends e/pop from WiredRed, which allows users to high-end Web conferencing equipment that lets you zoom in and out and read one another’s body language. SIDEBAR: Costs for Conferencing Capability Folit is billed monthly for her Web conferencing tool, though she could choose to pay annually. She recommends taking advantage of the complimentary one-month product demo. “That gives you a chance to actually get your hands on the controls and you can get a sense of how hard or difficult or easy it is to use,” she says. The costs of these conferencing tools vary widely, though small business owners can easily find tools to fit their budgets and needs. Here are some options: Fuze, a conferencing solution from CallWave Inc. is $29 per month. The conferencing solution works on mobile devices, an aid to those attending without benefit of a computer, and can allow up to 1,000 people in a meeting, says Jeff Cavins, chief executive officer. Zoho Meeting is $12 month and integrated with Skype, says Tang. She often recommends this budget-saving pairing to small businesses. GoToMeeting charges between $39-$49 per month for unlimited meetings with up to 15 participants in each meeting.

About 1663 days ago Spyware and Malware

A Network Tune Up for Tough Times

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The U.S. economy may be tanking, but Lilli Wiggins is as busy as she’s ever been. Wiggins, the vice president and customer care manager of Gainsville, Fla.-based Computer Network Experts, is taking in more business than ever. Small and mid-sized businesses are flocking to the nine-employee IT solutions company to find ways to make their existing network equipment and systems last longer. “Usually, when equipment gets to a certain age… about four years out, you’re on the edge, and thinking you’ll buy something new. Most people right now, though, are fixing rather than buying new. They’re not throwing anything out,” notes Wiggins, whose best customers are companies with fewer than 50 employees. October’s grim news of the housing market’s collapse sent stocks tumbling around the globe, creating recession woes and a credit crunch that’s making banks leery of lending to any but their best customers. Faced with the prospects of less available capital and fewer sales, businesses big and small are holding off on many major outlays, experts say. In a mid-October report, Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research forecast that computer and communications vendors will “bear the brunt of IT cost-cutting” as companies tighten their belts. How to make your networks last But just how can businesses make their networks last longer? The experts offer these five suggestions: Be proactive.  Smart companies are taking a look at their networks now to make any fixes so that crucial systems don’t fail, says Wiggins. Clean out the hard drive and take care of any basic maintenance. “In this economy, people can’t afford to have a crash,” says Wiggins. Keep malware and spyware up to date.  Yes, it’s basic, but so important, and many companies forget to keep things updated, says Wiggins. For companies lacking the staff or know-how, hosted spyware solutions are offered by MessageLabs, Cisco’s Linksys, and others. Keep close tabs on Internet use.  Hammer down those inter-office and remote-worker policies about Internet use, and make sure employees aren’t downloading freebies onto the network. “There’s a fine line between open-source and free, and people are still downloading things that carry viruses and malware. It’s a quandary for many businesses,” says Wiggins. Schedule a check-up.  Consider bringing in a consultant to independently review your networks and make sure there isn’t something you’ve overlooked in terms of maintenance. Consider upgrades.  Adding memory, adding CPUs, or switches may be a good option for some companies wanting to use what they’ve got for a while longer, notes Jennifer VanDerHorst-Larson, CEO of Minnetonka, Minn.-based Vibrant Technologies, a business-to-business IT reseller that offers technical support. Consider buying them from a reputable reseller: by buying used, companies can save 50-80 percent on quality parts, says Larson. CNE’s Wiggins notes that most of these suggestions “are just common sense.” But in this tough economy, common sense is something few can afford to be without.

About 1663 days ago Wireless Networks

A Network Tune Up for Tough Times

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The U.S. economy may be tanking, but Lilli Wiggins is as busy as she’s ever been. Wiggins, the vice president and customer care manager of Gainsville, Fla.-based Computer Network Experts, is taking in more business than ever. Small and mid-sized businesses are flocking to the nine-employee IT solutions company to find ways to make their existing network equipment and systems last longer. “Usually, when equipment gets to a certain age… about four years out, you’re on the edge, and thinking you’ll buy something new. Most people right now, though, are fixing rather than buying new. They’re not throwing anything out,” notes Wiggins, whose best customers are companies with fewer than 50 employees. October’s grim news of the housing market’s collapse sent stocks tumbling around the globe, creating recession woes and a credit crunch that’s making banks leery of lending to any but their best customers. Faced with the prospects of less available capital and fewer sales, businesses big and small are holding off on many major outlays, experts say. In a mid-October report, Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research forecast that computer and communications vendors will “bear the brunt of IT cost-cutting” as companies tighten their belts. How to make your networks last But just how can businesses make their networks last longer? The experts offer these five suggestions: Be proactive.  Smart companies are taking a look at their networks now to make any fixes so that crucial systems don’t fail, says Wiggins. Clean out the hard drive and take care of any basic maintenance. “In this economy, people can’t afford to have a crash,” says Wiggins. Keep malware and spyware up to date.  Yes, it’s basic, but so important, and many companies forget to keep things updated, says Wiggins. For companies lacking the staff or know-how, hosted spyware solutions are offered by MessageLabs, Cisco’s Linksys, and others. Keep close tabs on Internet use.  Hammer down those inter-office and remote-worker policies about Internet use, and make sure employees aren’t downloading freebies onto the network. “There’s a fine line between open-source and free, and people are still downloading things that carry viruses and malware. It’s a quandary for many businesses,” says Wiggins. Schedule a check-up.  Consider bringing in a consultant to independently review your networks and make sure there isn’t something you’ve overlooked in terms of maintenance. Consider upgrades.  Adding memory, adding CPUs, or switches may be a good option for some companies wanting to use what they’ve got for a while longer, notes Jennifer VanDerHorst-Larson, CEO of Minnetonka, Minn.-based Vibrant Technologies, a business-to-business IT reseller that offers technical support. Consider buying them from a reputable reseller: by buying used, companies can save 50-80 percent on quality parts, says Larson. CNE’s Wiggins notes that most of these suggestions “are just common sense.” But in this tough economy, common sense is something few can afford to be without.

About 1694 days ago Antivirus Software

Network Defense: Intrusion Prevention Systems

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Here’s a quick network security quiz: When it comes to detecting and stopping IT threats, is it better to position intrusion prevention systems: On the network At particularly important devices on the network All of the above For small businesses, the correct answer is “All of the above,” according to IT security specialists, who say more small businesses are figuring that out and installing IPS accordingly. Network intrusion prevention systems (IPS) are hardware appliances that sit on a company’s intranet to inspect incoming Internet traffic and block anything malicious, be it a worm, virus, or spyware. IPS can also block attacks that originate inside an intranet. IPS complements firewalls, anti-virus software, and other security measures small businesses take to keep their networks safe, says Elisa Lippincott, a spokeswoman for TippingPoint, an Austin, Texas, IPS maker. “We have some customers using our box to protect their firewall,” Lippincott says. By contrast, host IPS works at the device level, doing its job from inside a server, desktop or other machine attached to a network. Although large companies have long relied on IPS for network security, more small businesses are starting to use it. They’re being propelled by technical upgrades that prevent the false alarms that previously dogged the appliances, as well as other improvements, such as behavior-based IPS that looks for traffic patterns that could signal an attack, according to security industry sources. Small and mid-sized businesses are also being pushed to using IPS by industry regulations that require it, such as the PCI Security Standards Council’s Data Security Standard, security measures any company that processes credit card payments have to follow, according to security industry sources. An updated version of the council’s standard is expected to debut this month. “We’ve seen tremendous interest down market driven by PCI” standards, says Michele Perry, chief marketing officer at Sourcefire, a Columbia, Md., network IPS vendor. Depending on the size of the business, small companies either buy and set up IPS themselves, or subscribe to it as an add on from their firewall vendor. They can also purchase it from a regional or national managed security services provider (MSSP) such as or  Clone Systems, or from a business broadband carrier such as Verizon Business. Network IPS and host IPS Which ever way they go, small businesses should consider using both network and host IPS. Network IPS should come first because it casts the widest net, says Greg Young, research vice president with Gartner, the Stamford, Conn., technology researcher. With network IPS, if a virus is detected, the system will block traffic long enough to allow IT staff to make sure anti-virus software is up-to-date on individual workstations, says Lippincott, the TippingPoint spokeswoman. Another advantage of network IPS: since it’s installed on the network it doesn’t slow down individual devices’ computing speed the way host-based IPS could, Lippincott says. However, host IPS is a smart option for machines where critical information is stored, or for devices that have to reside outside a company’s firewall, such as servers used to handle online credit-card transactions. Host IPS is the only way to protect devices like laptops that leave the network, says Sean Martin, a vice president at SkyRecon Systems, a French maker of host IPS solutions. Host IPS also makes sense in situations where a company can’t put new devices on a network but can change what’s on a server, Gartner’s Young says. But put it on the network first, he says. “Threats come through the network first so stop them there first.” IPS prices range from free open source products such as Snort, which has been downloaded 3 million times, to tens of thousands of dollars for applications for mid-sized businesses running multiple Internet traffic-intensive applications for hundreds of users. Or companies can pay by the month or annually for IPS from a MSSP or other third party. Whether it’s network-based or host-based, small businesses need IPS, maybe even more than larger companies, Young says. “Worms don’t discriminate.” Sidebar: Intrusion Prevention Systems for Small Businesses The following vendors offer network or host IPS for small businesses as stand-alone products or part of a multifunction security solution: Check Point Software Technologies — The UTM-1 product line includes firewall, VPN, IPS, gateway antivirus, anti-spam, URL filtering, and IM and peer-to-peer blocking and is marketed primarily to the top end of mid-sized companies and branch offices of large companies. Cisco ASA Advanced Inspection and Prevention Module — An IPS hardware appliance for Cisco routers. According to Gartner’s June 2008 report on multifunction firewalls for small and mid-sized businesses, Cisco has struggled to adapt enterprise-scale hardware to small businesses, but the report says a long-term road map for an improved small business console “is encouraging.” Fortinet — A multifunction firewall appliance with antivirus, anti-spam, URL filtering, and IPS services offered by annual subscription after the first year. Secure Computing SnapGear — A multifunction network security device for small and mid-sized businesses. In late September, Secure Computing agreed to merge with McAfee, which offers the McAfee Network Security Platform. http://www.skyrecon.com/>SkyRecon Systems — Offers host IPS as part of a unified endpoint security solution. SonicWall — The multifunction network device maker offers IPS as an add-on to its TZ series for small and mid-sized businesses. Sourcefire — The commercial version of a pioneering open-source network IPS created by programmer Martin Roesch in 1998. “Snort is the engine and Sourcefire is the whole car put together,” says Perry, Sourcefire’s chief marketing officer. TippingPoint — Offers a behavior-based network IPS hardware appliance. WatchGuard Technologies — Offers a subscription antivirus, IPS service for its X Core E-Series multifunction network security devices for small and mid-sized businesses.