Tag Archives: Irvine (California)

About 1326 days ago E-Commerce

Twitter’s New Tweets for Small Business

Twitter is open for business. The social network isn’t charging anybody for anything yet, and isn’t making any money — apart from the $100 million in venture financing it recently raised. But the San Francisco, Calif., start up is headed in that direction, with plans to offer paid commercial accounts later this year. Skeptics question whether paid accounts will catch on, or simply damage Twitter’s reputation and momentum, which has seen the company’s traffic jump to 23.5 million monthly visitors in August from 2.6 million in August 2008, according to Compete.com, the Web analytics firm. Regardless of how things shakes out, over the past few months the little company with the big social network has been making itself over to be more business friendly. The changes come at a time when many small businesses are figuring out what Twitter can do for them. One example is iContact, a Durham, N.C., e-mail marketing software maker with 180 employees and 50,000 customers that started using Twitter for customer service about a year ago. “When our site is down, we tweet out updates every 20 minutes to keep the community informed,” says Chuck Hester, iContact’s communications director. “We answer questions for customers, and then take them off line to complete the customer-service process.” Currently five iContact marketing and communications department staff members and the company’s CEO have Twitter accounts, “to help with consistency of our message,” Hester says. Twitter’s business initiatives To reach more businesses such as iContact, Twitter’s unveiled a formal outreach program that starts at the company’s virtual front door. The site’s home page has been redesigned to display a search window and a list of trending topics — all the better to show potential users how the network can be used to do real-time searches on what people are talking about. Other business-friendly additions: The business channel — Look at any Twitter page and you’ll see a set of links across the bottom — including one marked “Business.” Clicking on it brings up a special section called Twitter 101 created to explain the network’s business benefits. The section includes a how-to guide co-written by Sarah Milstein, a consultant, speaker and co-author of The Twitter Book. It also includes case studies, tips on etiquette and other best practices, and links to additional resources. Verified accounts — After impersonators set up fake accounts for everyone from Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld to the Dalai Lama, Twitter in June began offering verified accounts so fellow networkers can be assured tweets from celebrities, politicians, or other public figures are the real deal. Authenticated accounts sport a small blue badge with a white check mark and the words “Verified Account” on the top right portion of the user’s profile page. Though they’re most popular with TV and movie stars, business, and social media heavy hitters such as former GE Chairman Jack Welch and tech blogger extraordinaire Robert Scoble have verified accounts. Verified business accounts aren’t widely available yet, but the company is beta testing the service and asking interested companies to fill out a verified business account form if they want to be considered in the future. Modified terms of service — In early September, Twitter strengthened the terms of service (TOS) governing what people can and can’t do when they’re logged on, in part to clean up spammers, pornography, and other Wild West elements that were making the service not ready for business prime time. At the time the new TOS were announced, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said they “more appropriately reflect the nature of Twitter and convey key issues.” In addition to barring spam and porn, the new TOS reaffirms that users own their tweets and that Twitter has the right to share content with developers of add-on programs. They also keep the door open for advertising at some point in the future. While Twitter officials haven’t publicly discussed where or when advertising might appear, a new study by Los Angeles Internet researcher Interpret LLC found that Twitter users are twice as likely to click on ads or sponsors as users of Facebook or MySpace. Twitter’s business-focused upgrades can’t come soon enough for Joel Don, owner of Comm Strategies, a boutique technology public relations and marketing agency in Irvine, Calif. Don has been gradually nudging clients onto Twitter, in one case opening an account for a computer manufacturer before he even told them. “That was about two weeks ago,” says Don, who’s since received his client’s blessing. “It’s still way too early to demonstrate ROI.  But I really want to see how such an account can evolve or be evolved by a company into an alternative means of doing business.  Not the only way, but an alternative.”

About 1813 days ago Servers and Routers

Five Reasons to Virtualize Servers — Now

our beautiful site

According to Gartner, roughly two thirds of all servers sold are shipped with Microsoft’s server software. Each generation is more powerful and sophisticated in what it can handle, the latest being the highly anticipated release of Microsoft Server 2008 that came out in February of this year. For the smaller business, prices start around $1,000 for the standard version and just under $500 for the no frills Web-only server application. Depending on the company’s size and budget, those Windows-based servers can be a major expense. It probably wouldn’t please the average business owner to know those servers, for all that sophistication and computing power, are likely running at less than 20 percent utilization. In other words, imagine a rack of five servers totaling over $5,000 in software and collectively they are running at the full capacity of just one of those servers, while the power of four servers sits idle and unused. “Windows servers have become more powerful over the years. Most applications just don’t require all that extra power,” says Frank Scavo, president of Computer Economics based in Irvine, Calif. Scavo points to Unix and Linux servers as more efficient running at about 50 percent utilization — significantly better than Microsoft, but still woefully under used as a resource. The much-talked about trend, virtualization, is one way to get more bang out of your server bucks. But there are more reasons to virtualize, as you’ll see below. Virtualization 101 Traditionally, IT departments organize their servers by task. Typically there’s an e-mail server, a file server, perhaps an accounting server, and even a server for all the printing. With virtualization, tasks are handled across multiple machines and even platforms, instead of the one task, one box approach. “Think about it at the desktop level. The more applications that are open, the more likely it’s going to freeze up and crash. You don’t need that on your servers,” says Scavo. To the end user, the alternative is a seamless experience. Virtualization happens on the backend. It’s the ability to integrate resources, leverage them together to handle a single functionality, and all but eliminate down time since one server covers for another if there’s a problem. A company might use multiple servers to replicate a backup data base off site or handle more complex applications. These days, virtualization is often mentioned in the same breath as cloud computing. To make a distinction between the two, cloud computing is a data grid of perhaps thousands of computing devices used as needed by outside users and organizations. It’s a nimble way to scale up and down with user demands. Virtualization is the programming that handles the mechanics of that. Virtualization is not limited to cloud computing, which is virtualization on a grand scale. Smaller organizations can take advantage of this strategy on a much smaller scale with as little as only a few servers involved on site. Whether its through a subscription based service with a cloud computing provider, like Amazon.com’s new Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service, or implementing some virtual machine software (VMWare) on site, virtualization is quickly becoming a very attractive option for businesses and organizations of all sizes. Here’s why: Increase server utilization. As highlighted by Scavo, this is the heart and soul of virtualization. Getting the most out of your available computing power to accomplish whatever the task may be, whether it’s creating redundancies or enabling the network to handle more complex applications by allowing them to multi task across multiple appliances. Decrease spending. Virtualization saves money by requiring fewer servers to do more. “Through virtualization, companies can consolidate their server population on average by 25 percent. I know of one company that went from 18 servers to three and saved $90,000,” says James Browning, a vice president of research at Gartner Conserve energy. Servers and computers generate a lot of heat and at the same time easily break down if they aren’t kept almost refrigerator cool at all times. There’s a reason why IT professionals tend to wear long sleeves year round. The data room is typically chillier than football in November. With the rising costs of utility bills as a factor for every business right now, virtualization can be a fast track to big savings. That same company noted by Browning that saved $90,000 by reducing its number of servers; saved another $10,000 annually in utility bills. Safeguard data. Archiving data and replicating the network off site through virtualization is a recipe for an all but bullet-proof disaster recovery plan. Plus, it’s competitively priced compared to some of the other popular backup choices for small to midsize companies, like using a storage area network (SAN) or disc to disc backup. Increased flexibility. As mentioned already, by automating computing tasks across multiple sources, the likelihood of downtime is almost non-existent. If one source fails, another picks up the slack. Additionally, the IT department no longer has to be married to one single platform. “With virtual servers, you can run multiple operating systems, like Windows and Linux, on the same physical server,” points out Scavo. SIDEBAR: Getting started Every company’s computing needs are different and no one understands those unique needs better than the IT staff or consultant already managing the network. Business owners should encourage them to research virtualization, looking at case studies of what it’s done for organizations of similar size and corporate mission. Scavo highly recommends laying out the investment for a little training, as well. Send your IT manager to a conference or have a client representative from one of the VMWare vendors, like EMC, come on site to demonstrate what their product can do. As for Microsoft and those Windows servers running at 20 percent capacity, those days might soon be over with the release of Hyper-V when it comes out later in 2008. Hyper-V technology, designed to partition virtual functions away from the processor, is Microsoft’s VMWare solution to get more out of their servers. At a thousand dollars a pop for entry level versions of Server 2008, that’s a good thing.

About 1844 days ago PCs, Laptops, and Notebooks

Pay-as-You-Go with Cloud Computing

our beautiful site

Salesforce.com is one of the technology industry’s more recent Cinderella stories. Less than a decade ago, it was just another Silicon Valley startup operating out of the home of its founder, Mark Benioff, with three employees, $6 million of his own seed money and an idea that was the laughing stock of the business section. Some implied he had his head in the clouds and in a way, he did. Benioff, a former Oracle executive, had a vision to develop software, but not sell it. Instead his customer relationship management (CRM) applications would be offered on a subscription basis while empowered and housed on his company’s maze of servers and computers (euphemistically referred to as a “cloud”), not to mention storing and securing the entire body of client data created in its wake. CRM applications, formerly cost prohibitive for small to mid-sized businesses, would now be affordable, scalable and turnkey living on Salesforce.com’s more robust data grid than the more limited networks of its clients. Back in 1999, that idea was considered voodoo. Critics at the time predicted companies would never be willing to offload control of such core business applications. Pioneer in cloud computing In 2008, the now publicly traded company has more than one million subscribers from its 41,000 subscribing companies and works in partnership with some of the biggest names in technology and on Wall Street. As for the power of the company’s data grid or “cloud,” there are now days it accommodates more than 100 million user requests. “Salesforce.com is a really a pioneer in cloud computing. It identified a specific need; that it’s hard for a small to midsize business to manage a CRM system. With Salesforce.com, now those same companies only need a web browser. It’s effective and it addresses a clear pain point,” says Andrew Reichman, a senior analyst from Forrester Research. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), data centers, Web-based applications and virtualization, along with cloud computing, are some of the most over used and misunderstood buzz words floating around in business technology circles these days. They all have one thing in common: they are often confused in various combinations as the same thing. Though similar, they are not interchangeable terms. “It’s easy to confuse. From the standpoint of the user, there isn’t a difference between cloud computing or SaaS or Web-based applications,” says Frank Scavo, president of Computer Economics, based in Irvine, Calif. Historically, jobs requiring serious computing power have been performed by powerful mainframes, supercomputers, and over the past two decades increasingly by the ever more capable desktop or laptop PC souped up with the latest and most powerful microchips, RAM and sophisticated operating system that can run multiple applications simultaneously. Cloud computing is the alternative to all that high powered computing generating from one place. Cloud computing, instead, takes place within a integrated ballet of algorithms and code among cheaper, low powered computers and servers and third party networks “out there.” What IT types eventually started referring to as “the cloud” and what is increasingly becoming the platform of choice for many companies who no longer want the headache or expense of housing and maintaining all that cumbersome computing. Coming to terms So how is this different from all those other terms mentioned? Here’s a quick primer: Software-as-a-service: This is the business model, an alternative to the generations old business model of marketing software by selling usage rights with an “end user license agreement” (EULA). Web-based application: This tells you where the software lives. Traditionally, software applications have lived on a centralized mainframe or server or on the individual user’s PC. Web-based applications live on the Internet and are accessed with a Web browser through a password protected website. Data centers: A data center is the physical location of a farm of servers and computers. Data clouds are typically much bigger, involving perhaps thousands of computers across data centers around the globe. Clouds are automated. Data Centers involve human management. Virtualization: This is the programming mechanics of optimizing and integrating servers to act in concert as one external interface for the end user. It’s a great way to create redundancies, maximize the equipment’s efficiency and conserve energy. The benefits of cloud computing While Salesforce.com has proven itself a success serving small to mid-sized businesses by delivering CRM from the cloud, the cloud computing trend has hardly hit its tipping point. Here are some of the reasons many industry watchers say it’s only a matter of time: Save money. Through the business model of SaaS, applications living on the cloud are much cheaper for companies. Organizations save on the expense of implementation, maintenance, and security while benefiting from the economy of scale a massive “cloud” can offer compared to even a large company network. Access to more sophisticated applications. Salesforce.com is a great example of this with its offering of CRM tools to smaller businesses, whereas before CRM was completely out of reach for most modest budgets. Downsize the IT department. The more applications that are farmed out to a cloud, the fewer that have to live on the company network. That translates to fewer bodies for deployment, upkeep and updates, as well as less hardware in the building and less square footage taken up in the office. Saving energy. This is a factor on everyone’s mind given the economy, concerns for the environment and the growing energy crisis. “No one really thought about it up until now. But there’s a real focus on power, cooling and space because there’s a general mood of concern over energy costs,” says Reichman. Saving data. “Cloud computing relieves the smaller business from things like backup and recovery, which most don’t do a good job of doing anyway,” says Scavo. Any company big enough to provide data cloud services is likely to have more infrastructure to handle data security than the average small to midsize business. SIDEBAR: Cloud Computing Vendors Amazon EC2 — A funny thing happened on the way to becoming the biggest bookstore on the Internet. First, Amazon expanded to selling just about everything else available in retail making it the virtual Sears and Roebuck of the new millennium. More recently, with the launch of EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), which is still in beta, Amazon has revealed what is likely its long term business plan; to become the cloud service provider of choice for small businesses at affordable rates. Google — was perhaps the first company to build itself from the ground up as a data cloud, spending billions of dollars each year on additional servers and PC’s. There is no mother data center at Google headquarters running all those algorithims to conduct lightening fast searches while hosting email, dynamic calendaring and collaborative office applications. Google’s cloud is estimated to involve over one million PC’s and servers parceled out around the world. It’s only natural that they would monetize access to their subscribers. EMC Cloud — EMC is another one of the clouds gathering as this emerging market creates more buzz. The first tip off was the acquisition of online storage provider Mozy and more recently the startup cloud company, Pi Corporation. Pi stands for personal information. Cloud computing would be a natural progression for EMC, as it is one of the most popular vendors when it comes to virtual machine software (VMWare). Windows Live — Nothing could be more counter to Microsoft’s core mission than embracing and enhancing cloud computing. After all, Microsoft made its bones (and billions) selling software licenses by the seat and pushing its increasingly powerful Windows browser version after version. But clearly the folks in Redmond have seen the writing on the wall from the strong interest of web-based services like Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Salesforce.com. Windows Live is in the early stages of what industry watchers refer to tongue in cheek as the Windows Cloud O/S 3Tera — It’s a small company, but based on open source solutions and with its own patented Applogic technology is now in the process of rolling out its CloudWare services in stages. IBM’s Blue Cloud — It’s also still in the process of rolling out and is based on open source code. It could prove too pricey for smaller businesses, appealing more to the budgets of mid-sized and enterprise level companies.

About 1905 days ago Servers and Routers

Router-mania: Best Draft N Buys

our beautiful site

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has yet to sit down and formally ratify standard 802.11n, but that hasn’t stopped a flood of “Draft N” routers from hitting the market. Should you wait for the IEEE to formally bless the standard before you go out and buy equipment? Probably not. Most observers agree that the Institute’s blessing is merely a formality at this point. After all, many of the companies rolling out Draft N routers are on the IEEE. Draft N complications But here’s a more likely complication: You install Draft N routers, which are purported to be about six times faster than the previous “Wireless G” iteration (which maxed out at 54 Mbps under laboratory conditions) and find that they perform pretty much the same. That’s likely because although you have Draft N routers, the equipment on your PCs is still old school. Unless you bought a PC equipped with Intel’s Centrino technology after August or so, your PCs won’t clock an uptick in speeds. “The biggest potential for disappointment is not having client hardware in sync with the router,” says Chris Silva, an analyst with Forrester Research, of Cambridge, Mass. Indeed, when Austin Smith, the owner of Digital Son I.T. Services, an Atlanta value-added reseller (VAR), pitches Draft N upgrades to small business clients, he stresses that they are not likely to see an immediate improvement. “I basically have to sell it on the features they’ll be gaining when the standard’s completed,” he says. Though PCs are beginning to sport Draft N compatibility (and Apple’s MacBooks are already up to speed), other hardware, like digital cameras, have yet to catch up. Backwards compatible hardware Nevertheless, unlike previously updated equipment, most Draft N hardware is backwards-compatible, which means at least while customers are waiting for the IEEE to make its decision (likely in the third quarter of 2008), customers can still use their legacy equipment. Proponents of Draft N say it’s worth the wait. Not only is it much faster, but the wireless coverage is noticeably better, says Ivor Diedricks, senior product manager for Linksys, of Irvine, Calif. Before Draft N, users might lose their connection if they moved their laptop over two feet or so, but “in the case of [Draft N] you don’t have dead spots.” In the meantime, though, a Draft N upgrade is likely to be anticlimactic. That was the case with CornerStore Entertainment, a nine-person Atlanta firm that manages musical acts (including crunk artist YoungBloodZ). Jeffrey Joseph, president of CornerStore, says so far it’s hard to get excited about the upgrade: “We decided to buy the [Draft N] router thinking it would be six- to ten-times faster only to find that the devices we need aren’t available yet.” SIDEBAR: Best Buys in Draft N Routers If you’re interested in starting the draft N upgrade process, here are some small business-targeted routers: • Linksys offers a full line of Draft N routers including the WRT350N, which starts at around $150. •  D-Link also offers the DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit Route, which starts at $115. • Belkin’s N1 Wireless Router starts at $99. • Netgear’s WNR834B RangeMax Net Router starts at around $90.

About 1934 days ago Tools on Managing Technology

Lean and Mean IT Budgeting for the Shaky Economy

our beautiful site

The financial page is no fun to read these days for anyone. The 2008 housing market forecast is grim warning of an even longer slump than first predicted, with double digit drops in real estate prices anticipated in many areas of the country. Oil is trading above $90 a barrel, which a few years ago would have been considered apocalyptic for the economy. The Federal Reserve is shoring up a nervous banking industry’s shaky credit market. And 2007 was definitely the year of the Bear for stock markets, leaving lots of unhappy investors with battered portfolios. What happens on Wall Street, unfortunately, doesn’t stay on Wall Street. The year 2008 could easily turn Main Street into Pain Street. This means businesses of all size — especially smaller, younger businesses — could soon find themselves looking to downsize their spending fast for survival. If and when that happens, every area of the business will be under scrutiny for cost-cutting and proving its return on investment (ROI). Why IT is a target Because IT is typically one of the biggest chunks of the operating budget, it’s also one of the biggest and most obvious targets when it comes time to get lean and mean for hard times. “IT spending is highly dependent on economic conditions. Our survey data indicates that IT executives have already scaled back their expectations for IT spending increases in 2008,” says Frank Scavo, president of Computer Economics based in Irvine, Calif. Another attraction to slashing the technology budget: most IT departments don’t have their own revenue streams to bolster. Typically they don’t make money; they save money. This is actually more valuable to a company’s bottom line. Companies pay taxes on money they make, but not on the money they save. That $100,000 in new revenue may net only $70,000, for example. Saving $100,000 means $100,000 less taken away from the company coffers. Where to start That being said, here are some tips to save by cutting back IT expenses: Don’t start anything new. This includes avoiding new projects or implementing new technologies or applications. The biggest new commitment to avoid, however, is people. “Each organization is different, but regardless of the company size, the largest single line item in the IT budget is personnel. For some companies, this might mean delaying a planned increase in full-time headcount. Instead, rely on outside contractors to provide needed services on an as-needed basis,” says Scavo. Make do with technologies already in place. Just because the technology industry wants businesses to upgrade their software and hardware approximately every three years, doesn’t mean it’s necessary. Gregory Nelson, a technology advisor for startups and chairman at SCORE in Naples, Fla., advises businesses to save money by avoiding operating system upgrades, like Microsoft Vista or Apple’s OS X. He also recommends boosting the efficiency of PCs around the office by spring cleaning their hard drives. Run more routine maintenance chores, like defragmenting and uninstalling applications that aren’t being used. Get a little more speed out of your computers and there’s less need to buy new ones for awhile longer. Bargain shop for the necessities. Both hardware and software don’t hold their original retail prices for very long. Look at the eight gigabyte iPhone, for example, that started at $599 when it was released in June of 2007 and dropped down to $399 three months later. Wait for the big price drops that inevitably come after a new version has been out for awhile and perhaps already been supplanted by an even newer version. “A top-of-the-line high speed wireless router goes for triple that a reliable medium speed router goes for and for many companies it will do just as good a job,” points out Nelson. Play hardball with technology vendors. “Look at equipment that is coming close to end-of-lease. Does it still have useful life? Know the fair market value for that equipment and go to your leasing company with an offer. Leasers really do not want to take back equipment, if they can avoid it. You may be surprised at what they’ll take,” says Scavo. Look for hosted solutions and outsourcing opportunities. Especially for smaller businesses, it’s often cheaper to just outsource certain jobs like short-term projects and tech support. This might also be the year to hand over applications like CRM to a company like Salesforce.com that can host and manage it much more cheaply than dedicated staff in-house. What not to cut For business owners who may end up needing to quickly cut back their IT spending this year, it would be wise to do so with a scalpel and not a chainsaw. There are some technology expenses that are definitely expendable, but IT has its sacred cows. Slaughtering those areas could mean slaughtering the business itself. Here are some areas to protect from the bean counters: Security. No matter how tight the budget gets, no company can afford to compromise on network security. Firewalls, antivirus software and spam blockers are only as good as their last patch or upgrade. If a business doesn’t keep up with the latest upgrades, it makes itself vulnerable to attacks or data breaches. The severity of financial consequences far outweighs any savings. Business critical software. Its one thing to take a pass on the latest version of PowerPoint. Book-keeping software, for example, is another matter. Any application that the business itself relies on to run its daily operations must be kept up to date. “This could be software that needs upgrading to remain on a service contract. Or, for example, database software that houses mission critical data needs to be kept at a release level that is supported,” says Nelson. Licensing agreements. It’s a tempting thought to just let them lapse and keep using the software. Don’t even consider it. It puts the company under a tremendous liability. The potential risk of damages, both financial and to the company’s reputation is staggering.

About 1934 days ago Data Security

Pay for Storage? Weighing the Free — and Low Cost — Options

our beautiful site

As a small to mid-sized business grows, so does the sheer volume of information generated each day: account information and budgets, along with databases of inventory and employee records. The list is endless. A generation ago, it was euphemistically called the paper blizzard. Now, it’s more like a digital Tsunami that only gets bigger and more difficult to manage for the organization without a storage strategy. “Archiving data is less about where to put it and more about how to get it when you need it,” says Andrew Reichman, an analyst from Forrester Research. Indeed, many small to mid-sized businesses make the mistake of growing out their methods for storing data like the business itself: piecemeal and as needed. The end result can be disjointed, irretrievable data that is mission critical to the company, yet scattered across a variety of discs, servers, and individual employee hard drives. The good news: data storage has never been more plentiful or cheaper. The trick is wading through the myriad of options available and deciding which one works best for your organization. In-house versus out The first big decision to be made is whether to keep all or most of the company data in-house or out-of-house. Traditionally, companies of all sizes have kept their information on site. However, using a third party host to store data online is increasingly popular. Out of house options What do Intel, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Seagate Technologies, and EMC all have in common? They are all heavily investing in online backup storage solutions; whether it’s buying startups like IBM snapping up Arsenal Digital, EMC acquiring Mozy, or Seagate absorbing eVault. And then there’s Google launching its own initiative called GDrive service. There are also countless independent companies (that haven’t been bought up yet) offering data backup and storage online and on the cheap. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages for the growing company: Advantages: It’s cheap, fast to deploy, and turnkey requiring no staffing to maintain the data. Plus, vendors have the advantage of using economies of scale to provide better security and store data more cheaply than a smaller organization doing it all on its own. However, the most important advantage is really more basic than that. “The biggest reason to go out of house is to get remote backup capability,” says John Longwell, research director for Irvine, Calif.-based Computer Economics. Simply put, you don’t want to have all your eggs (or data) in one basket (or place). If the building burns down or even just a poorly-timed snow day keeps employees away from the office during a critical time for the business, the results can be devastating. Off-site backup and remote access to information is a core need for most businesses today. Disadvantages: “The server and the application need to be in the same place. Going outside works if you’re talking about using Gmail as the company e-mail client and then archiving it all on Google, or CRM data with Salesforce.com. Businesses need to be careful which parts of the business processes they can give to someone else,” says Reichman. Even Amazon is now offering cheap data storage and retrieval programs like “SimpleDB”, which is in beta as of this writing. However, simple is the optimal word in that brand. It is a very simplistic way of searching and fetching data. It is not the place to store financial information a company may need to aggregate in a variety of sophisticated ways to generate specific reports. In-house options Despite all the hype over third party vendors offering online storage, in-house options make a lot of sense, as well, and may be more practical for many businesses. Advantages:  The obvious advantage is retaining control at all times. The other advantage is that the major disadvantages are disappearing fast. In-house solutions are getting cheaper and more effective too. “There’s a big shift among small to mid-sized businesses from on-board discs (data separately stored on each individual computer and server) to what’s called centralized network storage. This can be as simple as throwing a single appliance on the network that houses all the data. By centralizing storage, information can be pulled from multiple sources and aggregated into richer data. It also makes it easier to manage all the company information, control user access and retrieve it when needed. Disadvantages: In-house solutions mean buying gear, getting it installed, and then taking on the expense of maintaining it. “Sometimes it’s a tough pill for small to mid-sized businesses to swallow,” admits Reichman, who encourages executives to look at the long term savings of better data management specific to the business. It’s something an outside vendor can’t provide, as well. Deciding factors Costs:  Web-based third party vendors are cheaper, at least up front. It depends on the size of the business, however, whether they make sense. If a company has someone on staff to maintain a centralized storage network, then it might make more sense to invest in the equipment and save on vendor fees typically based on the amount of data stored on a subscription basis. What data and why and when it is needed:  How will users interface and retrieve information as they need it? A third party vendor may not be able to offer the sophistication needed to work with certain applications or databases. Then again, it may make sense to house older and less important data off-site and out of the way. Prioritizing storage needs: What’s the primary motive for storing data? Is it backup and security? If so a third party vendor is likely the answer, since it offers off site protection of the data and often smaller businesses don’t have the same level of security as the vendor (like encryption and less network downtime).  Sidebar: Data Storage Options Carbonite is designed to backup data on each individual computer or server. It runs constantly in the background backing up data and is handy for the desktop user who loses a file or accidentally deletes something of importance. Lost information can be retrieved immediately. This is not a likely solution however, for growing companies that need to manage data in a centralized way controlling access and aggregating data driven reports. Mozy Similar to Carbonite, it is designed for the individual user who needs his or her information constantly being backed up remotely in case of a virus strike or ill-timed computer crash. Mozy, however, does offer a professional version with a number of features like administrative powers to manage data from multiple sources and encryption. Its new parent company, EMC, may have something to do with the increasingly beefed up services targeting corporate clients. Pricing is based on a combination of price by seat ($3.95 per computer, per month) and 50 cents a GB per month xDrive is primarily targeting the consumer market. But for the small business just starting out, it’s worth consideration. xDrive charges $9.95 for 50 gigabytes of storage.  Based in Beverly Hills, Calif., xDrive is actually owned by AOL and markets itself as a preferred solution for backing up pictures, graphics and video for easy web access and collaboration with others. As is, it’s easy to imagine a business quickly outgrowing xDrive. But with AOL as its parent company, it’s also easy to imagine xDrive scaling up it services for growing organizations before that happens. Nirvanix is attracting a lot of attention, as well as high profile investors like Intel. The San Diego, Calif.-based data storage company is especially attractive to the small to midsize business market because it offers scalable storage services for a flat fee of 18 cents a gigabyte. What makes Nirvanix special is its application programming interface (API) that enables companies to easily integrate Nirvanix Web Services into their own company applications. In comparing just these four examples of online data storage vendors, there is at least one common denominator: they are all still growing out their corporate features to accommodate businesses. “The options are still limited today, but it’s getting there,” says Reichman.

About 2026 days ago Computer Security

Disaster Planning in Six Quick Steps

our beautiful site

Covenant Technology, an IT consulting group based in Houston, Texas that specializes in small and mid-size businesses, has been advising clients on disaster preparedness for years. But in 2005, when Hurricane Rita blew ashore too close for comfort, a number of those plans got put to the test. “We had one client — an investment business — that we had recently helped with a disaster plan. This particular client wanted a plan that meant they’d never be down,” recalls David Robertson, president of Covenant Technology. The business was in Houston, close to the coast. When Rita hit, they tested the plan and were able to continue trading from an inland backup location, in San Antonio. Robertson and his client made all the right decisions preparing for a disaster. Most businesses don’t. “Most small to mid-size businesses are not adequately protected. They don’t anticipate the possibility of an event in any form,” says Frank Scavo, president of Computer Economics, an Irvine, Calif. research firm. There are a lot of reasons businesses tend to procrastinate: expense, time, disbelief that anything will ever go wrong, or simply not knowing where to begin. Here are six steps to get started that will hopefully minimize costs and time commitment, as well as make a compelling case to take action. Step One: List events that may cause lost data or technology. Ideally: Companies should have contingency plans for the kinds of disasters that they are vulnerable to based on geography or the nature of their business. A business in California may be primarily concerned with earthquakes and wildfires, while companies in Houston are focusing on floods and hurricanes. Other companies may be more concerned about being a high-risk target for theft or terrorism. Other considerations: Scavo advises business owners to also consider more mundane disasters. “Just losing a laptop that has the only copy of a piece of critical business data can be devastating,” he says. “The trend towards mobile computing has compounded this risk in recent years.”     At the very least: “Pick the ones that are most worrisome,” says Robertson. Planning for the biggest risks is better than no planning at all. Step Two: Safeguard the company data.   Ideally: In addition to routinely backing up data, Robertson recommends that companies store it offsite with a Web-based data storage solution. Many third party solutions are reasonably priced for smaller businesses. Other considerations: The more redundancies the better. A locally-owned data center that rents space is great for backing up company information. But in the event of a natural disaster, it can be compromised, too. Ask if they have a back-up system elsewhere in the country. At the very least: “It’s cheap to just get an external hard drive, plug it into the server, and do a complete backup. But you have to remember to do it,” says Robertson. You also have to remember to store it offsite. Scavo suggests rotating sending it home with different employees. Step Three: Safeguard the network. Ideally: “A lot of companies take adequate measures to save data, but forget to do the same to save the system,” observes Scavo. Make arrangements in advance with a co-location facility that offers not only redundancies in backing up data, but fire suppression, backup power, and proper cooling to keep the servers humming. Other considerations: Define acceptable ‘down times,’ which differ depending on the business. Covenant Technology’s client was an investment business obligated to continue trading and could afford no time offline. Another business may be able to close for a few days while an alternate network is loaded with company applications and data. At the very least: Have a schematic of the network and an inventory of all the hardware that make up the infrastructure. Replacement gear won’t be exactly the same, but it will offer a roadmap of where to begin. Step Four: Safeguard staffing. Ideally: Essential staff needed to run business-critical technologies, like the network or certain applications, are sometimes impacted — even if the disaster doesn’t damage your business. Every key position should have someone cross-trained to take over in case of an emergency. Key staff members need to have reliable remote access to the company network. Other considerations: “You see companies prepare for loss of equipment or data, but not people. But what about a pandemic? It doesn’t touch the system, but instead the staff,” points out Scavo. Companies need to not only consider contingency plans for displaced staff, but for losing a portion of staff or having them quarantined at home. At the very least: Keep a running list of essential staff and cross train those positions. Also keep a check list of which employees have what level of access from home. Step Five: Test the plan. Ideally: All plans look good on paper. Having the occasional real life drill is where the rubber meets the road. Most consultants recommend testing and updating the disaster plan once a year, if not every six months. Other considerations: A disaster drill is worthwhile for everyone, but it’s essential for new staff. In addition to hard copies of the plan, keep hard copies of passwords and IP addresses, along with access data for bank accounts. Double-check and update each year. At the very least: For businesses that don’t have time to test, dust off the written response protocols and have a read-through with staff. Fine tune the plan, and offer a refresher course to employees. Step Six: Have a recovery plan. Ideally: “You have to think about what happens after the disaster. How will the data on the alternate system be returned to the company?” asks Robertson. This requires a well thought out protocol. Other considerations: How will recovery in one area impact the recovery in another? Allowing employees to occasionally work from home also functions as an informal drill to make sure they can work offsite. At the very least: Factor in additional hours, days, if not weeks or months into projected times for returning to normalcy. Look at New Orleans. The immediate disaster of Hurricane Katrina lasted only a week or two. More than two years later, a total recovery is no where in sight.

About 2057 days ago Business Software

Online Travel Expense Reporting Takes Off

our beautiful site

At RiskMetrics Group, two full-time employees were spending each day processing the company’s many travel expense reports. All day, every day. That is, until the New York-based risk management firm started using Concur Expense, a Web-based travel expense solution. Using Concur, those two RiskMetrics employees — one in London and one in the U.S. — spend perhaps one hour a day on expense reports, notes Michael Ciaccio, travel and expense manager for the 300-employee firm. That’s important because the company is in the process of tripling in size due to acquisitions. “This has really opened up their time so they can work on other projects,” he says. The Concur Expense product, an on-demand Web solution, can start gathering travel expense information from the moment an employee books their travel, explains Chris Juneau, vice president of product marketing for Redmond, Wash.-based firm. Concur Expense includes a travel booking tool and a direct link to the company’s corporate bank card. The more employees use their corporate card to pay for their expenses, the less they need to keep track of receipts, dates and locations later. Employees just add in their cash expenditures, and print off or email their report. “Our product eliminates receipts, eliminates keystrokes, and can eliminate paper expense reports,” Juneau says. ROI in “soft dollars” While the return-on-investment attributable to these solutions are in “soft dollars” — not hard cash — admits Tim Dougherty, sales director of Irvine, Calif-based ExpensAble, they can be significant. “You have employees doing something other than spending their Friday afternoon doing an expense report,” he notes. “And you have the accounting staff able to do something else, too.” For small businesses especially, where many employees wear several hats, finding ways to save the time associated with developing expense reports can be a godsend. Many smaller companies suffer through the travel expense process, perhaps using Intuit’s QuickBooks or free services offered by their bank card. Often, those services don’t go far enough. Dedicated on-demand travel expense services or software can help a small company do a better job. And on-demand services can even help companies that lack an IT staff. Products such as Concur’s Expense can run from $1,000-$5,000 in set-up fees, and from between $250/month to $5,000/month in service fees, depending on the size of the business and the number of users. ExpensAble offers several small-business options: its Enterprise on-demand product for 20 users or less for a $1,200-$3,000 one-time fee, or its Desktop software option at $700 per 10 licenses, and has off-line options as well, according to Dougherty. A third provider, CyberShift, also offers on-demand and licensed products, but does not make its pricing models public, according to spokeswoman Pamela Marshall. The sales force may grumble, but… For companies accustomed to having the accounting office manage their expense reports from start to finish, however, asking employees to shift over to a do-it-yourself model can be met with resistance. “At first, our sales team grumbled … they thought it would take away from time doing sales,” admits Ciaccio. “But right now, everyone’s pretty receptive,” he added, noting that RiskMetrics has put tutorial information about Concur on its website to help employees work through it more quickly. In addition to saving RiskMetrics time, Concur also helps keep managers in the know about their departments’ travel costs. “We can provide detailed reports to the managers, so they know just what they’re spending on travel.” Concur’s Juneau adds that many of his clients find that their employees’ travel expenses  drop significantly after the Concur system is in use. With increased use of the corporate card, it becomes harder for employees to “pad” their expenses, he notes. In sum, dedicated travel-expense solutions could drive savings to your business in terms of time, money, and hassle.

About 2422 days ago Setting Up a Website

Keys for Designing a Successful Site

Justin Kitch, CEO and co-founder of Homestead Technologies, Inc., runs a business providing users with website creation software. This can be both a good and a bad thing — for a business owner’s ultimate goal of creating a successful site. While the webmaster or other person designing the site can add bells and whistles at their discretion, sometimes they do go overboard. Kitch had to intervene in one client’s case. The business chose multiple add-ons, such as a plethora of twinkling lights and twirling letters – so much that it became a customer turn off. As they say in a certain fashion magazine, that was an example of a Glamour Don’t! Here’s how your business can avoid such a fate. Think elegant Just like in any well-run office or home, getting rid of clutter is key. The same applies to your website. There should be lots of white space, no background, and no sounds, says Kitch. “People aren’t going to a restaurant website to be entertained. They are going there to find out information about eating at the restaurant.” Unless you are a running a site made for entertaining viewers, leave the dazzle to Hollywood. Make sure that the design doesn’t overwhelm the content, says Andrew McLendon, chief creative officer at Web Advanced, an Irvine, Calif. website design company. The website should be clean and straightforward. Period. Why it exists It should be evident why the site exists. “If it’s not clear, then you have already failed,” says Kitch. It should have a single header. The name and simple tagline should describe exactly what you do. “Your site should reflect what your company delivers,” adds Victor Liu, CEO of Web Advanced People tend to forget that their sites have to have a purpose and a reason for visitors to go there. And, if that’s not apparent, there’s a problem. Usually, says Kitch, what users want is to be able to sign up for a newsletter, be recognized as a repeat customer and/or be given the benefits of being such, and want to be able to give feedback. Does your site let visitors accomplish this? Navigate this The site should have a navigation system that’s simple. Think about what people would want to get from your site or what they’d want to do on your site. Then have it designed so that the information or activities are easily attained or accomplished. Writes Harley Manning, vice president and research director of Forrester Research, Inc., of Cambridge. Mass. in his June, 2006 report, “Don’t Rationalize Bad Site Design”: “The acid test for any design is that it must help target users achieve their goals.” If that can’t happen, what’s the point? According to Liu, “When people are looking for information on the Internet you have about five seconds to give it to them.” Nike can get away with more flashy effects because of who they are. A lot of small and medium sized businesses aren’t Nike. They have to be more direct. “Years ago people talked about Web surfing. I think today consumers are more interested in going in and getting the info that they need,” says Paul Epstein, CEO of High Voltage Interactive, a Sausalito, Calif. online marketing firm. “Today, it’s less about surfing and more about finding right kind of information.”

About 2422 days ago E-Commerce

Great Free Tools for Online Business

One of the great things about the Web is the proliferation of free information and tools available. There is even a movement out there, called Open Source, which Wikipedia defines as describing “practices in production and development that promote access to the end product’s sources.” Here’s how you can take advantage of the generosity out there that’s ripe for the picking: Get set-up:Check out the website for SCORE, a non-profit which describes itself as “Counselors to America’s Small Business” and “America’s premier source of free and confidential small business advice for entrepreneurs.” The site offers loads of free tools and advice such as how to write up a business plan, build a website, and position your business. It should be one of the first stops that any small business owner should make if he hasn’t already, and even then it should be a routine click because there is often new information posted. Look around: There is help for small businesses to be found all over the Internet, says Victor Liu, co-founder of Web Advanced, a Web design firm in Irvine, Calif. One site that aggregates them for you is The Free Site, essentially an online holding pen of practically every free deal out there (hence the name).Some tools to help you ramp up your online presence include Marketing Today, which offers information about online marketing, and Any Browser, which lets you know how others see your site when it pops up on their browser. The latter also provides tools to fix things in case it turns out that the site others are seeing is indeed not what you intended. For better functioning websites, Liu highly recommends Google Analytics, which can help you find out how much of your traffic is organic versus paid. Get the message out: Blogs and podcasts can be valuable tools for companies to promote their sites. Paul Epstein, CEO of High Voltage Interactive, an online marketing firm, has suggestions of where to get started on these. For free information about blogs check out Technorati and also see Blogwise about setting up your own. For information on how to set up podcasts, check out PodBlaze. If it’s free, can it be good: Gary Chen, the small and medium business strategies analyst at the Yankee Group, a Boston research firm, also is cynical. A lot of free sites are not what they appear to be; they have hazy privacy policies. Check to see what the policies are — a quick search on the Internet to see if anything bad comes up can be a good start. “But, if you’re not sure, stay with a more reputable site,” he says. But even if it is reputable, as with anything gotten for free, especially if the service isn’t be offered by a non-profit organization, be careful. Justin Kitch, CEO and co-founder of Homestead Technologies, Inc., a website creation software company that once had a different business model involving giving away free product, knows of what he speaks. “If something is for free there’s a reason,” he says. “If you offer a free service you can’t think about the free customers. The most important person is this case isn’t the customer it’s the sponsor.”