Tag Archives: Small Business Technology Institute

About 2091 days ago PCs, Laptops, and Notebooks

Intelligent Devices Help Smart Businesses

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For more than 30 years, Kevin Chuman has been monitoring the moisture content of soil for California vineyards, a crucial job for grape growers. Knowing when to irrigate, and when not to, can make the difference between a successful crop and a failed one. Up till now, his preferred tools have been “a shovel, a soil probe, and my eyes.” But he may be adding some new technology tools to that list. Now the pest control advisor for Bronco Winery, maker of various popular wines including Charles Shaw (better known as “Two-Buck Chuck” to Trader Joe’s bargain hunters), Chuman is deploying some very smart technology to stay current in a highly competitive market. Through the use of a network of soil sampling sensors, Chuman is able to monitor the moisture content in Bronco’s vast vineyards through the Internet, right from his desk. “We installed this system just last year, so this is the first full year it’s been functioning,” Chuman says. “We’re tweaking the system and making it more and more accurate.” Intelligent devices in your future If you aren’t using smart devices in your small or mid-size business yet, you soon might be. A study recently released by the Institute for the Future (IFTF) titled The Future of Small Business predicts a growing use of intelligent devices by small businesses. Among its several findings, the study states that “small businesses—traditionally late adopters of technology—will need to aggressively use new technologies to create, build, and market their products and services.” The study says that small businesses need to increasingly turn to intelligent devices for such purposes as gaining customer insight and improving delivery of goods and services. The group defines these devices as “machines and products … equipped with computing capabilities, digital storage, and sensors” and notes that sensors and radio frequency identification (RFID) are some examples that are growing more popular among businesses. In fact this trend is already off to a big start. According to a January 2002 study conducted by Harbor Research, the number of intelligent devices networked for remote administration — excluding telephones and personal computers — is expected to exceed 500 million by 2010. One example is swimming pool companies that use sensor technology to alert them when a customers’ pool needs attention, in some cases even fixing the problem automatically. This reduces the time technicians need to spend on monitoring, leading to a reduction in service calls. Not all smart tech is ready for prime time The IFTF study also mentions the widening use of RFID tags in many situations and its importance in years to come, but some business advisors aren’t too keen on the use of RFID for smaller companies, at least at the moment. Patrick Cook, co-founder of the Small Business Technology Institute, who blogs about small business technology, feels that RFID is — for now anyway — a “non-event for small businesses.” “The industry is still struggling to develop standards,” Cook said. “Wal-Mart is pushing for compliance of its specs, while the U.S. is out of sync with both European and Japanese standards, all of which drives the cost out of reach for most small businesses.” In the meantime, Cook feels that small businesses can gain by looking to more affordable technologies, like biometrics, GPS, and remote sensors. Still, smart technology is turning up in unexpected places. As Chuman needs to monitor soil conditions across Bronco Winery’s 4,500 acres of grape vines scattered throughout Madeira County, a vast area to manage, he’s found that sensors help him do that from his desktop. “The sensors give me a heads-up on any potential problems,” he says, “and it helps me target problem spots, which is great considering how many acres we have to monitor.”

About 2365 days ago Business Software

How to Choose Office Productivity Software

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When choosing office productivity software — the suite of functions, including word processing, spreadsheets, presentation software and an e-mail program — the knee-jerk reaction is to first look at Microsoft Office. After all, it is the most ubiquitous. But popularity doesn’t matter to everyone. Derek Featherstone, founder of Further Ahead, of Ottawa, a Web development firm, uses a combination of Apple’s iWork on his Mac, which includes the Pages application for documents and Keynote for presentations. He also uses OpenOffice, an open source office productivity suite, “because it was free, compatible with pretty much every other office suite out there.” Featherstone says that he works on three computers at a time — a Mac, a Windows-based PC, and an open-source Linux machine. “I wanted to be able to have a tool that worked no matter which computer I happened to be using at the time and not to have to pay for three licenses,” Featherstone says. “As a small business, minimizing costs is essential. OpenOffice lets me do just that.” Featherstone is one of a new breed of entrepreneur who believes that when it comes to office productivity software there’s more than one choice out there. Small businesses miss out on upgrades Right now Microsoft Office dominates the small and mid-size business market. However, many of these packages were purchased years ago, and were not upgraded, even though Microsoft refreshed the offering in 2003. What that means is that small businesses using an older Office version may be missing out on features enabling them to increase productivity. As it is, many small businesses don’t use many features beyond the basic functionality. “Ninety percent of MS Office’s higher functionality isn’t used by most users, who simply want to keep track of finances, write office letters, and put together small presentations, etc.” says Adam Braunstein, senior research analyst at the Robert Frances Group, a business advisory to technology executives. “That’s too bad,” Yankee Group analyst Gary Chen points out, “because Office comes out with cool things that people almost never discover — such as support for tablet PCs, collaboration tools, and locking down sections in a Word document that can’t be edited.” And yet, Microsoft has been spending a lot of time focused on the small business market, and currently has a free product out for small businesses. In addition, Microsoft is coming out with its newest version yet, Office 2007, with even more updated versions of its features. The bottom line is that the customers still aren’t getting everything they could out of their product. “That left the door open for other start-ups to get in there,” says Chen. One of those is the commercial version of OpenOffice, the free office suite and Open Source project that Featherstone uses, called StarOffice. StarOffice is spear-headed by Sun Microsystems. It’s a neat alternative, says Chen, and supports much of what’s available on Microsoft Office. Sun is trying to lure people in with snazzy features, such as multiple toolbars, migration aides, Web publishing tools, etc. It’s giving Office a run for the money. CFOs are happy with it, though; StarOffice is a fraction of the cost of Microsoft Office. Battle of the productivity programs “With the many different formats out there you can send a file and the receiver can’t open it or if they do it looks weird,” says Chen.  Right now, Microsoft is the format that everyone can open. OpenOffice is a cross platform. It can run on Linux. So, people can use whatever platform they want. And it’s free. Also, the online versions are not tied to an install on a particular computer, says Forrester analyst Michael Speyer. “You can use them anywhere that has Internet access.” Another thing to consider with the Open Source products is that there is an emphasis on introducing new, exciting features. There are a lot of OpenOffice choices and more coming. Look out for Google to make some waves in the area. Right now, Google offers some business applications over the Web, and considering the huge cash hoard that the company is sinking into research and development,  their products will only get better. Right now, their offerings are free, and in the get-what-you-pay-for kind of way, there are lots of ads. Reading distracting ads, however, isn’t the ideal situation to increase productivity at work. The areas where the rival products still trail behind Office, says Andrea Peiro, CEO and founder, Small Business Technology Institute, are mostly related to collaboration — such as documents version control, integration of the revision process with -email programs and interaction with some server-side technologies.  “In a multi-employee environment with highly structured document management processes, these features can be extremely important, but for most other situations these alternatives represent excellent low-cost options,” says Chen. How to figure out what suite is right for your business Chen recommends that small business owners ask themselves the following questions: How much do you use the office suite? Which features and functionality do you use and need? Take a look at the complexity of the documents you use and produce and look at what level of support you need. Something to consider if you use free products is that if you want support you’ll need to pay extra. What is your budget for the product and for support? Office is much more expensive than its competition, running several hundred dollars per computer. If you are looking for something else to cast your vote for, Peiro suggests considering the following, which offer a high degree of compatibility with Office in terms of file formats: OpenOffice This is a free multiplatform office suite and an Open Source project that’s compatible with all other major office suites. WordPerfect Suite This old standby — remember WordPerfect anyone? — costs about $250.00. 602 PC Suite Low-cost alternative started in the Czech Republic. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, photo editor, and photo album organizer. ThinkFree Web-based office application. It’s free but doesn¹t include a database application.

About 2395 days ago Computer Security

Why You Need a UPS

It should be apparent to anyone who suffered through the blackout of 2003. And it should be apparent to any business impacted by the brownouts that are increasingly a fact of life during summer months, ice storms that knock out power lines in the winter, and other disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina. A power outage can wreak disaster on a business. It can shut a company down for days. It can zap your data. It can disappoint your customers. And, ultimately, it can run you out of business. That’s one reason that businesses need to invest in a device called “uninterruptible power supply” (UPS). This is an intermediary device between a power source and the machinery for which the power is being provided, typically a computer. That device can apply to anything from a battery to a generator. There are three kinds of UPSes — one that’s always on, the most common type, one that’s on standby, going on as soon as power is cut off, and one that’s really a hybrid of the two. A backup power supply Think of a UPS as a backup power supply, says Cal Braunstein, the chairman and CEO of the Robert Frances Group, a Westport, Conn. technology consultancy. That’s the advice he gives to small business owners who are considering UPS. “Some alarm clocks today have the ability for a battery to be plugged in so that when power is lost, your alarm clock continues keeping time,” Braunstein says. “A UPS is just a much bigger version of that for computers. This way if power dies, systems and disk drives don’t crash, which could cause real data corruption or file corruption problems.” On a basic level, the UPS is some energy that provides the user with a few extra minutes of power, in the case of an emergency, so that they can save what they were working on, print it out, and turn all the machines off.  More powerful ones, says Andrea Peiro, the CEO and founder of the Small Business Technology Institute, a non-profit organization that promotes technology usage by small business, can be used to actually continue working for several more hours while the user is waiting for the grid power to return. Tips for buying UPS When buying one or more UPS devices for your business, there are several factors to consider. “The primary factor that influences how many pieces of hardware can be supported by a single UPS and for how long is the capacity of their batteries,” says Peiro, noting that the capacity is measured in Volt-Amperes (VA). “The bigger the number, the better.” Costs for buying a UPS can range from less than one hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars. But in the long run whatever you pay will be small compared with what could happen if one’s data disappears. If cost is a concern, however, consider that today’s prices represent a decrease from where they used to be, and also that laptops usually do not need a UPS, since they can operate on their own internal battery in case of power failure. However, no matter what the price is, a UPS should be part of any small business office, says Peiro, who considers them a very important investment, especially when they are connected to the company’s networking equipment.  “UPSes are a critical element for the reliability of any computing environment, allowing for non-disruptive shut down of workstations, servers and peripherals.”

About 2395 days ago Wireless Networks

Should Some Computers Be Off the Network?

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Is there a magic bullet to make your business computers secure? “The most secure computer in the world is one that can’t be used by anybody,” says Paul Stamp, senior analyst at Forrester Research, of Cambridge, Mass. That’s a nice sentiment, but he admits that it’s not really practical these days, unless you are running a computer museum. More realistically, today’s small business owners should concern themselves with balancing the need for security with access. And, at every step of the way they have to make the risk tradeoff. Just by being on the Internet will invite attempts, says Toby Weir-Jones, the director of product management of BT Counterpane, of Mountain View, Calif., which provides managed security services. And attempts are the definition of risk. And that could be a cost. “If a machine doesn’t need to be online it should be,” Weir-Jones says. Networking depends on the PC’s function Whether you have a computer that should be kept off network, says Cal Braunstein, the chairman and CEO of the Robert Frances Group, a business technology consultancy in Westport, Conn., will also depend on the company and the type of function being performed. For example, you may have multiple networks at a company, rather than one. You may have a mini-network in research and development (R&D) and may not want any of those machines linked to the outside world in order to better protect your company secrets. Many R&D facilities, Braunstein says, have multiple PCs per user there. Some are for the R&D network or standalone boxes and others are linked to the rest of the company. “Not all of these machines should be linked together into a single network,” he says. “There needs to be someone who understands the security issues for the company who is looking at all these assets and deciding their networking rights.” Besides security, says Andrea Peiro, the CEO and founder of the Small Business Technology Institute, a non-profit devoted to encouraging technology adoption among small business, another reason to consider putting a machine off the network, is that if it “performs a very specialized task – such as direct e-mail marketing distribution – and may be faster if directly connected to non-shared Internet access.” Hidden costs of off-network computers Having a computer that is not attached to the network can protect sensitive data and provide one less avenue for malware, but it can also be an inconvenience. It’s a cost from a time perspective. It takes a lot longer to go over to another PC and burn the information onto a CD or put it on a USB drive than to e-mail it over the network or allow the computer user to download it from the Internet or an intranet. On the other hand, says Stamp, it takes a lot of time to wipe spyware off a PC, or worse. “In business, you have got to make the call,” he says. If keeping certain PCs off the network is too much of a hassle, Peiro suggests that a small company can configure its firewall and gateways differently and assign different levels of access to different users. “Sometimes a simple repositioning of the network firewall and the Internet gateway,” she says, “creating multiple sub-networks with different levels of access to resources, may elegantly address the concerns and maintain the benefits of the network for everybody.”

About 2883 days ago Computer Security

Small Businesses More Vulnerable to Tech Threats

July 28, 2005–Small businesses are increasingly vulnerable to information security threats due to a passive, complacent attitude toward security risks, according to a survey conducted by the Small Business Technology Institute (SBTI) of over 1000 small businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Although the amount of viruses and spyware is increasing, the main cause of the growing vulnerability is that small businesses are adopting more sophisticated technology, which makes them more susceptible to threats. “40% of one-person businesses operate on a network,” said Patrick Cook, SBTI chief technology strategist and a co-author of the survey. “Networks and mobile devices make security risks escalate. The problem is that small business owners are aware of security issues, but they don’t think the issues apply to them.” The complacent attitude small business owners have toward information security was reflected in the survey’s results. Although 56% of small businesses said they had experienced at least one information security incident within the last year, fewer than 30% increased information security spending during the same time frame. The vulnerability of small businesses to security threats, which decrease productivity by causing temporary inconveniences that require time and resources to be fixed, could have considerable negative repercussions. The survey said that because small businesses support over half of the nation’s GDP, their increasing vulnerability “represents an extremely high and worsening point of exposure for the U.S economy as a whole.”

About 2883 days ago Wireless Networks

Small Businesses More Vulnerable to Tech Threats

July 28, 2005–Small businesses are increasingly vulnerable to information security threats due to a passive, complacent attitude toward security risks, according to a survey conducted by the Small Business Technology Institute (SBTI) of over 1000 small businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Although the amount of viruses and spyware is increasing, the main cause of the growing vulnerability is that small businesses are adopting more sophisticated technology, which makes them more susceptible to threats. “40% of one-person businesses operate on a network,” said Patrick Cook, SBTI chief technology strategist and a co-author of the survey. “Networks and mobile devices make security risks escalate. The problem is that small business owners are aware of security issues, but they don’t think the issues apply to them.” The complacent attitude small business owners have toward information security was reflected in the survey’s results. Although 56% of small businesses said they had experienced at least one information security incident within the last year, fewer than 30% increased information security spending during the same time frame. The vulnerability of small businesses to security threats, which decrease productivity by causing temporary inconveniences that require time and resources to be fixed, could have considerable negative repercussions. The survey said that because small businesses support over half of the nation’s GDP, their increasing vulnerability “represents an extremely high and worsening point of exposure for the U.S economy as a whole.”