SMB

Results of Symantec SMB disaster recovery survey suggest upside for channel

The good news is that you have a lot of prospects in small-business disaster recovery solutions, according to a recent survey by Symantec. The bad news is that most of your prospective customers don’t understand just unprepared they are, so your sales cycle isn’t likely to be easy. Continued »

Ingram Micro gets first dibs on IBM Smart Cube

Ingram Micro can now sell IBM’s Smart Cubes, making it the first broadline distributor to lay claim to these appliance-like devices for SMBs. Continued »

Survey: SMBs poised to rebound when economy turns

Small-business owners are a remarkably resilient breed. Even though the federal government sometimes seems to be out to get them (an extra week of vacation anyone?), a new study that was conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by services company Verio, finds that 83 percent of small-business executives are optimistic about their potential for growth once the economy turns. Continued »

Microsoft research: More than half of SMBs will maintain or increase IT spending this year

There are two big reasons Microsoft should be concerned about the health of small and midsize businesses: First, because many of its revenue dollars are tied up in this chunk of the commercial market. Second, many of channel partners happen to fall into this chunk of the U.S. business universe.

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EDS touts self as Microsoft-hosted CRM BFF (for now)

EDS today called itself the world’s largest Microsoft CRM  hosting partner. With 180 data centers supporting untold numbers (really, they’re untold) of hosted Microsoft CRM customers. Overall, EDS says it oversees 3.3 million Windows desktops and 100,000 Windows servers. Continued »

Dell’s New Year’s Eve surprise

Dell Inc. launched a major reorg on December 31. The move “globalizes” operations around three major customer segments — large enterprise, public sector, and small and medium businesses (SMBs). The press release posted quietly on Wednesday morning, making the Dell just the latest tech vendor to attempt to bury major news that could be construed as negative, before a holiday. Or so it seems. (The consumer segment was already handled globally.)

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EPEAT makes it easier for resellers to be green

Anyone who has any interest in representing green technology is familiar with the EPEAT rating system (EPEAT stands for Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool). At least I hope you are, since the government uses this information to guide procurement choices and many commercial accounts look to it as well for their own green IT initiatives.

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ERP swoon–Is it Microsoft specific?

Anecdotal evidence is that Microsoft ERP sales are in the tank this year, although it’s hard to tell how much of that is Microsoft-specific vs. the overall ERP category sucking wind of late.

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An SMB CEO’s view on where innovation equals technology

Historically speaking, IBM understands better than almost any other high-tech company I’ve come across how corporate innovation can be facilitated by (or hampered by) technology investments. It certainly has plenty of research to illustrate this, including its most recent “Enterprise of the Future” study, which includes results from the company’s Global CEO survey of more than 1,100 chief executives.

Since I know many of you are mainly focused on SMB prospects, I wanted to share a few findings focused on midmarket companies as well as some thoughts from one of the midmarket CEOs I spoke with when the study was released a few weeks back. (IBM defines midmarket companies as those with between 100 and 1,000 employees.)

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Microsoft makes SBS 2008 bits available to (some) subscribers

The RTM version of Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 is posted to Microsoft’s TechNet and MSDN for subscribers. Some subscribers that is. A few subsets of that population still cannot access the software — all they get is greyed-out links. That’s a buzz kill. Word has it that Microsoft is working on the issue.

Also, Action Pack subscribers, who got access to the premium edition of SBS 2003, will now only get the Standard Edition. The differentiator between standard and premium editions is the presence of SQL Server 2008 in the latter. And since Action Pack people already can get the database, why the shutout?

Registered partners can subscribe to Action Pack for $300 a year to get lots of not-for-resale software and other perks.