What is Hybrid Computing, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published on June 9, 2010, in Small Business Computing)
What is Hybrid Computing?
A hybrid computing platform lets customers connect the packaged small business software applications that they run on their own internal desktops or servers to applications that run in the cloud.
As discussed in What is Cloud Computing and Why Should You Care?, more software [...]

Does IBM Lotus Really Want to Get Small? My Take on Brent Leary’s Podcast

I still haven’t had time to write about Lotusphere 2010, but in the meantime, you may want to listen to the conversation I had with small business guru and friend Brent Leary. Last week, Brent interviewed me about my take on this year’s Lotus event, announcements and news.
Naturally, our conversation centered on the small business angle, which [...]

SMB Collaboration Battle Heats Up: VMware Announces Deal to Acquire Zimbra

As we predicted just a couple of weeks ago in our 2010 Top 10 SMB Technology Predictions, the collaboration battle is heating up! VMware just announced that has entered into a definitive agreement with Yahoo! to acquire Zimbra, which provides email and collaboration software.
Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but under the terms of the agreement, VMware [...]

What Is Green IT, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published in Small Business Computing, December 29, 2009)
Technology insiders tend to throw around technical terms and business jargon, assuming people outside the industry understand what it all means. By its nature, technology vocabulary is often confusing and complicated, and insiders often add to the confusion by over-complicating things. To help add a sense of [...]

2010 Top 10 SMB Technology Market Predictions

Fellow SMB analyst Sanjeev Aggarwal and I have teamed up to bring you our top ten technology related predictions-plus three bonus predictions–for the SMB (companies with 1-1000 employees) market for 2010. Details for each prediction follow the list below.
Remember to vote for your top prediction here!
2010 Top 10 SMB Technology Market Predictions
1. Pent Up SMB [...]

What is Social Networking, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published in Small Business Computing, April 7, 2009)
Technology insiders tend to throw around technical terms and business jargon, assuming people outside the industry understand what it all means. By its nature, technology vocabulary is often confusing and complicated, and insiders often add to the confusion by over-complicating things. To help add a sense of clarity [...]

IBM Lotus Foundations: A Real Choice for Small Businesses and Partners

As I mentioned in a blog I posted after Lotusphere 2009, IBM Lotus has been reluctant to go head to head with obvious rivals, particularly Microsoft. At Lotusphere, however, the company came out swinging, declaring intentions “shatter Windows” and “change desktop economics” with Symphony, the free Lotus desktop suite, and compete aggressively against Microsoft Small [...]

What Will Social Networking Displace?

Just a couple of years ago, many people were still debating whether digital social networking was just a flash in the pan. With social media growth surging, that that debate is over. People have moved on to try and figure out where social networking is headed—as evidenced when I Googled the “future of social networking” [...]

BroadSoft now supporting Hosted Video Unified Communications creating new revenue opportunities for Service Provider partners

BroadSoft, the leading provider of hosted PBX platform, VoIP services and unified communications solutions is now supporting video communication solutions from the leading video communications vendors – Tandberg, Polycom and LifeSize.

As SMBs become more distributed and globalized, efficient communications and collaboration are becoming increasingly difficult with utilizing only applications like e-mail and audio conferencing solutions. [...]

Meet MrTed

Those of you that follow me on Twitter and read some of the reports I’ve written over the years know I’m very interested free software-as-service (SaaS) offerings, and how companies that take this approach plan to monetize their free services.
Last week, I had a briefing with Jerome Ternynck, the CEO of MrTed, which has been [...]