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New Venture Firms See Major Opps in Federal IT Market May 23, 2012 
U.S. government agencies are looking everywhere they can to cut costs -- including the cost of information technology. Tight budgets will be the dominating factor in federal IT procurement over the next several years -- at least. Yet in the face of budget discipline -- and even slightly projected declines in spending -- two venture capital companies see great promise in the federal IT market.
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Silverpop Gives SMBs More Social Media Pull May 21, 2012 
Silverpop has been on the vanguard of old-school digital marketing providers -- that is, email marketing firms -- embracing social media. The company has released a slew of products designed to integrate the two disciplines. Given that history, it is difficult to imagine a subsector or market constituency that it missed in its earlier product rollouts, but apparently Silverpop has found one, and it has set out to rectify the omission.
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The Networked Economy May 21, 2012 
Mediafly is a startup company that delivers cloud-based applications for content management and distribution on mobile devices for Fortune 500 companies. Through the Ariba Network, Mediafly gained insight and control over its cash flow and found new means of managing capital and in aiding its ability to support ongoing operations, as well as to drive future growth.
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Kicking Off CRM Idol - Season 2 May 01, 2012 
Small CRM players have a chance to get their names out in the market if they win top spot at the second annual CRM Idol competition, which kicked off Monday. Hopefuls have until 6 p.m. Pacific time on May 25 to file their submissions. Contestants will be assigned a mentor to help them prepare the briefing or demo.
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Putting a B2B E-Commerce Twist Into the SMB April 28, 2012 
Business-to-business selling on the Internet, or B2B e-commerce, is one of the fastest growing segments of the small-business marketplace. As businesses flock to the Internet to find vendors for essential products and services, B2B e-commerce is rapidly expanding, both in terms of total revenue and the number of small B2B firms operating in the digital space.
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Burying Conventional Wisdom at The Next Web Conference April 27, 2012 
The Next Web, a network of online technology outlets, continued its annual conference Friday in Amsterdam. Heeding to Amsterdam's night life, The Next Web waited until 10 a.m. to get things started, which was probably just about as early as the sleep-deprived attendees could have hacked it.
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Sage Launches Mobile Payments Portal April 13, 2012 
Sage is getting ready to enhance its mobile payments offerings. Next month, the company will roll out Sage Exchange.com, an interface for Sage Exchange, which it introduced two years ago.
The rollout of Sage Exchange.com will considerably enhance what Sage Exchange offers customers, said Greg Hammermaster, president of Sage Payment Solutions.
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Microsoft Dynamics ERP Is Bound for Azure Glory March 26, 2012 
Microsoft is stepping up its cloud strategy, with the announcement that it will port its Microsoft Dynamics enterprise resource planning software to Windows Azure this year. The company outlined plans for the transition at Convergence 2012, held last week in Houston. Dynamics NAV 2013 and Dynamics GP 2013, optimized for small and mid-sized businesses, will be added to Azure in the fourth quarter of 2012.
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Silicon Valley's Secret Sauce February 14, 2012 
Business strategists and government officials routinely visit Silicon Valley in hopes of learning how to emulate the area's wildly successful startup culture. Now, thanks to The Start-Up of You, a new book by LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman and entrepreneur Ben Casnocha, the curious can save themselves the plane ticket.
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Counting the Cloud's Blessings February 10, 2012 
It amazes me that there are still analyst reports and other industry studies questioning the value of today's cloud solutions. While there is no question that the return on investment will vary depending on a variety of factors, there is plenty of evidence that anyone who employs cloud solutions thoughtfully today can generate plenty of measurable and tangible business benefits.
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Desk.com Makes Help Desks More Mobile, Social February 03, 2012 
Salesforce.com unveiled a new customer service help desk tool this week. Desk.com works with customer requests delivered over a social network. It is the byproduct of Salesforce.com's acquisition of Assistly last year. However, it is no mere product integration, said Alex Bard, former Assistly CEO and now vice president and general manager of Desk.com.
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Taking the Alternative-Lending Path to Financial Prosperity January 11, 2012 
It's been difficult in recent years for many people and small businesses to get the loans they need from banks and other traditional lenders, but there are a variety of alternative models. One is person-to-person lending, offered by companies like
Prosper, which essentially lets individual people become lenders. "We look at Prosper as a new way of banking," said Chris Larsen, Prosper's CEO and cofounder.
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Telework: The New SMB Imperative December 13, 2011 
One of the most significant workplace changes of the past decade has been the steady increase in telework and flexible work arrangements. In the past, the ability to work remotely from time to time might have just shown up on a "corporate perks" sheet handed to new employees. Today, telework is no longer an employee perk but rather a business imperative.
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Results Software Strengthens Bonds With SMB Apps November 18, 2011 
Results Software has rolled out the latest iteration of its longstanding CRM business suite product. In this version, it builds on its recent three-way integration with QuickBooks, Outlook and SmartVault. That integration with three applications widely used by small- and medium-sized companies is what President and Founder Naseem Saab says is the application's secret sauce.
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6 Keys for Going Global With Your E-Commerce Op November 15, 2011 
For U.S.-based retailers, running a successful global e-commerce business takes the right balance of strong local marketing and effective operations. While it is essential that retailers cater to local customer experience expectations, it is also critically important to abide by local laws and regulations.
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Data Integration in the Cloud - or Not November 11, 2011 
Data integration is critical for companies that need to combine systems and databases after a merger or acquisition, or need to link legacy systems to new business applications. This need is vast throughout commercial and public industries, and the task can be daunting, especially for CIOs and IT managers of small- to medium-sized businesses.
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Marketo's Spark Ignites Small-Biz Marketing Efforts October 21, 2011 
Marketo is taking aim at the smaller end of the business community with Spark, a stripped-down version of its revenue performance management application. The new offering is an entirely separate product; however, there is a tight migration path between it and other products in the Marketo family, said Phil Fernandez, CEO and president.
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Seed the Cloud September 21, 2011 
Turn on an episode of Seinfeld and return with me to the 1990s! This summer the
National Venture Capital Association released results for the second quarter of this year, showing that $7.5 billion was invested in 966 deals. This represented an increase of 19 percent in dollars and deals over the first quarter and continues a trend of larger deal sizes relative to 2010. Who's getting the money?
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Congress Gives US Patent Process Extreme Makeover September 12, 2011 
After six years of debate over patent reform, the U.S. Senate last week overwhelmingly approved the America Invents Act, a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. patent system that intends to weed out unnecessary patents and put the country more on par with international patent procedures. The bill, authored by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., passed with a bipartisan vote of 89-9 in the Senate.
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SMBs, the Cloud and the Difference Between Disaster and Disaster Recovery August 20, 2011 
Many small-business owners may not realize that the cloud plays a big role in their business operations, and its importance is growing every day. I'm often asked, "What exactly is the cloud, and why does my company need it?" Simply put, the cloud hosts resources and applications that are accessed through the Internet.
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