SMB

Following a sterling Q4 in which it added 2.1 million individual customers, T-Mobile last week announced it was going after competitors with its "Un-carrier for Business" plan. By offering one flexible rate plan, T-Mobile vowed to put an end to the pricing shell game and compulsory haggling business...

Square on Monday introduced two new services for small businesses: instant deposits; and protection for disputed purchases. Square, which six years ago began offering square-shaped mobile credit card readers for smartphones and tablets, has shifted its focus away from point-of-sale operations and to...

OPINION

Capitalizing on the Cloud

I've been traversing North America keynoting a series of cloud events hosted by Oracle. At every stop of the roadshow my comments regarding the opportunity to transform traditional product businesses into powerful information services via cloud-based alternatives has generated the greatest interest ...

BitTorrent Sync Goes Pro

BitTorrent on Wednesday announced new plans for its Sync service, including a premium subscription option, along with other new paid products. Sync, which was released in beta in July, is billed as a cloud-free file-sharing solution. Currently in version 1.4, Sync soon will graduate to version 2.0, ...

GOVERNMENT IT REPORT

SBA Proposal Could Change Landscape for IT Resellers

Doing business with the U.S. government is always a challenge. In addition to uncertain budgets, political infighting, and the seemingly endless procurement terms of the Federal Acquisition Regulations, there are many other special provisions that come into play in government contracting. One of the...

While most people view Salesforce.com's annual Dreamforce event as the largest user conference in the cloud industry, it is also the biggest gathering of cloud companies and their growing assortment of business partners. In many ways, Dreamforce is the best demonstration that the channel isn't dead ...

Toll fraud -- the hijacking of a phone system to dial out to premium numbers in distant countries at several dollars a minute -- costs companies more than $4.7 billion a year, up nearly $1 billion from 2011. Major carriers have sophisticated fraud systems in place to catch hackers, and they can affo...

Semiconductor company Marvell recently launched its Kinoma Create construction kit for consumer electronics on Indiegogo. Should a $6.5 billion company turn to crowdfunding to raise money? Are large companies drying up a source of funding that otherwise would be available to startups? Is that morall...

ANALYSIS

Monetizing the IoT From A to Z

There is no question that one of the hottest topics in the tech industry is the rapidly evolving world of the Internet of Things. The seemingly infinite variety of use cases for capturing data from a widening array of connected devices and objects is inspiring the imaginations of corporate decision ...

Amazon has introduced Amazon Local Register to the mobile payment market, taking on such companies as Square and Paypal Here. The product is a combination of a secure card reader, which sells for $10, and a free mobile app. Together, they offer a platform that allows businesses to accept credit and ...

A rising tide of interest has sparked a series of competitive moves among the widening array of software and technology providers vying for a share of the rapidly expanding IoT market. The enormous promise has driven a growing number of large and small players to rebrand and reposition their product...

Google on Wednesday announced that it has begun factoring websites' use of HTTPS into its search rankings, resulting in more favorable results for those that use the security-minded protocol. "Over the past few months we've been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted c...

Google on Wednesday unveiled a handful of new features for Google Apps for Business designed to attract more enterprise customers. Google Hangouts, its video chat service, will be further integrated into Google's enterprise suite, entitling Google Apps for Business customers to the same level of sup...

Path has hived off its mobile-only messaging service as a standalone app named "Talk," it said Friday. It also ended limits on the number of friends users can communicate with, and announced its purchase of place messaging pioneer TalkTo as it sets itself for growth. The Talk app has a new feature, ...

Small businesses have been an elusive market for sellers of online advertising. That's because the value proposition of those ads is a tough sell. Facebook hopes to reduce some of the resistance in the small business community to advertising online with a series of summer boot camps, dubbed "Faceboo...

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