SMB

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 ...

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 tho...

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 ...

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 l...

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 regu...

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...

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...

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 th...

I'm still surprised by the range of companies and nonprofit organizations moving to the cloud, and pleased to hear about the business benefits they are gaining from their decisions. An illustration of this growing movement is a series of webcast interviews I recently conducted of CXOs from a variety...

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling that found Microsoft unlawfully infringed on i4i's document-editing patents by incorporating its technology in some of its Word products. The $290 million penalty is small change for Microsoft, but the verdict could have more troubling implicati...

If your company has decided that the time is right for an initial public offering, it should consider the options available to it. There are ways by which a company can become publicly traded without the lengthy and costly process that usually accompanies an IPO. A common alternative to an IPO is a ...

Businesses are constantly searching for ways to reduce costs and improve revenues. Mobile technologies can provide incredible value because they offer immediate business interactions from almost anywhere. Mobile payments can expand your sales channels by helping you meet customers where they are. Pr...

A recent study that I just read shows that the startup success rate over a period of 10 years is about 30 percent. This obviously means that about 70 percent of startups are out of business after a 10-year period! There is no doubt that the failure rate of startups is stunning and, in my opinion, wi...

As the U.S. begins to limp through another anemic year economically, we see more government regulation hampering innovation -- this time engineered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office through its new fast-track process. A fee of $4,000 (increased from the base fee of $1,090) would expedite the ...

AOL cofounder Steve Case is teaming up with the Obama White House and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to launch Startup America, a partnership to "foster innovative high-growth firms in the United States," said Kauffman representative Benjamin Branham. It "is designed to marshal more resources ...