SMB

A recent advertising campaign has eBay exhorting consumers to "Shop Victoriously," and, it's true, winning an online auction can be fun. My recent score -- vintage hand carders to process wool for spinning, won for a mere $15 -- was a hoot. I got solid tools for an obscure craft at less than one-thi...

The idea was simple: Build a large catalog of consumer items and make it accessible in a structured format, unlike what already exists in wide-open search engines like Google. Give users tools similar to what they get on financial Web sites. Give a unique online business experience to both the buyer...

If you told Rhett Frandsen 10 years ago he'd end up being a professional widget-maker, he probably would have called you crazy. "Back then, widgets were only something you read about in your economics book," Frandsen laughed. "Until Apple coined the phrase, everybody had sort of agreed upon the fact...

The world of online business communication has introduced two industry-changing elements for small business: more customers and more competitors. Circa 1999, you were ahead of the competition by simply having a Web site to preview your service or products. By 2004, Web transactions were the norm, an...

Small and medium-sized businesses are demanding the same level of quality and functionality for their IT Web infrastructure as larger enterprise IT organizations. Many SMB organizations are implementing their own application delivery optimization solutions; however, others prefer to outsource their...

The global business process outsourcing market continues to strengthen relative to the more mature IT outsourcing market and is forecast to reach $450 billion by 2012, according to a June report from BPO analyst firm NelsonHall. Within this massive outsourcing market exists a relatively small $500 m...

Today's savvy consumers want products from a business they can trust, learn from, relate to and "be friends" with. The two most popular social networking sites on the Internet -- MySpace and Facebook -- are potential springboards for friendly lead generation. These sites give online business owners ...

If you've ever wondered what goes on in the inner sanctum of a prospective employer or wondered how your salary compares with others in your field, a new Web site launched Tuesday could have the answer. The site, Glassdoor.com, allows current and recent former employees to anonymously report their s...

Mukesh Chatter is no stranger to startups. In 1997, he founded Nexabit Networks, a high-speed switch and router maker he sold to Lucent Technologies. He later founded Axiowave Networks. His latest, project, MoneyAisle.com, however, is different, in part because of the inspiration that got it started...

When Eric Aubertin, founder and CEO of the e-commerce loyalty firm OneBigPlanet, sold his last company, eFundraising, to "Reader's Digest," he had time on his hands to shape the idea behind his next online innovation. He had a notion to develop a new type of consumer platform that would bring commun...

Though it may seem at times as if the U.S. market is dominated by foreign-made goods, longtime importer Albert Wu believes even more goods could be making their way to consumers. Wu and the others behind Internet startup Silkfair.com have long been involved in the importing business, bringing specia...

The current economy in the U.S. has put tremendous strain on many companies, particularly startups. Usually, our firm gets very few inquiries from companies that are facing bankruptcy and are looking for strategies, options and alternatives to bankruptcy. Lately, however, that seems to have changed....

Companies in the SMB market segment often don't have the expertise or financial resources to formulate and then implement formal business continuity and disaster recovery plans like larger enterprises. In a recent Aberdeen Benchmark Report, Business Continuity: Implementing Disaster Recovery Strateg...

Globalization, adoption of more open, capitalist economies in developing countries, and technological advances have made building a small or medium-sized business as tough as it's ever been. The potential rewards are substantial, however. Thanks to developments in the IT and telecommunications indus...

Globalization, adoption of more open, capitalist economies in developing countries, and technological advances have made building a small or medium-sized business as tough as it's ever been. The potential rewards are substantial, however. Thanks to developments in the IT and telecommunications indus...