SMB

For a time, small businesses probably felt like little kids getting bumped out of line for the ice cream truck. They would jump up and down, money in hand, trying to catch the attention of software vendors, only to see those vendors choose to do business with larger, stronger, deeper-pocketed enterp...

Just a few years ago, getting an e-business off the ground was as easy as drawing up a business plan and finding the venture capital to fund it. Those days, to put it mildly, are over. But this does not mean businesses that rely on the Web are no longer sprouting. While most e-biz startups are not d...

Optimism that venture funding had ended its three-year freefall late last year was replaced with a cold dose of reality in the first quarter as venture capitalists kept purse strings drawn tight, pushing funding levels to a five-year low. Nationwide, venture investors sunk $3.8 billion into up-and-c...

When it comes to choosing a database, size matters -- not so much the size of the database, but the size of the company. Whereas medium to large companies generally select a complex database and then task administrators and developers with building applications around it, small businesses usually ...

Big enterprises are obvious sales targets for technology vendors. For both hardware and software providers, landing a big installation that affects thousands of workers is like hitting a home run. But the current economic climate is a stiff wind blowing in from the outfield, turning those prospectiv...

So, you have a product or two. You want to expand your reach. The Internet sits at your fingertips. If you build it, will they come? Not necessarily. That is the big lesson of the bubble years -- and a quandary for small e-commerce companies at a time when venture capitalists are not feeling adventu...

Cisco Systems has announced it will partner with Yahoo! to target its networking solutions toward small and mid-size businesses that previously may have thought the company's gear was too costly for them or that do not know where to turn for networking help. "Yahoo! offers a comfort level," Yankee G...

Venture investing plunged nearly 50 percent in 2002, dipping to levels last seen in 1998, according to the latest MoneyTree Survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers, Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). During the year, venture financiers invested just $21.2 billion, comp...

The world's most-trafficked Web site has announced it will begin offering Web hosting packages aimed at small businesses. For between $11.95 and $39.95 per month, small businesses will receive 10 to 35 e-mail accounts, 50 to 350 megabytes of storage and 20 to 35 gigabytes of data transfer. "We see t...

With more people adopting broadband, and larger national ISPs swallowing up smaller regional ones, some industry observers think independent ISPs are on the ropes. But executives at small ISPs see a bright future for those that survived the industry consolidation of recent years. Although giant ISPs...

Apple has made it a priority to lure small businesses to the Mac OS platform, reasoning that they will be willing to abandon Windows in favor of a network that is easier to maintain without tremendous IT resources. Brian Croll, Apple's senior director of software for worldwide product marketing, tol...

Eighty-one percent of small businesses that maintained an online presence during last year's holiday season reached new customers, leading to an increase in sales and profitability, according to a new Harris Interactive survey released by Yahoo! That seems like a compelling figure, but most small bu...

Venture capital investments tumbled another 26 percent in the third quarter, with quarterly funding levels falling below $5 billion for the first time since 1998, according to a new report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association. The number ...

It may be an overused phrase, but it is still a fact that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and this rule certainly has held true in e-commerce. But there is still abundant opportunity for less-established e-commerce sites to trumpet their existence to the world -- or at least the part of the worl...

Many online retailers have spent considerable time and money trying to duplicate the success of Amazon.com, but the market conditions that spawned Amazon no longer exist, according to Giga Information Group analyst Andrew Bartels. "It is unlikely that any existing retailer would let you take over a ...