I doubt that many small businesses utilize more than 30% of the features in  Salesforce.  Most businesses would probably be just as well off with a Contact Management System.  Salesforce has sensed the market opportunity and just released a Contact Manger version of their CRM.

For $9/user/month ($16 less that the next step up) Salesforce provides just the functionality many small businesses need.  

With the Contact Manager Edition users can store contacts, track customers, manage tasks and meetings and integrate the system with popular email applications.  

Even though $9 a month is pretty cheap, Zoho still offers a free version of their CRM.  I think Zoho is really simple to use and usually recommend it to small businesses.  

I would choose Salesforce if you have more complex requirements than Zoho can provide or have more than three users.  

Learn about Zoho CRM. 

Learn more about the Contact Manager Edition of Salesforce

It has been a long time since three major operating systems all released a major update within a few months of each other.  If you read my blog you will know that I am partial to Linux and Macs.  So asking me what operating system you should choose would not result in an unbiased answer.  

Even though I like Linux and Macs I do know it is unreasonable for small businesses to all move away from Windows.  There is just too much software that is Windows dependent... not to mention people know how to use Windows.  

But for those who are interested in considering switching operating systems I've got two reviews to help you make that decision.  The first review compares Windows 7 to Snow Leopard.  The second review looks at Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Linux 9.10.  

Don't have time to read the review?  Here is my one sentence summary:  Everyone knows how to use Windows, Snow Leopard is beautiful and Ubuntu Linux is fast.  

The NYTimes has a good review of Snow Leopard, the latest OS upgrade for Mac users.  

What's unique about this upgrade is what it doesn't do... provide you with a lot of new features.

Instead Apple decided to refine, optimize and improve upon the existing OS.  What emerged is an OS that is smaller, sleeker and quicker.  Oh and guess what... It only costs $30 for users running Leopard.  

Read the full Snow Leopard Review.

Apple has announced that it will ship the next version of its operating system on August 28.  
 

Pre-order Snow Leopard here.  

Read the full press release here.  

Many businesses operate around Microsoft Outlook.  As Macs become more and more popular I've found people are interested in using Macs and PCs in an office environment.  This poses a problem for offices that rely heavily on Outlook.  I never understood why Microsoft didn't place Outlook on Office for Mac from the get-go, but for some-reason Mac users were forced to use  Microsoft Entourage.  While Entourage looked similar on the surface business users quickly found it lacked many of the features they relied on in Outlook. 

Well, Microsoft is taking a big step forward in announcing that Outlook will ship in the next version of Office for Mac.  This version of Office for Mac is expected to be released in late 2010.  

Microsoft seems to finally be taking steps to allow all users (regardless of operating system) to have the full functionality of Microsoft Office.  Microsoft also announced a business edition of Office for Mac that will allow Mac users better synchronization with Exchange Servers.  

While I think this is great, I still believe the best way to get true operating system independence is to switch your office over to Google Applications.  

Content management systems like Drupal, Wordpress and Joomla are great because the make is very easy to people to create powerful websites.  Despite there power, a major drawback is they can be less secure thank simple html websites.  To deter hackers, it is important to always apply the latest security patches when they come out.  

Another good practice is to make regular backups of your site for archival and recovery purposes.  This way, if someone does hack your site you can easily restore it to a working condition.  

Here is info about the latest Wordpress vulnerability that allows a prankster to lock out the admin account.  

Get the Wordpress update here.  

Wireless networks abound in urban areas.  Unfortunately this causes slowdown in the bandwith for users on the networks (expecially if you are trying to stream video).

The NYTimes has a great primer on how to speed up your home (or office) wireless network. 

When I talk about open source software, people often have difficulty understanding how open source software can be free.  When I explain that open source software is created by a worldwide community of volunteers I usually end up creating more questions.   

Consider the Firefox web browser.  Firefox is an example of a very successful open source project.  The New York Times reports that, "Only a small fraction of the people involved in building Firefox are paid employees at Mozilla, which has about 250 workers. An additional 1,000 or so programmers contributed code for the most recent Firefox release. There are also tens of thousands of other volunteers who help test and promote Firefox, write add-ons and help translate it into more than 70 languages."

Firefox is not alone though. Wired magazine reports that, "Ohloh, a company that tracks the open source industry, lists roughly 250,000 people working on an amazing 275,000 projects. That's almost the size of General Motors' workforce. That is an awful lot of people working for free, even if they're not full-time. Imagine if all the employees of GM weren't paid yet continued to produce automobiles!"

Now once you start to grasp how many people are contributing to open source projects, the next questions often is why?  

Wired continues, "A survey of 2,784 open source developers explored their motivations. The most common was "to learn and develop new skills." That's practical. One academic put it this way (paraphrasing): The major reason for working on free stuff is to improve my own damn software."

While I'll admit that sometimes I don't understand how open source software continues to survive (and thrive) I have to admit that it works.  Open source even seems to be growing and gaining traction.  

As long as the open source model continues to work and produce great software I'll continue to recommend it to small businesses.  

Ready the NYTimes article.

Read the entire Wired article: The New Socialism.  

Anyone who has designed a website quickly discovers that getting a website to look the same in all browsers is a pain.  IE 6 is probably the worst browser in terms of compatibility.  It took me a lot of work just to get my site to look normal in IE 6 (and it still isn't perfect).  

What's frustrating for web developers is that IE 6, which first appeared in 2001, still commands a large share of the browser market.  

After years of making site IE 6 compatible websites, developers are saying enough is enough.  YouTube recently started nudging IE 6 users to upgrade there browsers by letting users know that YouTube will be phasing out  support for IE 6.  

Some web developers are taking a more direct approach by encouraging people to add code to there website that will tell IE 6 users that their software is missing updates and redirect them to the IE upgrade site.  

We all have our favorite browses, but for the sake of thousands of web developers who struggle to make sites work in IE 6, please upgrade if you haven't already.  

Or in less subtle terms, I'll quote from ie6update.com, " IE 6 is like an illness that just won't go away, but we have the medicine."  
 

We often hear about large companies using social media like Twitter to promote their products.  When you view the twitter page of a company like Dell its easy to wish your business could also have almost 1 million followers.  

What is interesting though is that the New York Times is reporting that small businesses now outnumber large companies on Twitter.  In fact a number of small businesses say Twitter is their sole means of marketing.  

The article tells the story of Curtis Kimball who sets up a creme brulee cart in San Francisco.  Kimball uses Twitter to post the current location of his creme brulee cart and the current flavors.  

Mr Kimball has amassed more than 5,500 followers.  Kimball quit his full time job as a carpenter to keep up with the demand for his creme brulee cart.  

Read the NYTimes article, "Mom-and-Pop Operators Turn to Social Media."