Bainbridge Island-based SMB Nation is now up and running after being down 20+ hours at its Miller Road office with a spring storm and associated power outages. That's the good news - we're open for business again!
Fact of the matter is I run a small business with just under ten employees. It's both a rewarding and challenging role. Over the past 24-hours, I’ve been accurately reminded how the weather can impact a small business. The answer is BRUTALLY!

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I call this economic recovery the "rocky road" recovery. While that was also my favorite ice cream as a teen when I had the munchies - it's now my fav...

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Dear Mom - I just hired my eight employee. Who would have thunk it when I was a mere babe in the woods - growing up in Alaska. The new employee - Cath...

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It's amazing how many folks get confused by time. This past weekend as we had our annual "Spring Ahead" event, folks were baffled on Sunday about time...

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If I had only been this popular in high school! I've been waiting for the 1,000 legitimate LinkedIn contact request to flow in and its from none other than the self-styled "Chief Computer Geek" at Computer Geeks in Toronto, ONT, Canada.

The pother day, I tweeted that I was at 999 LinkedIn contacts.

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It’s been a week since Microsoft announced its end of life for EBS and the community has reacted strongly. I met with Microsoft Redmond this past Wednesday and did not receive an official update on the EBS situation.
The online community new groups are on fire about Microsoft’s decision to end-of-life Windows Essential Business Server (EBS). Microsoft’s announcement caught the SMB community by surprise last Friday (see my “breaking news” e-mail last Friday afternoon on this topic).

I will use this article to update last week’s announcement.

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Last week at the D&H West Coast show - I interviewed Michael Schwab, co-president of D&H, about the above of plan robust sales of Windows 7 and the PC refresh rate. You can view the video interview HERE.

But there is more to the story. D&H has identified a specific opportunity for the small, independent VARs that make up much of its customer base. The resurgence in PC sales, bolstered by Microsoft Windows 7 but emerging even before the launch, opens the potential to sell an array of add-on solutions to support new PC purchases, including technologies that take advantage of Windows 7’s unique features.

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About a month ago I spoke with the executives at TMCnet.com at its Miami and was advised that it was pursuing a possible collocation with the MSP Alliance. Two days ago, March 9th, this became official news. It underscores the trend we are seeing (and hopefully leading) of the voice+ data communities coming together in SMB. We have engaged in a similar manner with Channel Partners in our recently completed SMB VoIP workshop.

Witness the "news" on this collocation.

MSPAlliance Brings Premier, MSP-Focused Conference to Industry’s Major, International Communications Event

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SMB Nation and SpamSoap are bringing to popular BeerFests to Boston, New York City and Washington DC between March 23-25, 2010! Please join us but und...

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Oh the irony! Here is a chance to meet a virtual cloud solution team "in-person" at an event next week in Seattle. Please join me for fun, merriment a...

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