Please participate in our three surveys as part of the SMB nation March Madness party! Salary, Top 150 and Operations. All here and all good.

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Axcient Inc., the provider of the Axcient complete data protection and business continuity platform, purpose-built for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and IT administrators to serve their small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers, today announced the release of ServerAlive™.  With ServerAlive, Axcient is the first company to unify backup, business continuity and disaster recovery on a single platform built by the same team.

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Sad Demise – The Cloud Killed Windows Essential Business Server (EBS)
Here is some breaking news. Microsoft just announced the “discontinuation” of Windows Essential Business Server (EBS) and simultaneously reaffirmed its commitment to the small and medium business (SMB) space with its Windows Small Business Server (SBS) product. So what is the reason for the sad demise of EBS?
“The cloud killed EBS” shared Jay Weiss, CEO of Computer HMO. “Chalk up a victory for robust infrastructure solutions such as Microsoft Business Productivity Online suite (BPOS). Compound that with line of business solutions such as Salesforce.com and you have a whole new, online landscape that makes the on-premises EBS solution feel so yesterday. It happened much faster than we all thought!”
I can share this background on the EBS product from the SMB Nation point of view. I go back to the days of big BackOffice, one of the best server-side SKUs ever deployed by Microsoft. In so many ways, BackOffice was the predecessor to EBS. Read on.

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The other day we hosted a Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) webinar called “Beyond VoIP – More SMB Stack Stuff” Afterwards, Wolfgang asked excellent question(s) and I quote: “Jennifer, I believe the event was great. The audio quality of one speaker though was a bit awkward at times. Anyway, what I would like to ask Harry or one of the guest speakers is how does Microsoft position BPOS vs. SBS? To me there seems to be a conflict for SMB partners and channels where one solution is on-premise based (SBS) and the other one is offered as SaaS (BPOS), but both compete for very much the same overlapping functionality and customers. Would be interesting to get their thoughts on that. Great stuff, keep up the good work for the SMB community! With best regards, Wolfgang S.”

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At some level, it's akin to who Microsoft prepared for several years for the departure of Bill Gates. Today I have started a long journey in career transition to politely leave the private sector and return to the academic community. I am honored and humbled to accept the appointment as Dean of the School of Technology at Aspen University.

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American small business is again in transition. Many employees, now working from home, are no longer tied to a geographic office and the woes of commuting. This is a relatively new phenomenon with hints of explosive sector growth in the days ahead. As this turbulent economy has forced downsizing, offshore restructuring and closures in large companies, many new entrepreneurs have been born. These are people, who instead of tirelessly attempting to find new employment and possibly enduring the same fate as previously experienced, are now starting small businesses and enjoying the benefits and perils of self-employment.

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Just when you thought it wasn't safe to surf the Web in the new Cloud-computing paradigm, BPOS has surprised everyone with a announcement early this week on it's US Federal government certification. And I quote...

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We are thrilled and honored that AmyB will be joining us at the SMB Nation Spring 2010 event, April 30 - May 2, 2010, speaking on BACKUPS EVERYWHERE! Join the fun at our 5th Annual Conference HERE: http://www.smbnation.com/Events/SMBNationSpring2010/tabid/286/Default.aspx.

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It’s no secret that someday, someway I want to return to the academic community as a professor. I’m delighted to announce that journey has started with my appointment as the Dean of the Technology program at Aspen University (www.aspen.edu). I look forward to this role in addition to my day job as CEO of SMB Nation.


More importantly, we are DELIGHTED and thrilled to announce our SMB Nation Pocket MBA program. This is an online ACCREDITED

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Many of us in the SMB Nation tribe have been more successful than we ever imagined. With that success, we have a strong obligation to make sure we leave a little behind. That is, hopefully we give more than we take. Success is a fantastic thing, but don't forget the great responsibility that comes with that success.

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