SMB Nation Blog

Last October, Softbank, the Japanese wireless company, made an offer to acquire Sprint Nextel. Now there are others that are willing to get a spot on Sprint’s dance card, one of them being DISH Networks, which has now jumped in to acquire the wireless giant.  And it gets even better…in order to get this deal done, Sprint Nextel is trying to acquire Clearwire to get their spectrum. In addition, Verizon Wireless has also entered the foray, and is bidding on the Cleariwire spectrum as well. 

Infonetics Research yesterday released key findings from their most recent VoIP and UC Services and Subscribers forecast report. This report, which tracks vendors such as AT&T, Comcast, NTT, Shaw Communications and Time Warner Cable, found that the overall VoIP services market saw a 9% increase from 2011 to 2012, which works out to a $63 billion market for both residential and business subscribers.

Additional key findings include:

IBM said that it has acquired UrbanCode Inc., a provider of automated software delivery to help businesses quickly release and update mobile, social, big data, cloud applications. 

Cbeyond yesterday revealed its top five tips to help SMBs save resources dedicated to managing and maintaining cloud servers before, during or post cloud implementation. The guidelines, part of Cbeyond's "Technology Ally" best practices series, are designed to help SMBs realize the full potential of their IT investments and better serve customers.

We heard today that a trio of successful IT business owners are joining together in a new effort to help IT companies improve their businesses and achieve greater operational effectiveness. Now known as Bering McKinley, the company is a new venture founded by Josh Peterson, Adam Bielanski and Rory Reed. Many of our readers and our community know Peterson from when he was with Taylor Business Group and then FusionTek; he has offered consulting services to the IT community for nearly a decade and is known for assisting IT companies that are struggling with limited growth, underperforming sales and subpar customer service.

Here we go again! As I do each week, I am really enjoying bringing our readers a quick round-up of the blog coverage I didn’t manage to get to during the week prior. We have been pretty busy around here at SMB Nation in gearing up for our SMB 150 Awards Gala Dinner, and our Spring Conference, which will be held in less than two weeks, from May 3-5, 2013, at the Microsoft Redmond Campus. For more information, and to register, go to: http://spring.smbnation.com/.

This morning, CompTIA released the results of their IT Industry Business Confidence Index for Q2 2013. The company reported that for the third consecutive quarter, the average attitude of IT organizations has grown more positive.

Today, Western Digital announced the availability of their new 3.5 inch SAS Hard Drive solution. The WD XE has been designed as a transitional hard drive for datacenters looking to migrate away from legacy devices.

Today, eMazzanti Technologies announced that they have been named the WatchGuard Partner of the Year 2013 in the New York area. This is the fourth consecutive year that eMazzanti has been honored in the Managed Security Services Provider category.

Yesterday, Citrix announced the release of two new services for their GoTo solution suite. GoToWebcast, a new audio and video broadcasting system and GoToWebinar/GoToTraining HDFaces beta, both of which are generally available in North America and Europe.

eVoice yesterday released the results of a survey commissioned in Feb 2013 and conducted by j2 Global  to measure how SMB owners are using mobile devices in the workplace. The survey respondents were approximately 500 SMB owners from randomly selected websites.

Independent field service technician provider FieldSolutions has entered into an agreement with New York City-based Work Market to provide FieldSolutions’ clients with an even broader range of skill capabilities that can be accessed directly and seamlessly from the FieldSolutions management system, and supported by FieldSolutions’ technology field service operations support services and enterprise analytics tools.

Enhancements to cloud-enabled Microsoft Office 365 offered by Sprint will make it even easier for SMBs to collaborate and communicate from virtually anywhere they are, whether in the office or on the go.

This morning, Dell announced the immediate availability of the latest Dell SonicWALL Hosted Email Security solution. The new version, 2.0, has added support, including 24/7 online and phone options.

Concur yesterday introduced the Concur App Center—a marketplace for Concur clients and their employees, at Fusion, its client and partner conference. The new App Center will help businesses and their travelers discover applications that deliver significant value to the enterprise as well as to their business travelers. Through the Concur App Center, web and mobile software developers can list applications (apps) that are integrated using Concur’s open platform.

StorageCraft said it has released its StorageCraft ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange 7. Available to worldwide MSPs and VARs, ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange 7, which is the latest addition to the StorageCraft Recover-Ability solution, simplifies management and recovery of Microsoft Exchange Servers.

Dell yesterday launched the Latitude 3330 laptop, designed to help educators teach tomorrow’s leaders while providing value to school districts. The new laptop offers computing features required to maximize learning productivity, compatibility with Dell’s existing solutions and services for education and support for personalized learning opportunities in the classroom. 

D&H Distributing said today that in honor of Earthy Day next week, its “Go Green” ecological programs and policies are still reaping results, including new internal projects that aid in conservation.  The company has sold nearly ten million units of green-certified products per year, aggregated across the three years that D&H has been tallying numbers for these products, amounting to 28,449,298 green items sold since 2010.  The distributor’s inventory of merchandise that qualifies as “green” has also increased steadily over the years.

Ping Identity said today that PingOne, its cloud-based identity as a service, is now available in the new Concur App Center from Concur. Unveiled today at Fusion 2013, the new app center will help businesses and travelers discover applications that deliver significant value to the enterprise and to the business traveler.

Earlier today, TE Connectivity, a global networking company, announced the launch of a new solution to easily manage vertical blade-based core switch systems. The Vertical Switch Management platform is designed to save space and offer better access to lines.

Whenever I hear the term “Spring Fever,” I think back to my days as an elementary school student at the local Catholic school in my town. I remember my Second Grade teacher, appropriately named Mrs. Swords (if you looked in her direction she would stare back at you with these piercing eyes that were actually like swords), would call out all the lazy kids in the class hollering out: “What have you got Spring Fever or something??!!”

Yesterday, AVG Technologies and Infrascale, a SaaS company specializing in online data backup, announced that they have entered into a strategic alliance. This agreement will immediately allow AVG’s small business customers to access and try the Infrascale SOS solution.

Today, Datto, Inc. announced the launch of a new solution designed to provide both on-site and off-site BDR to SMBs. The new solution, called Datto ALTO, is built to be scalable and affordable.

Recently I shared the story that my testing the BlackBerry z10 mobile device had me visit the local AT&T store at the Silverdale Mall to get a new SIMM chip. All good.

At last week’s Channel Pro SMB’s SMB Forum conference, I was again surprised by how attendees visiting my booth are once again, discussing telecom. It seems like just yesteryear we were VoIPing with Microsoft Response Point and the Cisco 3xx line. But this time the conversation is different; it’s more mature. The reality is no one would promote PSTN in a digital world. It’s all sorted out over the years.