Small business is under fire -- and increasingly, it is the small business' Web site strategy that is being relied upon to create an effective defense. What are the conditions facing Web site experts and multi-tasking entrepreneurs alike -- and what are the critical changes in the online e-commerce and marketing world that will help small businesses meet this challenge?
I am sitting on a train heading to New York from Boston for a CRM conference. Not driving, not flying -- I prefer the train for this trip for a bunch of reasons. Rail brought us traveling troubadours like Woody Guthrie, circuses and baseball, and it helped define a job type: the traveling salesperson.
So, I suspected there was more to the problem than who's making the rules.
ZapThink's Jason Bloomberg apparently thinks so, too. In my humble opinion, he best summed up the real problem in a recent white paper, "Effective Governance of the Service Lifecycle." Bloomberg wrote:
"The SOA governance challenge, therefore, boils down to how to maintain adequate control while at the same time providing the flexibility the organization requires from their SOA initiative."
So, you see, it isn't just a political struggle. IT's need for adequate service control is bumping up against the business user's need for flexibility. And you can understand their frustration, since responsiveness and agility were among SOA's big promises to business users. They've got a legitimate beef.
Bloomberg's white paper offers the most practical advice I've seen thus far on addressing SOA governance. It's a long paper - and there's some contained shilling for IBM's WebSphere Service Registry and Repository. But it also offers a smart, iterative approach to SOA governance that may help you short-circuit the conflict between business (flexibility) and IT (control).
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An independent software development company claims to have statistics showing that one out of three new enterprise PCs purchased are running Windows XP, not Windows Vista. The numbers from Devil Mountain Software, based on a study of more than 3,000 machines, found that enterprises are purchasing new machines with Vista pre-installed and downgrading them to Windows XP.
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Call it a digital land rush; a stampede along the broadcast spectrum, the invisible areas of the air where TV signals, phone calls, wireless Web access and emergency alert frequencies roam. Google has its sights on some potentially lucrative tracts of the spectrum, so it's asking YouTube users to help sway the Federal Communications Commission.
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Search engine giant Google has begun testing video ads on its mobile version of YouTube in the U.S. and Japan. The move is an attempt by the Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine to monetize YouTube's video ad potential. Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in October 2006.
The Kodak ESP5 is an attractive full color all-in-one printer, scanner, and copier, and casual photo enthusiasts will be happy with the watered-down editing software, but hardcore users should look elsewhere for a multifunction printer. The ESP5 is too expensive and suffers from too many mechanical deficiencies for us to give it our CNET stamp of approval.
The security team for Google's nascent open-source mobile platform, Android, has attempted to raise its profile with the security community The security team behind Google's mobile platform, Android, has tried to raise its profile among security researchers by appealing for their vigilance in monitoring the platform. ...
"I suspect we're hated," says John Quinn, flashing a small but satisfied smile. Quinn is exaggerating, but not by much. He's the lead partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, an offbeat Los Angeles -- based law firm that has been stepping on a lot of white-shod toes in its ascent to -- some might say assault on -- the highest stratum of the elite corporate legal community. "It's sort of a mix of disdain and jealousy," says partner Patrick Shields.
Apple took another step to acknowledge the issues surrounding MobileMe reliability by extending current subscriber memberships an additional 60 days. The company previously extended memberships 30 days, which means qualifying subscriber renewal dates have been extended 90 days.
