Will Actian Connect, Analyze and Act on the SMB Market Opportunity?

Posted on April 19, 2013 by lauriemccabe

After marking my calendar to attend Pervasive’s 2013 Integration World, I had to wonder whether or not Actian’s pending acquisition of Pervasive would be a done deal–or not–by April 14, when the conference was due to kick off.

After all, I figured that if things were still up in the air, I’d probably leave with more questions than answers. Although it seemed pretty clear to me that the combined entity would be able to bring a lot more to the table in the large enterprise big data space, it wasn’t clear to me what it would mean for the merged company’s future in the SMB market.

Evidently, the events team wasn’t sure about whether or not the acquisition would be a done deal in time for the event either, as they had two sets of signage and materials printed up and ready to go for either eventuality.

Fortunately, the acquisition became final on April 11, three days in advance of the event, and the events team got to use the Actian version. And although it’s too soon to expect a roadmap from the freshly combined entity, the event did give me a chance to think about what may be on tap.

 Actian Connects with Pervasive

actian pervasive imagesFirst, the background. Privately held Actian Corp closed the deal to acquire Pervasive, which had prior to this been publicly traded on NASDAQ, on April 11 for $161.7 million. Under the agreement, Pervasive becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Actian. In total, the merged company employs about 510 people.

Each company has been around a long time and has deep roots in the database world. Actian got its start from a predecessor company named Ingres in the late 1980s, which went through two acquisitions and a divestiture to then emerge as the new Ingres Corporation, best known for Ingres Database, an SQL relational database management system, available in community (open-source) and enterprise versions. On a quest to evolve into a big data company, the company acquired VectorWise, an analytical database in 2010. In 2011, the company rebranded itself as Actian and in 2012, it bought object-store database vendor Versant.

Likewise, Pervasive began as a database company in 1982, with its Btrieve offering. After a few acquisitions, spinouts and name changes, the company became Pervasive Software in 1997, when Btrieve evolved into Pervasive PSQL. In 2003, Pervasive entered the integration business when it purchased Data Junction (now Pervasive Data Integrator). Today, many SMB-oriented ISVs use Pervasive data integration solutions in their offerings. Data Integrator technologies are also at the core of Galaxy Marketplace, which Pervasive launched in 2011 (see Pervasive Puts Its Galaxy Integration Community Into Orbit). In addition, Pervasive jumped into the big data arena, most notably with DataRush, a predictive data analytics engine, in 2006.

In both companies, legacy database products still account for a big chunk of revenues, and have funded expansion to develop and/or acquire the big data solutions that they are targeting to fuel future growth. As noted by Steve Shine, Actian CEO in the press release announcing the deal, that target is to deliver big data solutions for enterprises of all sizes:  “Every moment, people, businesses and machines generate explosive volumes and varieties of data leveraging their existing networks and, more increasingly, the cloud. Companies that embrace this data as their most strategic asset will thrive, while those that don’t lose their competitive advantage.”

Giving companies the ability to “Connect, Analyze and Act” is Actian’s corporate mantra. Pervasive gives Actian the strong integration capabilities that it needed to fill out the connect piece of its big data story. Meanwhile, DataRush’s high-powered BI and analytics solutions should significantly beef up analytics and processing capabilities.

Where SMBs Have Fit Into the Story to Date

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) have been vital to Pervasive. The company has relied primarily on indirect channel partners to reach SMBs. ISVs in particular have been integral to its success. It has partnered with vendors such as Intuit, Salesforce, UserVoice and others who sell through embedded integrations and connectors built with Pervasive Data Integrator and with ISVs, such as GlobalShop, EBP, and Abacus, that build their solutions on Pervasive SQL database. A good strategy, as SMBs don’t often have the bandwidth, expertise or resources to tend to the integration plumbing necessary to connect financials, marketing, CRM and other solutions.

Screen shot 2013-04-19 at 2.41.23 PMIn 2011, Pervasive also introduced Galaxy Integration Marketplace, a portal where users can find integration guidance and buy pre-built integration solutions in Amazon-like fashion. On the flip side, the portal gives integration developers a window into what integrations people are looking for, as well as a lot of very handy tools–including a storefront–to provision and manage products, subscriptions, payment processing, etc.

Currently, Galaxy has about 100 integration apps, from Freshbooks to Salesforce, which is priced at $25 per month, to integrations that are priced at $5000 or $6000 per year.

Pervasive is also working on a new capability, code-named Maestro, that will have a simple mapping interface so providers can map custom fields on top of pre-built connectors. Again, the Galaxy approach makes it easy for under-resourced SMBs to tackle the complicated integration problem.

On the other hand, Pervasive’s big data offerings, such as DataRush, have pretty much been a large enterprise play, and Actian’s primary focus and customer base has resided with large enterprises to date.

Where Will SMBs Fit in the Future?

Will Actian continue to maintain a strong focus on SMBs? In conversations at Integration World, as well as in the press release, Shine indicated that Actian intends to cover the spectrum from large to small: “Actian’s innovations make it easy for organisations large and small to connect, analyse and act on their fast-changing and fast-growing diverse data assets throughout the entire data lifecycle.”

Furthermore, Pervasive has an established and successful model of working with ISVs to embed and sell through its solutions–a solid approach to reach and serve SMBs, who need  integration solutions that they can quickly deploy and from which they can get value. The Galaxy Marketplace complements this approach by adding the value of community insight and new ways to source and purchase integration solutions.

However, Actian will face many challenges as it tries to span from large enterprises to small–especially in increasingly crowded and hyped integration, analytics and big data markets. And, as more SMBs become aware of and educated about what big data is and why they need to have a strategy for it, how will Actian push through the noise and surface to get into consideration in that arena?

Easier said than done–both on engineering and marketing fronts, especially as large customers tend to have a lot more pull than small ones, and the fragmented nature of the market makes SMBs much harder to reach and serve.

Actian will need to make a bold statement. It must double down on engaging SMB-focused developers, SIs and other sell-through partners both within, as well as beyond its current integration ecosystem. If Actian could, for instance, apply low-friction approaches such as Galaxy into other areas, such as analytics, it could prove a powerful play for helping SMBs not only connect, but to also analyze and act on their data once its integrated.

I’ll be watching to see if Actian chooses to make some significant moves in SMB directions as well as in the large enterprise space. Will SMBs be treated as a strategic market focus, or as business as usual? Actian’s decisions will signal whether it intends to pursue a broader play in the SMB market–or not.

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Sage Streamlining Takes a Major Turn With the Sale of ACT! and SalesLogix

Posted on February 19, 2013 by lauriemccabe

sage imagesLast week, The Sage Group announced that it is selling its Sage Act! contact manager and SalesLogix CRM to Swiftpage. Swiftpage is a U.S. based digital marketing software vendor and has been a Sage partner supplying Sage E-Marketing as a connected service for three-plus years. The move is part of Sage’s strategy to streamline its business software portfolio and focus on its core application areas, accounting, ERP and payroll. Sage is also selling Sage Nonprofit Solutions to Accel-KKR, a private equity firm.

In addition, Sage is unloading four solutions sold in Europe. Combined, these sales amount to about $145 million, and result in a loss to Sage. Accel-KKR and Sage provided Swiftpage with significant capital to help finance Swiftpage’s SalesLogix and ACT! purchases. Sage will retain 16.1% ownership in this deal.

The sale affects about 1,000 of Sage’s 13,000 employees, with about 250 people from Sage ACT! and SalesLogix moving to Swiftpage. In my conversation with Himanshu Palsule, Sage’s North American support group is working with Swiftpage to put an escalation process in place for customers.

Sage isn’t exiting the CRM market, however. It is retaining Sage CRM (which it acquired as part of its purchase of ACCPAC several years ago) as its core CRM product.

Following Through On a Strategy to Streamline

Sage’s announcement doesn’t come as a big surprise. At Sage Summit 2012 last August, Sage North America management revealed its strategy to concentrate development on what Sage termed core solutions areas–namely financials, ERP, and payroll, as discussed in my post, Sage Turns a New Leaf: Top Takeaways from Sage Summit 2012.

At the event, Sage North America CEO Pascal Houillon set forth Sage’s strategy to move from a heavily decentralized product management and marketing approach to one that is more centralized and focused—and to put the company on a stronger growth trajectory. By streamlining its offerings, Sage intends to provide customers and partners with a more integrated experience and more flexibility to take advantage of new cloud-based connected services.

Shedding CRM Solutions That Weren’t Keeping Pace with Market Trends

Over the years, Sage has been very acquisitive. But many of its acquisitions haven’t really paid off. This has been particularly true for Sage ACT! and SalesLogix, both of which Sage acquired in 2001 when it bought Interact Commerce. Sage bought these products when desktop and client-server computing were at their peak–but about to wane. Since then, of course, the likes of Salesforce.com, Zoho CRM, Nimble and many other CRM cloud offerings have come to the forefront. Meanwhile, Sage has struggled to make the cloud transition with its CRM products. In addition, Sage hasn’t been able to keep pace with developing the new social capabilities that customers want in CRM solutions. These limitations have made it difficult to sell these products to new customers.

While Sage did develop integrations for ACT! and SalesLogix with its financials solutions, its attempts to cross-sell CRM to its installed base of financials and ERP customers met with limited success. The partner channel and end-user decision-makers for CRM and financials solutions are very different, and Sage was unable to develop an effective method to bridge the gap. As a result, there is very little customer overlap between the two.

With ACT! and SalesLogix off the plate, Sage intends to increase its focus on its core financials and ERP products, including Sage 50 (formerly Peachtree), Sage 1oo ERP (formerly Sage ERP MAS 90 & 200), Sage 300 ERP (formerly ACCPAC), and Sage ERP X3, and provide a richer set of connected services for these solutions.

Moving Forward

For a very long time, Sage has looked to acquisitions as a way to fuel growth, acquiring scores of business software products over the years. Sage has had a hard time rationalizing its strategy, sparking much criticism for having a cluttered portfolio, too many products and not enough focus.

Now, Sage is taking a 180-degree turn to sell off surplus solutions, freeing up development and marketing resources to create cleaner, more integrated solutions and messaging. While it’s too early to tell if this new strategy will result in the growth Sage is looking for, the move does give the company more bandwidth to concentrate on its core financial solutions, and give its remaining Sage CRM product the types of cloud, social  and mobile capabilities that it needs to be competitive. In addition, Sage no longer has to contend with the politics of competing product lines and partner channels.

While the move may be a bit emotionally jarring for current ACT!  and SalesLogix customers, they shouldn’t experience too much change in the short term. Over time, they may in fact see an upside, if Swiftpage, which has a strong focus in the digital marketing space,  can infuse the former Sage solutions with the updated cloud, social and mobile capabilities that they will need to attract new customers.

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Got Apps? GetApp Introduces CloudWork to Integrate Them

Posted on November 12, 2012 by lauriemccabe

Last week, I spoke with Christophe Primault, CEO of GetApp, about GetApp’s new CloudWork platform, which provides a growing catalog of pre-built connectors to integrate cloud-based business and social media apps. Listen to the podcast or read the summary below.      

 

Laurie: Good morning, Christophe. Could you start by describing what GetApp is and what it does?

Christophe: Okay. GetApp helps small businesses be successful with cloud business applications. We started a couple of years ago by building a marketplace where small businesses can discover business applications that are suited for their needs.

Laurie:  Great. I know you got started around 2010, a couple of years ago. About how many apps are available in the app marketplace now?

Christophe: Today we have close to 5000 different applications available, and they are split in about 300 different business categories.

Laurie:  Now, I know that GetApp is a little different type of marketplace than say Google Apps marketplace or Salesforce AppExchange. Can you just describe a little bit about what makes it different?

Christophe: Sure. So what we are trying to do is be independent and inclusive and let small businesses see everything that is available in the market. We are not tied to any particular vendor or systems. We access apps that are integrated with Google Apps or Salesforce or any application, but by coming to GetApp you will be able to see all the applications in each category that can be of interest to you.

Laurie: Okay. So kind of like the Switzerland of small business app marketplaces?

Christophe: Yes. Exactly. It’s like a Swiss Army knife for small businesses looking for business applications.

Laurie: And about how many visitors do you have coming to GetApp these days?

Christophe: This has been ramping up month after month, and today we have close to 150,000 visitors coming to the marketplace every month. Overall 95% of these are small and medium businesses (SMBs).

Laurie: Great. And how do you define an SMB? What size company?

Christophe: We are mostly targeting the low-end of SMBs. It’s companies with between 0 to 100 employees, but we do have also larger companies that are coming to GetApp to find applications for their own departments.

Laurie: I understand that you have a new offering from GetApp called CloudWork. Can you tell us what it is?

Christophe: Absolutely. CloudWork is a new solution that we launched one month ago, and it is a continuation of GetApp. While GetApp is the first step for small businesses looking for business applications to discover what they need, CloudWork really comes in when you start using more than one application in your organization. Let’s say you are using four or five, and you have developed silos of data in each of your applications and you realize that these apps don’t talk to each other. You want to integrate these applications together to increase productivity, so this is what CloudWork is doing. It’s an easy to use platform and you don’t need any technical knowledge to get apps to talk to each other.

Laurie:  Okay. Yes, I think most of us that are small businesses, we can relate to that. We start by using one application to fit a certain need, and then as we need another we add another. Before you know it we have a few different cloud apps, but they don’t necessarily talk to each other. So we’re trying to manually coordinate what’s going on. What was the genesis for deciding that you needed to do this?

Christophe: Yes, that clearly came from our users. We found applications on GetApp or anywhere else, and now we run integral applications, but they don’t talk to each other so we developed processes attached that are repetitive, that are not bringing a lot of value to the organization that could be automated. So, we decided, maybe this is something interesting to do. And then we asked ourselves, as an SMB using over 20 different cloud apps, is it a problem we have?  How could we address this problem and how much value will it bring to us? We realized that we could save a lot of time and be much more productive in doing more value-added tasks in the organization if we had the ability to automate many of the internal processes and tasks. This is how we decided to build the CloudWork platform to do that.

Laurie: So, how would it work for me? Can you walk me through it? Once I go on the CloudWork site, what would I need to do? How much work would it take on my part?

Christophe: I am going to take a very precise use case to tell you how you can use CloudWork. For example, cloud-based CRM is one of the most common applications for an SMB. So, assuming you are using let’s say Zoho CRM, you will come to CloudWork, you will sign up for an account and you will authorize CloudWork to talk to Zoho. You will do that with just a couple of clicks, and then we will show you a list of applications that can integrate with Zoho with the objective of capturing your client’s profile in Zoho all the customers, all the interactions your company had with your customer.

So let’s take an example. You start with Zoho CRM and then you decide that any e-mail that comes in via Gmail to your organization should be logged under your customer profile on Zoho CRM. So you integrate Zoho with Gmail. If you want to see which invoices and payment status of invoices, then you will integrate with Freshbooks. If you want to see when your client has received an e-mail campaign then you will integrate Zoho with MailChimp. If you want to have all your data in Zoho to be backed up on an online storage platform, then you will integrate with Dropbox, and so on.

So, in this specific case,  in just a few clicks you are adding different applications and building a unified view of all your company’s interactions, which of the apps you are using in your company under your customer profile in Zoho. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes to set up. No code is needed. You don’t need to have any particular knowledge, and with just a few clicks you can set up your account and then the tasks run in the background.

Laurie: So, at the end of the day you’re saving a lot of time because you don’t have to be manually trying to connect these things. And you’re gaining productivity and cutting down on manual kinds of errors so your information is more accurate.

Christophe: Yes, you’ve covered what are the main objectives of CloudWork. Increasing productivity of your sales people or your customer support people, avoiding making errors when you’re cutting, pasting, or exporting files from one application to another, making sure also that you always back up data outside each of the applications that you’re using. So productivity, saving time, more security are the main benefits of CloudWork.

Laurie: If someone wants to try CloudWork, how can they try it? Is there a free trial?

Christophe: Yes, absolutely. It’s very easy. You go wwwcloudwork.com. You get started. There is a free trial. In fact, the product is currently free for all to use. There will always be a free version of the product. Most companies they will be able to use CloudWork for free. For very heavy users that will be automating a lot of tasks during the month it will be a paid version, but today it is free. We integrate with 15 very popular applications, and we are adding new different applications every week.

Laurie:  So with GetApp, you addressed that discovery challenge, how do I find applications that I might need to run my business. I know people will also find there is a lot of guidance in terms of reviews, and evaluations, and discussions that small businesses can look at to get information about the apps as well as just getting the apps. So, you’ve addressed that discovery, with CloudWork you’re addressing a lot of the integration issues, what’s next? What’s the longer term vision for GetApp and CloudWork?

Christophe: You’re absolutely right. We are not going to stop there. Our plan is to be what we call a cloud operation center for small businesses. Really the idea is you start with GetApp where you discover applications. You also get a lot of education material on how to get started with cloud applications, what are the pros and cons, which ones you should keep for your business, and then as you start to be a heavier user of applications you will have integration needs. This is one of the first services we offer in CloudWork, but in the future you will be able to access different applications with a single password as an example, or you will be able to have a better view of who is using which kind of application in your organization. So, basically we are going to add additional services to CloudWork so it becomes a single place in your organization where you can manage all your cloud services.

Laurie: That sounds fantastic. For small businesses, if you have not been to the GetApp.com site, I would advise you to check it out because there are a lot of great applications and advice on there. Thank you so much for your time today, Christophe, and for talking to me and sharing this information with us.

Christophe: Thanks a lot Laurie. It’s been a pleasure talking to you and sharing with your listeners the benefits they can get out of GetApp and CloudWork. Thanks a lot.

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Top 10 SMB Technology Predictions for 2012 from the SMB Group

Posted on December 12, 2011 by lauriemccabe

Last week  we published a report card on our last year’s top 10 market predictions for 2011.

Here are the SMB Group’s Top 10 SMB Technology Predictions for 2012! A more detailed description of each follows below.

  1. Economic Anxiety Lowers SMB Revenue Expectations and Tightens Tech Wallets
  2. The SMB Progressive Class Gains Ground
  3. The SMB Social Media Divide Grows
  4. Cloud Becomes the New Normal
  5. Mobile Application Use Extends Beyond Email to Business Applications
  6. Increased SMB Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics Investments Are Sparked by the Social-Mobile-Cloud Triumvirate
  7. Managed Services Meet Mobile
  8. The Accidental Entrepreneur Spikes Demand for No-Employee Small Business Solutions
  9. Increased Adoption of Collaboration and Communication Services in Integrated Suites
  10. The IT Channel Continues to Shape-Shift

2012 Top 10 SMB Technology Market Predictions in Detail

  1. Economic Anxiety Lowers SMB Revenue Expectations and Tightens Tech Wallets. After the Great Recession officially ended in 2009, the U.S. economy resumed moderate economic growth in 2010—and the SMB outlook for 2011 became fairly bullish. But new economic worries and uncertainties are dampening some SMB outlook. Our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Studyindicated that SMBs are less confident about their revenue prospects for 2012: 56% of small and 63% of medium businesses are forecasting revenue growth for 2012, compared to the 77% of both small and medium businesses that forecasted growth for 2011. And many SMBs are tightening their tech wallets: More are forecasting flat or decreased IT spending for 2012 compared to 2011. To loosen the purse strings, tech vendors must deliver a rock-solid case for how their solutions help address top SMB challenges—which are to attract new customers, grow revenues and maintain profitability. In addition to broadening subscription-based cloud solution options (which offload big upfront investments), more vendors will offer flexible, alternative financing to help ease the financial burden—and gain a leg up on competitors.
  2. The SMB Progressive Class Gains Ground.That said, we also see a distinct category of SMBs that we are terming “Progressive SMBs.” Despite economic uncertainties, Progressive SMBs plan to increase IT spending. These SMBs see technology as a vital tool for business transformation, a mechanism to create market advantage and a way to level the playing field against bigger companies. Although price is still a key factor for Progressive SMBs, they are more likely to rate other factors—such as easier to customize for my business, strong reputation and brand, and ability to provide local service and support—higher than other SMBs when making technology decisions, according to our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study. Progressive SMBs invest more in technology and see the results in terms of higher revenue expectations. For instance, 73% of medium businesses that are investing more in technology anticipate revenue increases in 2012, compared to just 17% among those decreasing IT spending. Technology vendors need to develop different marketing campaigns and more sophisticated solutions for Progressive SMBs than for their counterparts to win in this very important segment.
  3. The SMB Social Media Divide Grows. SMB use of social media is rising. According to our 2011 Impact of Social Business in Small and Medium Business Study, about 50% of SMBs already use social media, and another 25% plan to do so within the next 12 months. The study revealed that about half of SMBs take a strategic and structured approach with social media. These “strategically social” companies use social media for more activities, use more channels and are more satisfied with the business results than the other half of SMBs that are still throwing spaghetti on the Facebook wall. These more informal, ad hoc users say that they don’t have enough time to use social media effectively; they can’t decide what social media strategies and tools will work best; it’s too difficult to integrate social media with sales, marketing, service and other business processes; and they are unable to measure value from social media. As new social media tools—from crowd-sourced pricing to video commerce—take shape, SMB social media “haves” will gain business ground on the “have-nots” in an exponential manner. As the have-nots lose ground, they will clamor for better social media guidance and easier-to-use, better integrated and more affordable social media management solutions.
  4. Cloud Becomes the New Normal. Is the cloud perfect? No. Is it right for every solution and every business? No. But that said, the rate and pace of technological change are in overdrive, and the need for businesses to harness new technology-based solutions—social, mobile, analytics, etc.—to maintain a business edge is rising. Our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Studyresults reveal that demand for cloud-based solutions is accelerating in almost all solution areas. For instance, in the past 24 months, only 7% of small businesses purchased or upgraded cloud accounting/ERP solutions, compared with 13% that plan to purchase them in the next 12 months. Areas that show the biggest potential for cloud gains in 2012 are marketing automation, business intelligence/analytics, and desktop virtualization solutions and services. Most SMBs simply don’t have the staff, expertise or capital budgets needed for do-it-yourself IT—and they can’t afford the time it takes to get business payback from a solution that they need to vet, buy, install and deploy in-house. This makes the arguments for cloud computing—reduced capital costs, speed to deploy, and real-time collaboration and visibility—compelling. Demand for anytime, anywhere, any-device mobile access to applications will also accelerate cloud adoption, as many SMBs will want to offload management of mobile applications to a cloud solutions provider too. Enterprise players such as Oracle (with RightNow) and SAP (with SuccessFactors) have already begun their cloud shopping sprees. Look for traditional SMB vendors (Intuit, Microsoft, Sage, etc.) to join in the fun.
  5. Mobile Application Use Extends Beyond Email to Business Applications. In a custom study we completed this summer, SMBs indicated that they plan to significantly increase spending on mobile devices and services in the next 12 months, with the highest jump in the 5-to-49–employee size band. The study revealed that with mobile use of collaboration apps (email, calendar, etc.) now mainstream, SMBs are mobilizing business applications. Some of the strongest categories for SMB current and planned mobile app use are mobile payments (52%), time management (59%), field service (59%), and customer information management (69%). This rapid uptake will also include more vertical apps that are a perfect fit for industry-specific needs, especially given the choice of both smart phone and tablet (read: iPad) form factors. Unfortunately, our crystal ball is cloudy when it comes to predicting if another vendor will be able to give Apple a run for its money in the business-use tablet market.
  6. Increased SMB Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics Investments Are Sparked by the Social-Mobile-Cloud Triumvirate.According to our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study, 16% of small and 29% of medium businesses purchased/upgraded a BI solution within the past 24 months, and 16% and 28%, respectively, plan to do so in the next 12 months. The social-mobile-cloud triumvirate will fuel new and increased SMB investments in this area as businesses try to plow through the growing data avalanche to get to the insights they need to grow their businesses. As SMBs try to get a better handle on customers’ and prospects’ opinions and influence networks, interest in sentiment analysis and social graphing solutions will grow. New mobile access capabilities and applications from BI vendors designed to provide SMBs with just the information they need, when and where they need it, will spur interest as well. Finally, our study indicated that roughly a third of SMBs use or plan to use cloud-based BI and analytics solutions. An expanding array of cloud options in this area will make it easier and more affordable for more SMBs to deploy these solutions.
  7. Managed Services Meet Mobile.Despite momentum toward the cloud, it will continue to be a hybrid world for a very long time. Many SMBs will continue to use existing on-premises apps and choose on-premises deployment as security, regulatory or other needs dictate. So most SMBs will continue to grapple with IT infrastructure management—even as new mobile device management and governance challenges grow. SMB adoption of mobile phones and tablets is now on par with that of traditional landline phones, according to our 2011 SMB Collaboration and Communication Study. With employees more likely to lose a smart phone than a laptop, security issues abound and will only increase. The “bring your own device” (BYOD) phenomenon creates additional concerns, not least of which is to create a firewall between personal and business data. These SMB challenges provide ample opportunity for wireless carriers, networking vendors, MSPs and others that can provide integrated and automated managed services. These are likely to include services that encompass management of cloud-based infrastructure and all end-point devices, from desktop PCs, tablets and smart phones to purpose-built mobile devices; network services to reduce downtime and help optimize the network that mobile access relies on; and support for cloud-based dual-persona solutions on personal mobile devices.
  8. The Accidental Entrepreneur Spikes Demand for No-Employee Small Business Solutions.As unemployment has increased, so has the number of freelancers, contractors, independent consultants and others choosing to go it alone. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, small businesses without a payroll make up more than 70% of America’s 27 million companies, with annual sales of $887 billion. Many entrepreneurs never intended to take this path, but stay solo because they prefer it to going back to the corporate payroll. Others stick it out due to limited employment options. Either way, more accidental entrepreneurs view what they’re doing as a long-term business venture instead of a short-term stopgap. As a result, they see themselves more as business owners than as freelancers or contractors. But many have no intention or desire to hire employees. This will spike demand for—and growth of—applications and services that help them to achieve their business goals without adding employees. Traditional small business powerhouses (Intuit, Sage, etc.), pioneers in the SOHO space (FreshBooks, Shoebox, Zoho, etc.), new start-ups and others will increasingly cater to their needs with solutions that make it easier for them to fly solo—whether from a home office or on the go.
  9. Increased Adoption of Collaboration and Communication Services in Integrated Suites. As evidenced in our 2011 SMB Collaboration and Communication Study, the SMB pendulum is swinging from point solutions for voice, communications, social media and collaboration solutions to integrated suites. Medium businesses are leading the charge, with 28% currently using an integrated collaboration suite, and 35% planning to do so in the next 12 months. Small businesses are slower to make this leap, but a transition is under way here too. By moving from disparate point solutions to an integrated offering, SMBs can avoid the hassles of learning to use multiple user interfaces, going to different sites to login and remembering different passwords—in short, things that waste time and frustrate users. They also can lower costs and improve their ability to collaborate effectively. A growing roster of low-cost (or free), easy-to-use integrated collaboration suites (Google Apps, Microsoft Office 365, IBM LotusLive and HyperOffice, to name a few) are adding fuel to the convergence fire—although vendors will still need to address the obstacle of user resistance to learning something new.
  10. The IT Channel Continues to Shape-Shift. The trend triumvirate—cloud, social and mobile—is also reshaping the IT channel. These trends are moving the goal posts and changing the ways in which channel partners add value. Cloud computing reduces the need for hardware, software and infrastructure deployment skills, and ups the ante for educational guidance, business process transformation and integration skills. Re-imagined channel partner programs from vendors such as Intacct and IBM’s Software Group have blossomed as they shift partner rewards to focus more on value-add and renewals. Meanwhile, non-traditional IT partners, such as creative and marketing agencies, have stepped in to fill a gap by providing social media and digital marketing services for solutions such as Radian6 and HubSpot. In the mobile domain, partners will need to bring more value to help SMBs develop and implement mobile strategies, and offer solutions to manage mobile devices and applications and provide better network performance, reliability and redundancy. As with any significant inflection point, the cloud-social-mobile trend necessitates that older partner models continue to move aside as new, more relevant ones take shape.

For more information, please visit the SMB Groupweb site at http://www.smb-gr.com, contact us at (508)410-3562 or send an e-mail to information@smb-gr.com

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Report Card: 2011 Top 10 SMB Technology Market Predictions

Posted on December 6, 2011 by lauriemccabe

–by Laurie McCabe and Sanjeev Aggarwal, SMB Group

 Before developing our 2012 predictions, we wanted to assess how we did on our Top 10 SMB Technology Predictions for 2011.  Here’s our take on how we did–let us know what grades you would have given us!

And stay tuned for our Top 10 SMB Technology Predictions for 2012 which we will post in a few days!

Note: On this grading scale, 5 means that we came closest to hitting the mark, and 1 means we missed it entirely.

Prediction Score  Comments
1. Mobile Commerce Lifts Off     5 Our 2010 Mobile Solutions Study revealed strong plans for mobile commerce, and a custom study we fielded in August put mobile commerce and payments at the top of SMBs’ mobile apps list. Most important, this investment is paying off:

  • EBay’s payments company PayPal reported a 552% increase in mobile payment volume for 2011 Cyber Monday over 2010 figures.
  • IBM reported mobile sales grew dramatically, reaching 6.6% of total e-commerce sales on Cyber Monday versus 2.3% in 2010.

In 2012, we see SMBs to building on this by integrating mobile commerce with financials and CRM solutions.
2. SMBs Demand that Vendors Bring Order to Social Media Chaos     3 Almost 50% of SMBs said that they use social media In our 2011 Social Business Study. But only about half use it strategically, and just  a small percentage use tools to manage social media. Although SMBs want to use social media more strategically, they face some big hurdles, including:

  • Not enough time to use social media effectively.
  • Can’t decide what social media strategies will work best.
  • Too difficult to integrate social media with sales, marketing, service and other business processes
  • Unable to accurately measure the value of social media.

While SMB demand is there, vendors have yet to fulfill it with effective, affordable and easy-to-use solutions.
3. App Stores Become a Key Information Source and Channel for SMBs        3 SMB use of app stores such as Salesforce AppExchange, Intuit Workplace and Google Marketplace grew from 23% in 2010 to 28% in 2011 in small business, and rose from 44% to 48% among medium businesses, according to our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study(a refresh of 2010). But we also found that:

  • Only 6% of small businesses and 17% of medium businesses use app stores on a regular basis–which pales in comparison use of search engines, and falls far short of regular use of email newsletters; colleagues, friends and family; vendor web sites, and Facebook.

Apps stores hold promise to help SMBs sort through the maze of solutions available, but app stores need to do more to become a premier and potentially disruptive SMB information and purchase channel.
4. The Shift to Cloud Computing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Becomes Irreversible      5 Economic necessity and technological complexity is driving more and more SMBs to the cloud. Comparing data from our 2010 and 2011 SMB Routes to Market Studies, we see:

  • Momentum is increasing for cloud-based solutions in almost all solution categories.
  • Among both small and medium businesses, use of cloud collaboration solutions was up 10% and adoption of cloud accounting/ERP was up 2%.

Is the cloud right for every solution? No. Is it right for every company? No. But the arguments for it–reduced capital costs, quicker to deploy, real-time visibility and collaboration among others–are increasingly making the cloud the option of choice for many SMBs.
5. A New Cloud Channel Model Forms       4 This transition is well underway and enabled by the growth of cloud computing, which relieves the channel of technical implementation.  We see:

  • The growing importance of non-traditional IT channels, such as creative and marketing agencies for vendors such as HubSpot and Radian6.
  • Re-imagined channel partner programs from vendors like Intacct, which offers partners more opportunity and collaborative goal setting and IBM’s Software Group, which rewards partners for value-add and renewals.

This transformation is still work in progress, and one we’ll be watching closely.
6. The Transition to the Insight Economy Gets a Bit Easier     3 The era of the zettabyte economy and big data is here. But the ease of dealing with it are mixed, according to our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study:

  • 33% of medium businesses purchased/upgraded business intelligence solutions in past 24 months and 28% plan to purchase/upgrade in the next 12 months.
  • Mid-market specific BI offerings, such as IBM  Cognos Express and SAP Business Objects Edge, and more function-specific solutions from vendors such as Adaptive Planning and Host Analytics–are fueling adoption.
  • Uptake is slower in small business: 16% purchased/upgraded business intelligence solutions in past 24 months, and 16% plan to purchase/upgrade in the next 12 months.

Vendors are hitting the mark for medium businesses, but need more targeted solutions for small business to deliver “aha moments” for small companies.
7. Tablets Add Fuel to the Mobile Applications Explosion      5 Do we even need to back up for our score here?! We will anyway:In a custom study completed this summer, we found 50 percent of SMBs have deployed or plan to deploy tablets, such as iPads, within the next twelve months

  • SMBs indicated that they plan to significantly increase spending on mobile devices and services in the next 12 months, with the highest jump in the 5-49 employee size band.
  • Mobile use of collaboration apps (email, calendar, etc.) is mainstream, and SMBs show strong plans to add business applications including payroll, time management, field service and mobile commerce, among others.

This rapid uptake will continue as SMBs see more horizontal and industry-specific apps that are a perfect fit for the tablet form-factor. Now, the only question is whether another vendor will mount a serious challenge to the Apple iPad.
8. Better, Faster Integration Becomes a Key Business Solution Differentiator      4 SMBs understand that integration provides big business benefits, and they want solutions that streamline integration.

  • 23% of small and 28% of medium businesses indicated Integrating different applications as a top challenge, according to our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study.
  • 64% of medium and 36% of small businesses use or plan to use an integrated collaboration suite, according to our 2011 SMB Collaboration Study.
  • 16% of SMBs have already integrated marketing applications with social media and 22% have plans to integrate them in the next 12 months, according to our 2011 Social Business Study.

Vendors are addressing this demand with pre-integrated solutions and suites, embedded integrators for typical integration scenarios and cloud-based integration services.
9. Hybrid Computing Requirements Accelerate Virtualization Adoption      4 Religious wars continue to rage about the “false cloud” and “cloud washing.” But many SMBs are more interested in the ends–subscription based pricing, offloading IT management and speed to solution benefit–than they are in the means. The 2011 SMB Routes to Market Studyreveals that:

  • 43% of medium and 16% of small businesses deployed/upgraded server virtualization solutions in the past 24 months while 31% of medium and 14% of small businesses plan to deploy/upgrade them in the next 12 months.
  • 32% of medium and 17% of small businesses deployed/upgraded desktop virtualization solutions while 29% of medium and 13% of small businesses plan to deploy/upgrade them in the next 12 months.
10. Continued Convergence of Unified Communication and Collaboration Suites     4 Vendors continue to consolidate more services into their offerings and SMBs are getting on board.

  • 64% of medium and 36% of small businesses use or plan to use an integrated collaboration suite, according to our 2011 SMB Collaboration Study.
  • 33% of small businesses are using VoIP (on-premise and hosted) solutions; 33% use Internet phone and video conferencing (e.g. Skype);  and 35% use web conferencing.  They also indicate strong plans to add more communications services: in the next 12 months: web conferencing (16%); voicemail to email (16%); fax-to-email (15%); and hosted VoIP (13%).
  • Medium businesses are further along the curve: 74% already use VoIP on-premise and hosted services; 66% use web conferencing; 55% use fax to email and web conferencing and 42% use Internet phone and video conferencing (e.g. Skype).  Plans are also strong to add web conferencing (16%); voicemail to email (16%); fax-to-email (16%); and hosted VoIP (13%).

Integrated services lower costs and a unified platform makes it easier for SMBs to get more value from their collaboration and communications solutions without the hassles of separate sign-ons and different user interfaces–which will continue to drive this trend in 2012.

If you’re interested in any of the above SMB market studies, we are offering special end-of-year discounts on these studies. Click here for more details.

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Dell Boomi: A Microcosm of Dell’s New Virtual Era

Posted on November 2, 2011 by lauriemccabe

After attending Dell World, Dell’s first ever user conference a couple of weeks ago, it’s apparent that Dell’s progression towards becoming a pivotal vendor in what it terms the “virtual era” is well underway. And, last week’s announcement of Dell Boomi’s Fall 2011 release provides a prime example of how Dell is crossing the chasm from a product-centric hardware vendor to a solutions and services provider.

Dell World—The Big Picture

For the past few years, many pundits have derided Dell as a one-trick pony. Sure, it totally disrupted the PC and then server markets with its direct model, and redefined operational efficiency in the hardware industry. But could it ever hope to compete in higher value, higher margin software and services businesses?

With Michael Dell back at the helm, the vendor began publicly charting its path to the virtual era in 2010 (see my March 2010 post Dell 2.0: Top Takeaways from Dell’s Virtual Era Event) and has been executing on this strategy via both organic growth and strategic acquisitions. Most of these acquisitions (Perot Systems as the exception) have been smaller companies with innovative products and high-growth rates.

To make the Virtual Era vision a reality, Dell has been executing on four key and inter-related objectives:

  • Moving from product to a solutions orientation. In the past, Dell’s identity has revolved around boxes—from PCs to servers to Streaks to big screen TVs. While Dell vociferously reiterated its ongoing commitment to the PC, it put the spotlight on its growing ability to provide businesses with end-to-end, heterogeneous solutions, not just piece parts—and to satisfy market demand for better, more cost-effective and easier to deploy, use and manage IT solutions.
  • Building out its cloud-cloud-cloud plan (my phrase). The shift to cloud computing—public, private and hybrid—features prominently in Dell’s solution equation. Dell’s sales team has been using Salesforce.com for a few years now, and is also a major user of Chatter and Radian6. Dell has become a cloud convert, and figures plenty of other companies will want to make this move too. Dell has invested $1 billion dollars to build and buy a cloud computing portfolio to help customers take advantage of cloud computing. Dell’s portfolio includes public cloud, private cloud and service solutions (such as Boomi, which I’ll get to in a minute!) so customers can move to the cloud and still leverage their existing IT investments. In Michael Dell’s words, Dell wants to “give them the bridge to the past and a path to the future.” One example is the new enhancements Dell has made to its Virtual Integrated System (VIS) Architecture, which helps extend virtualization benefits within a customers’ existing infrastructure.
  • Transforming from snubbing the channel to become a channel-friendly vendor. In the past, Dell’s most unique characteristic was its successful direct sales model. But, while that works fine for selling hardware, it won’t allow Dell to move up the solutions stack. Dell has recognized the important role that local partners play in creating value-added solutions that work with customers’ existing investments. It has been actively seeking partners that add solution value, and will have over 100,000 by the end of October.
  • Pioneering in social media. Dell has been breaking ground in using social media for input, dialogue and interactive marketing. After getting badly burned in the Dell Hell support crisis in 2005, Dell licked its wounds and has moved on to become a leader in building extensive social media capabilities to help it tune into customers and become a social media poster child. Dell just keeps raising the bar in social media, as evidenced by its Social Media Command Center.

Dell Boomi—A  Microcosm of the Virtual Era

Dell’s latest release of Boomi highlights Dell’s execution on its Virtual Era strategy.  Boomi, which Dell acquired in 2010, is an 11-year old integration company that has been steadily moving to expand its cloud integration services. Boomi’s cloud integration service helps companies more efficiently and affordably integrate cloud and on-premise applications—across different locations, networks, clouds and companies (see Dell and Boomi: Doubling Down on Integration for more details).

Boomi’s approach features a cloud-based integration hub that provides customers with integration as an online service. With Boomi, companies can integrate different cloud and on-premise applications across geographically dispersed locations. Boomi’s visual interface relieves customers from complex code-writing and scripting.

With this release, Boomi has added several new capabilities that correspond directly to Dell’s broader overall Virtual Era vision, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Boomi Fall 2011 Release and How it Highlights Dell’s Virtual Era Themes

Source: SMB Group 2011 (click image to enlarge)

Quick Take

Dell is moving beyond its direct, hardware-centric comfort zone and making good progress on its Virtual Era strategy, as exemplified by Boomi. Serendipitously for Dell, HP has been pre-occupied with and increasingly defined by PC unit flip-flopping and a game of CEO musical chairs. HP’s diversions not only help boost Dell’s current client and server opportunities, but also give Dell more running room to move ahead with its long-term strategy.

While some out there may still view Dell as one-trick pony, I see ample evidence that Dell is well positioned to succeed in its next race.

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Sage Summit 2011: Tackling the Sage NA Branding Challenge

Posted on July 26, 2011 by lauriemccabe

A couple of weeks ago, I attended Sage Summit 2011, Sage’s first combination partner and customer event. I’ve been attending Sage partner, customer and analyst events for several years, observing and commenting on its ongoing attempts to unify it’s corporate brand across multiple small and medium business (SMB) solutions. Earlier this year, following Sue Swenson’s retirement, Pascal Houillon took over the reins as CEO of Sage North America.  I was interested to find out how Houillon plans to deal with what has seemed like an age-old dilemma at Sage North America: having many strong individual SMB brands (think Peachtree, ACT!, Timberline, etc.), but a relatively weak Sage corporate brand.

The Sage North America Branding Challenge

Over the years, Sage North America has added a myriad of SMB-oriented accounting, ERP, CRM, HR, payments and industry-specific solutions to it’s portfolio. In most cases, these solutions brought large groups of loyal customers with them. Sage has undergone many identity-building initiatives in the past, including co-branding all of it’s individual solutions with the Sage master brand in 2009, developing capabilities to seamlessly integrate Sage CRM, ERP, HR and other applications, and a concerted corporate-wide initiative to make customer experience it’s top priority. But, for the most part, Sage customers have continued to identify more with their individual brands, ala Abra or MAS, instead of the Sage moniker.

This has not only hampered Sage’s traditional cross-selling efforts, but it also threatens Sage’s Connected Services strategy, which provides Sage customers with online, connected services (both from Sage and Sage partners) that integrate with on-premise Sage solutions to provide additional functionality.

Clearly, for Connected Services to achieve it’s goals, Sage needs to make sure that, for instance, Sage Integrated Payments Solutions are the first stop for Peachtree or ACCPAC customers looking for payments solutions that integrate with their accounting software.  In addition, without a strong corporate brand, Sage is at a disadvantage when going up against competitors such as Intuit, Microsoft or SAP.

Tackling the Branding Dilemma Head-On

Houillon wasted no time addressing the elephant in the room. At the opening keynote of the partner session, his first announcement was that Sage NA would embark on a phased approach to drop individual product brand names (again, think ACT!, MAS, Peachtree, etc.) in favor of the Sage brand. So for instance, Sage Peachtree Pro, Complete, Premium and Quantum would become Sage 50 Pro, Complete, Premium and Quantum.

Note the word “phased.” This re-branding won’t happen overnight, but take place over the next 12 to 18 months. Sage has lots of products and in many cases, product overlaps. It will most likely start with entry-level solutions, such as Peachtree and ACT!, and those products that have a well-defined space within the Sage line-up.

As important, along with the re-branding, Sage will ramp up existing efforts to create a more consistent user interface and experience among its products, and make it easier to integrate them. For instance, Sage will be incorporating Sage Advisor (first available in Peachtree), which provides in-product assistance to help guide users through tasks, resolve error messages and find functionality as needed, into more of its products.

Needless to say, all of this re-branding talk caused quite a stir among partners, press and analysts. In many cases, partners have invested a lot of passion in an individual brand–in many cases, partners had been selling the individual brand long before Sage acquired it. They have legitimate concerns about making the brand switch, and the new investments they’ll have to make in marketing collateral, web sites, etc. However, in subsequent sessions, Tom Miller, Sage NA’s channel chief, noted several programs already underway at Sage to help ease partners through the transition.

We (press and analysts) also raised a lot of questions about the risk of eroding brand equity that they’ve built up over the years for the individual brands. Several analysts also worried about the blandness of using a numbering system for product names (as noted in both Denis Pombriant’s and Paul Greenberg’s posts on the topic)–which I’m not crazy about either. And of course, there’s the problem that some products overlap with others–such MAS and ACCPAC.

But, after listening to the Q&As and debates, querying Sage execs one-on-one, and talking to Sage customers (most of whom told me they had no problem with rebranding), I think Houillon has made the right decision.

Short-term Pain, Long Term Gain

No doubt that Houillon’s decision will produce some short-term pain, probably most acutely felt by channel partners. But what’s the alternative? Former CEO Sue Swenson stepped in to stop the bleeding, but major surgery is still necessary for Sage to make a full recovery. In the long run, Sage needs to reset, refocus and re-energize the company for growth–something it hasn’t seen much of recently, for these key reasons:

  1. Although all Sage execs appear on board with the change, I’m sure that there are at least a few that have resisted the corporate call. This is just human nature–either inertia, the fact that an individual brand is doing fine as is, or that some people like to run their own little empire without a lot of corporate oversight. The rebranding and what’s underneath it–common look, feel and experience–should help shake out execs that are idling, and foster a more innovative and collaborative environment.  Ultimately, this should yield more value for customers and partners.
  2. A strong corporate brand is key to the success of Sage Connected Services.  Connected Services enable existing Sage customer to easily tap into add-on online services that give them additional functionality. Sage has about 50 connected services already available and coming soon, spanning HR, payments, payroll, tax, sales and marketing functions. For example, Sage offers a dozen Sage Payments Solutions as connected services to Sage ERP and accounting solutions, and several sales and marketing connected services for Sage CRM solutions, such an e-marketing service, as well as business information services via Hoover’s. But, if customers don’t self-identify as Sage customers, they may not even look at Sage Connected Services when needs arise.
  3. Sage needs a strong corporate brand to help its cloud offerings take off. Sage already offers SageCRM.com, ACCPAC Online, SalesLogix Cloud, Sage Payments Solutions and Sage Intergy on Demand (for healthcare) and Sage Billing Boss as cloud solutions, and several more are on the way. As more companies look to the cloud to deploy new solutions, on demand offerings will increasingly erode the sales of packaged software. Sage needs a strong brand to compete in this space and capture new customers as they turn to the cloud.

Or, as Benjamin Franklin said, “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.”

What Sage Must Do to Pull It Off

That said, Sage will face many challenges along the way. Here’s my take on what Sage must do to increase the odds that it will be successful:

  1. Facilitate the branding change for partners. The biggest concern I heard partners voice was about the money and time they would need to spend to accomplish re-branding. Sage needs to make it fast, easy and low- or no-cost for partners to re-brand their web sites, marketing collateral, etc. at every step of the re-branding process. Given Sage’s history of providing partners with innovative tools and programs, I’m confident that it will be able to develop and roll out do the same here.
  2. Put more emphasis and resources to make sure that changes beyond product name changes are achieved. Develop and provide Sage employees, partners, customers, press and analysts with a clear vision and solid plan for what the Sage portfolio of the future will look like. Sage has already made good inroads on integration across product lines, and needs to continue investing here. But other areas are fuzzy. For instance, when and how will it bring a common interface to different solutions?  What’s the roadmap to roll out Sage Advisor technology into different solutions? In cases where there is product overlap, how will it rationalize this?
  3. Make the Sage brand stand for something and stand out. Simply using the Sage name to brand all of its products won’t be enough to get new customers in the door. What can the Sage brand represent? IMHO, Sage should piggyback on the Firm of the Future education it’s offering partners. This workshop helps partners analyze their existing business models, understand and navigate change, and build a plan to create a new business model to succeed in a changing world.  Why not take this a step further and help its SMB customers become Firms of the Future? In almost every industry, SMBs are grappling with changes wrought by a global economy, increasing volatility and new technology. Everyone sees the change coming, but few even know where to start to get ahead of the curve and position to capitalize on it.

No one ever said change is easy. But change is inevitable and for Sage, essential if it is to thrive and grow. Sage has taken a big first step is in the right direction, now it just needs to keep moving ahead.

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SAP Business One: Big Business Capabilities on a Small Business Budget

Posted on May 26, 2011 by lauriemccabe

SAP has forged its corporate identity in the large enterprise space, serving the likes of Coca Cola and Dow Chemical. But, while attending SAP’s Sapphire user event last week, I had the opportunity to meet with Andreas Wolfinger, Global Head of Solution Management and Product Management for SAP Business One, and Jennifer Schulze, Director SME Solutions Marketing (who I interviewed in this SMB Spotlight video) and get an update on SAP Business One –which may be SAP’s best kept secret.

In a nutshell, SAP Business One is designed from the ground up to meet the needs of small businesses and departments and divisions of large businesses. Geared to organizations with limited or no IT resources, SAP Business One offers a unified business management solution that integrates core business functions, including financials, sales, customer relationship management, inventory, and operations. Also included are embedded analytics, ad hoc queries, and standard reports, and integration with SAP Crystal Reports software. Because SAP Business One is built as a unified solution, it can help small businesses get the synergy they need across different business functions, streamline processes, and cut down on redundant data entry and errors.

SAP offers the solution in 40 countries and 25 languages—providing coverage that few other small business ERP vendors can rival. SAP Business One also boasts about 550 add-on solutions, many of which provide industry-specific functionality.

Business One is a packaged solution that customers can run on-premise, but is also available in hosted and hosted subscription offerings. It has a very small footprint, which enables smaller companies to run the solution on a laptop instead of a server. Business One customers are typically up and running in 2 to 8 weeks. Available via SAP Business One partners, pricing (including software license and implementation) typically starts at about $20,000 for five users.

To expand awareness and extend its market reach, SAP introduced the SAP Business One Starter Package in May. The starter package offers a fast, affordable, low-risk on ramp even for very small businesses. It includes pre-configured administration, financials, sales, purchasing, and inventory processes and implementation services for up to 5 users. Pricing starts at under $2,000 U.S., and companies go live in 3 to 10 days. When and if you need to add more users or functionality, you can upgrade to the standard edition of SAP Business One, without having to migrate data, learn a new application or re-train users.

Despite its small size, SAP Business One can also take advantage of sophisticated technology that can provide businesses with a competitive edge. For instance, I was surprised to learn that SAP has Business One running directly on HANA, SAP’s column-based, in-memory database, in its labs. HANA enables applications to zip through calculations for millions of records in just fractions of a second. According to SAP, this is valuable even for companies that don’t have to crunch through huge volumes of data. For example, in-memory technology will also improve the performance of the application. Though not yet ready for prime time, SAP plans to introduce Business One In-Memory Database with the release of the 9.x family, slated for early 2012.

Small businesses have very diverse needs and constraints, and Business One won’t fit the bill for every small business. However, small businesses that want a flexible, capable integrated, on-premise business suite may be pleasantly surprised to learn about–and investigate–what SAP Business One has to offer.

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Pervasive Puts Its Galaxy Integration Community Into Orbit

Posted on May 23, 2011 by lauriemccabe

–by Sanjeev Aggarwal and Laurie McCabe, SMB Group

At its annual Metamorphosis conference earlier this month, Pervasive announced Pervasive Galaxy, which merges an online integration marketplace and community into a single, streamlined platform. Pervasive has designed Galaxy to remove boundaries between buyers and sellers and make it easier for end-user customers to understand options, review vendors, figure out what’s best for their needs, and shop for/purchase integration solutions. Galaxy’s built-in community capabilities help vendors connect with customers to gain input, gather feedback, exchange ideas and help crowdsource new solutions.

As we noted in our SMB Group Top Ten 2011 SMB Predictions, better, faster integration is becoming a critical business solutions differentiator. Cloud computing has made business solutions more accessible and affordable for a wider swath of companies, but integrating them can break the bank. This is especially the case for SMBs, who usually don’t have the money or appetite for complex or time-consuming integrations.

This reality drove Pervasive, a long-time leader in the integration space, to send Galaxy into orbit on the heels of some very big players making significant acquisitions in the integration space; IBM’s purchase of Cast Iron earlier this year, and Dell’s recent deal for Boomi.

Here’s a quick synopsis of the announcement, and our take on what it means for the integration market and the stakeholders in it.

The Integration Challenge

Integration is one of the biggest and costliest hurdles for companies that need to adopt new applications. Companies need to integrate applications and data sources to maximize productivity, reduce redundancy and inaccuracies, and streamline workflows. Yet integration between and among external cloud and on-premise applications, different data sources and existing business workflows can be costly and complicated. This is particularly true for SMBs, who lack IT staff that can develop integration between applications, or the budgets for solutions that require time and labor services.

How Galaxy Addresses the Integration Challenge

With Galaxy, Pervasive is creating a place where customers can easily identify and access affordable and capable integration solutions and vendors, and also provide vendors with feedback about their integration requirements. Galaxy will offer data integration products, solutions, connectors, plug-ins and templates, and serve as a community platform for customers, developers, integrators and other relevant vendors. Pervasive’s intent is that this convergence will nurture a strong ecosystem which will facilitate more rapid, innovative and accessible integration solutions.

Vendors on Galaxy will offer customers both integration components and turnkey cloud integration services. For instance, integration components available in Galaxy include engines, workflows, connectors, agents and rich data services that can support a range of needs, such as data loading, data matching, profiling, transformation and business analytics. Galaxy will also offer ready to run solutions for point-to-point solution integration in a subscription-based SaaS model.

How Galaxy Works for Customers

Galaxy enables community participants to build, preview, test and buy integration solutions. These might include pre-built data integration solutions, connectors, plug-ins or templates that enable faster integration solution development.

Instead of starting with a Google search, or contacting a VAR or consultant and trying to figure out if there is an existing integration solution that’s right for their needs, customers can go to Galaxy and see if there’s an existing solution that fits the bill. They can also use Galaxy to locate a partner than can customize an available integration to their individual needs, or build a custom solution from scratch.

Building an integration community is Galaxy’s other primary focal point. End users will not only be able to shop for ready-made solutions on Galaxy, but will also be able to view and rate templates, connectors, plug-ins and solutions. They can also use Galaxy to inform developers and integrators about their needs, request new integrations, and link to others with similar needs to share the costs of getting a new integration developed. End-users who build integrations themselves can, if they want, also sell them to others via the Galaxy platform.

How Galaxy Works for Partners

Pervasive Galaxy offers developer and system integrator (SI) partners an integration marketplace platform, development tools, store, community collaboration and revenue sharing–basically everything they need to build and sell their solutions. There is no charge to build integrations. Once partners build the solution and start selling it on Galaxy, they keep 70% of the sale and the other 30% goes to Pervasive. Partners retain their intellectual property, and can offer documentation and the required technical support (possibly for an additional fee).

Galaxy should help developers get their integrations to market more quickly, and make their offerings more accessible to a broader constituency. For instance, Galaxy’s “try and buy” program gives developers a way to demonstrate ROI before they commit to a purchase–giving skittish and/or cash-strapped SMBs a risk-free way to try the integration and see if it pays off before they have to spend money for it.

In addition, partners can take advantage of Galaxy’s community to tap into integration requirements across a range of businesses. This should enable them to tune their integration solutions more closely to actual requirements, to explore potential new markets for their products and meet customer needs in a more repeatable and profitable manner.

What Does Galaxy Do for Pervasive?

Galaxy gives Pervasive a centralized mechanism to market and provide access to its growing array of development and testing tools–including Pervasive Data Integrator, Pervasive DataCloud, Pervasive Data Profiler in a more streamlined way to developers and integrators–and build a new revenue stream based on the sales of the integrations that partners build and sell.

Pervasive has initiated, built and will maintain and manage the Galaxy marketplace platform. As the Galaxy community grows, Pervasive should also be able to extract a lot of insight about customer and partner integration requirements and demands across different horizontal, vertical and geographic markets, which it can use in its own product planning efforts. Pervasive and its community members will jointly develop and participate in demand generation and building visibility for the Galaxy market, vendors and community.

At some point, Galaxy could serve as a launch pad for integration testing and certification, conducted either by Pervasive or by the community, helping to reinforce the company’s position as a leader in the integration space.

Quick Take

The integration challenge is becoming increasingly more complex because of trends such as cloud computing, mobile solutions, social media and the exponential growth of data. These trends will continue to drive the need for companies to integrate more applications and data from an increasingly dizzying array of sources.

These trends are also driving Pervasive and its integration competitors to tear down some of the barriers that have made integration so difficult in the past (see Dell and Boomi: Doubling Down on Integration, for our view on Dell’s approach to this challenge).

With Galaxy, Pervasive has built a streamlined, in-context ecosystem for customers to search for, identify, evaluate and purchase integration solutions. As important, Galaxy gives users a place where they can voice their integration experiences, concerns and requirements. Meanwhile, Galaxy should help partners market their solutions, and gain insight on integration gaps and requirements from a much broader audience, and amortize the costs of developing their integrations over a larger number of customers. The ecosystem approach puts vendors and customers on the same page and fosters the collaboration that should result in a win/win for all involved.

However, while Pervasive has built Galaxy, the question remains whether enough users and partners will come to make it a true integration destination point. To fuel customer interest, Galaxy needs a strong cadre of actively engaged developers, SIs and integrations in the Galaxy ecosystem. Conversely, to attract partners, it needs a lot of customers that partners can sell their services to. Pervasive will need to double down on its social media, marketing, partner engagement and other related activities to ensure Galaxy reaches its goals–especially as it faces strong competition from the big guys–in our opinion, particularly from Dell-Boomi, which appears to be thriving under the Dell umbrella.

But, Pervasive’s smaller, independent status can also play in its favor, as noted in Top Takeaways from Pervasive’s 2010 IntegratioNext Conference. The company can keep a laser-like focus on the integration needs of customers and the business development needs of partners. And its independent status may appeal to prospective partners that may having differing agendas than or encounter red-tape challenges when working with Pervasive’s larger rivals. If Pervasive can use this agility and focus to its full advantage, and rev up marketing and social media engagements, Galaxy should succeed in it mission to create a vibrant integration marketplace.

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The New Dell and What it Means for SMBs: Takeaways from Dell’s 2011 Solutions for a Virtual Era Event

Posted on May 11, 2011 by lauriemccabe

Twenty-seven years ago, Michael Dell launched Dell with $1,000 and a streamlined sales and manufacturing model that revolutionized the PC industry. Sticking with this playbook, Dell achieved similar success in the server market, once again disrupting the status quo.

However, times changed, and Dell started to look like a one-trick pony. As Michael Dell himself acknowledged at last week’s Dell’s 2011 Virtual Era Analyst Event, which I’m paraphrasing here, “Dell had a winning formula that worked for a long time…but then it didn’t work so well anymore. Technology changed, as did customers’ expectation of technology, and Dell had to reinvent itself.” After re-taking the helm in 2007, Michael Dell began charting a new  course for Dell–one designed to help it capitalize on market demand for better, more cost-effective and easier to use IT solutions.

At last week’s event, Dell provided us with an update on its strategy to help companies in the anytime, anywhere virtual era by providing customers with “open, capable, affordable solutions.” For Dell, this means building solutions on open, industry standards; providing customers with choice; virtually (instead of vertically) integrated solutions; and ensuring that solutions can scale as required.

By leveraging cloud computing and remote services, and delivering the right blend of hardware, service and software offerings as more complete solutions–instead of as commodity piece parts–Dell’s aim is to solve customers’ IT problems instead of creating new ones.

How Dell’s Strategy Plays in the SMB Market

At this year’s event, Dell put SMBs in the spotlight. Steve Felice, president of Dell’s Consumer, Small and Medium Business unit, took center stage in the line-up of keynote presentations, mapping out Dell’s SMB vision. Dell’s other executive presenters and panelists–up to and including Michael Dell–underscored Dell’s commitment to delivering products, services and solutions tailored to the needs of SMB customers as well. (This contrasted with last year’s event, at which Dell mentioned that it would use mid-market businesses as its design point, but then quickly veered into large enterprise territory for the bulk of the event).

More importantly, Dell is putting meat on the messaging bones at both ends of the SMB spectrum. For example:

  • Dell’s focal point for the Virtual Era is the mid-market. Dell defines the mid-market as companies with 500 to a few thousand employees. It believes that by starting with mid-market requirements, Dell believes it can more readily scale up or down and make the economics of IT work better for businesses of all sizes, because mid-market companies have complex IT needs, but scarce IT resources–and can’t afford a lot of expensive labor or IT tools. They need more complete, automated, fixed price IT solutions and services. Recent Dell acquisitions such as KACE, which helps simplify systems management and deployment with appliance and cloud-based solutions, and Boomi, which supplies cloud integration services to help companies affordably integrate cloud and on-premise applications,  focus on mid-market problems. Dell’s results to date illustrate how this approach is shaping up: KACE sales are up 400%, and Boomi (see Dell and Boomi: Doubling Down on Integration) sales are on track to double by year-end.  At Dell’s Take Your Own Path SMB event in December 2010, I met several Dell SMB customers, (see SMB Group video interviews with Chitale Dairy and Pixomondo) that are using these and other Dell solutions to help move their businesses ahead of the competition. 
  • Capitalizing on the consumerization trend. IT innovation used to move mostly downstream, from large enterprises to the consumer. These days, the direction has reversed. Consumers are buying brighter, shinier and often more capable devices than they get at work–and bringing them into the office. Entrepreneurs are starting their own businesses, and don’t want to sacrifice the looks, power, capability and ease of use of consumer devices for stodgy and unwieldy business products. In a nutshell, consumer IT is raising the bar for business IT. Dell is taking advantage of its position as one of only two major vendors with an end-to-end portfolio that spans client devices from consumers through large business. Dell’s consumer products provide it with a great access point to small businesses. Since the introduction of its small business Vostro line in 2007, Dell has continued to make refine and expand its offerings to help small businesses bridge the gap from consumer to prosumer and up with a portfolio of PCs, notebooks, tablets and smartphones geared to different needs across this spectrum, along with services to help with device manageability, security and control. In particular, Dell has been aggressively expanding its mobile offerings with a comprehensive line-up of Android and Windows 7 devices to capitalize on the transformational shift to mobile computing.
  • Taking a more channel-friendly but not a channel-only approach. Dell has moved from being a poster child for the direct model to a company that recognizes the value of the channel and the role it plays in the SMB market. Several of its recent acquisitions, including Compellent, EquaLogic and KACE brought strong reseller channels that Dell is building on. However, Dell also recognizes that while many SMBs continue to rely on the channel, SMBs are increasingly purchasing at least some of their IT solutions directly, as indicated in SMB Group’s 2010 SMB Routes to Market Study.  Unlike its major competitors, Dell’s first priority is to bring greater IT efficiency to the market–not on maintaining an IT channel that doesn’t add value. This should increase the odds that the channel partners that work with Dell are actually adding value instead of just serving as middlemen.
  • Becoming a bona fide software and services provider.  Dell and others have talked about “productizing” services and automating technology solutions to make them more affordable and provide better business value. Dell’s recent string of software acquisitions and its purchase of Perot Systems indicate Dell’s intent to become a serious force in this realm. Dell’s investments to date to build cloud infrastructure and services foreshadow its future intent to offer an expanded range of public, private and hybrid cloud solutions for SMBs. In addition, Dell’s Managed Services footprint is growing, with 9000 team members in 39 countries who provide an array of services, from application services to break/fix. Dell’s focus on using cloud and other technologies to help provide remote, automated services should make these services more affordable for SMBs.

Quick Take

Dell’s strategy for the Virtual Era and mid-market design point bode well for SMBs. Unlike the many technology vendors that speak in jargon-riddled tongues that can make your head spin, Dell execs are also able to tell the story in a way that mere mortals can understand. As important, Dell has found the silver lining in the Dell Hell support crisis of a few years back, building extensive social media capabilities so that it can listen to what customers want, and map to these requirements. Finally, Dell is walking the walk–investing in and building the software and services capabilities it will need to deliver its vision to SMB customers.

Dell contrasts its perspective with that of its traditional major competitors–HP and IBM, which it contends skew towards a large enterprise design point. While I think Dell may be overstating this, Dell’s SMB strategy and solutions seem to be more deeply entwined with the fabric of the corporate vision as a whole.

Of course, I’d like to see Dell go even further with its SMB agenda. Some top of mind ideas:

  • Provide a less expensive but just as inviting alternative to the Mac. Many entrepreneurs and small business owners are defecting from Windows PCs to Macs not because of hardware issues but because they’ve had too many experiences where the Windows slows down and gets funky. I’d love to see Dell put more focus into raising the profile of its non-Windows PC and desktop alternatives.
  • Offer a turnkey social media service for SMBs. Dell really gets social media, and in my opinion, is ahead of the field in understanding how to use it effectively. It would be great if Dell created a streamlined, turnkey offering to help SMBs use, monitor and manage social media. As we learned in the SMB Group’s 2011 SMB Social Business Study, and as highlighted in this post, Is There a Method to Social Media Madness, only about a quarter of SMBs are using social media in a strategic way, and few are using tools to manage and ensure that they’re getting return on their social media investments.
  • Solve the SMB dilemma of having to buy and pay for multiple mobile service contracts for different devices. How about using a little muscle with AT&T (Dell also needs to offer its mobile devices through Verizon) to enable–instead of prohibiting–SMBs to tether their notebooks with their smartphones (instead of banning this) via a bundled service package. The SMB Group’s 2010 SMB Mobile Solutions Study showed that expensive data plans for mobile services are the biggest inhibitor to SMBs adopting mobile solutions, as discussed here.

Dell’s commitment to the SMB market is coming through loud and clear. If it can stay focused and be bold, it has the opportunity to do some big things for SMBs that should really pay off for both Dell and for its SMB customers.

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