http://www.zdnet.

com/article/the-a-list-top-technology-for-small-businesses/

The A-list: top

technology for small
businesses
Which products and technologies should
small businesses be considering when
investing in IT? We have some suggestions.
By Charles McLellan | July 1, 2013 -- 16:23 GMT (00:23 GMT+08:00) | Topic: IT
Innovation for Small Businesses

It's generally accepted that IT is a key driver of business growth in small

businesses. However, SMEs are not equally good at identifying and deploying
the optimal mix of technologies. This can have important implications: a recent
study by Symantec, for example, found that 'top-tier' SMEs typically spend 7

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percent less on computing than 'bottom-tier' ones (Symantec's tiers are based
on an index of IT confidence). This may reflect the fact that tech-savvy
businesses tend to invest in the right technology, avoiding the costly need to
'rip and replace' their mistakes.
A January 2013 survey by the UK's Federation of Small Businesses, The
Digital Imperative: small businesses, technology and growth, asked 2,200
members specifically about investment in new technology and its effect on
business innovation. The average investment over the previous 12 months
was just 3,500, although bigger companies (with 21-50 staff) spent over
10,000 on average. Software, laptops and website improvements headed the
investment areas, with mobile computing (smartphones and tablets) and cloud
services occupying a mid-table position:

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SME investment in different technology categories. (Data and image: The

Digital Imperative: small businesses, technology and growth; The Federation
of Small Businesses, 2013)
SME sectors that credited their technology investments for business
innovation were headed (not surprisingly) by IT, followed by education, realestate and creative services:

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SME sectors crediting technology investment for 'moderate or significant'

innovation during the past year. (Data and image: The Digital Imperative:
small businesses, technology and growth; The Federation of Small
Businesses, 2013)
Software and online investments had the highest rating (83%) in terms of
driving business innovation among SMEs, with cloud services (76%), ecommerce (74%), servers (72%), tablets (72%) and smartphones (68%) also
figuring highly.
So, what does ZDNet reckon that SMEs should be looking at when investing
in technology? Here's a selection of products and services worth considering.

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Email/productivity/collaboration software
Every small business will require email and some sort of office productivity
suite, and there are multiple options available. If you're a sole trader and don't
want to pay anything, there are free online services from Microsoft
(Outlook.com email with unlimited storage, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and
OneNote web apps, plus 7GB of SkyDrive storage), Google (Gmail, Drive with
Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Form and Drawing apps, plus 15GB of
storage which includes the email allocation) and Zoho (Mail with 5GB of
storage for up to five mailboxes, Docs with word processor, spreadsheet and
presentation tool, plus 1GB of storage). If you prefer to use desktop
productivity software rather web-based apps, free options
include OpenOffice.org and the LibreOffice spin-off.
Most small businesses will want more functionality than these free products
deliver, which brings us to the next level. Microsoft offers its Office
2013 productivity software in Home & Student (109.99, without Outlook),
Office Home & Business (219.99) or Office Professional (389.99) versions for
a single PC, or as an Office 365 subscription for in the case of the
recommended Small Business Premium version (8.40/user/month or
100.80/user/year) up to 25 users. Office 365 Small Business Premium
gives you eight downloadable desktop applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
OneNote, Outlook, Access, Publisher and Lync), access to mobile and web
apps, hosted email with 25GB of storage per user and the ability to use your
own domain name, 7GB of SkyDrive storage for documents, plus web
conferencing, website hosting, security, support and a guaranteed 99.9
percent uptime.
Google's web-based business productivity suite is Google Apps for Business,
which for 3.30/user/month (or 33/user/year) gives you 30GB of Gmail and

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Drive storage, unlimited users, 24/7 customer support and guaranteed 99.9
percent uptime. A 'with Vault' option (6.60/user/year) adds extra security and
data archiving/retrieval features.

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Zoho's web-based business offering includes Zoho Mail with either 10GB or
15GB storage per user ($2.50/user/month or $3.50/user/month respectively)
and Zoho Docs with either 10 workspaces and 2GB of storage or 50
workspaces and 5GB of storage ($3/user/month or $5/user/month
respectively).
Many larger enterprises are effectively locked into a traditional Microsoft
combination of in-house Exchange email, SharePoint document management
and collaboration, and Office productivity applications. By contrast, small
businesses especially startups and micro businesses have the legacyfree opportunity to explore alternative models, such as SaaS or renting
desktop software via a subscription.
Line of business software
When it comes to the core applications required to run a business

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accounting and payroll, business analytics, customer relationship

management, human resources, resource planning, supply chain
management and so on there is again plenty of choice, ranging from
integrated suites including some or all of these components, to individual
desktop or SaaS applications, to packaged collections of SaaS apps from
cloud service brokers (CSBs) with added migration, integration and
management tooling.
UK-based Sage is a leading provider of accounting and payroll software for
SMEs both on-premise via Sage Instant and Sage 50, and online via Sage
One. Sage also does SME-focused CRM software both on-premise (ACT!,
Sage CRM) and hosted (Sage CRM Cloud). Another well-known provider of
desktop and online accounting/payroll software is Intuit, with
its QuickBooks, QuickBooks Payroll and QuickBooks Online products.
Small businesses may not have the financial or human resources to deploy
and curate a full ERP solution such as NetSuite or even an SME-focused
service like SAP Business One. However, there are a multitude of individual
products, particularly SaaS offerings, that allow SMEs to mix and match the
components they require if they're prepared to handle the integration
issues that arise. You'll find an extensive (if by no means comprehensive)
listing of SaaS providers in various business categories in our special report
on Cloud: How To Do SaaS Right.
Even this may prove a daunting task for many SMEs, in which case they're
likely to turn to third-party cloud service brokerages such as Cloud Direct to
ease their path to the cloud.
Creative software
Another large software company to adopt the subscription model is Adobe

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with its Creative Cloud (CC), which has now, somewhat controversially,
replaced the perpetual-licence Creative Suite (CS). A full subscription for new
CC members costs 46.88 a month, with alternative membership plans (some
discounted) available for existing CS users, students and teachers, teams and
enterprises. There's also a free membership that gives you access to 30-day
trials of Adobe's rich portfolio of creative applications, plus 2GB of cloud
storage. Most of Adobe's applications still run on the desktop as before; but
now, if your subscription runs out, you lose access to the software and files
saved in the CC apps' proprietary format.

A subscription to Adobe's Creative Cloud gives you access to a rich portfolio

of applications and services. (Screenshot: Charles McLellan/ZDNet)
If you're an SME with a strong creative requirement, a Creative Cloud
subscription may be worth considering, as there are a lot of applications, tools
and services included. However, although you can rent an individual desktop

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application such as Photoshop for 17.58 a month, with limited access to

other CC services, there are no sector-specific membership plans apart from
the Student & Teacher edition. It's all or next-to-nothing with Creative Cloud.
If you're uncertain about Creative Cloud, but still need image manipulation,
vector drawing, video editing and other creative applications, there are plenty
of alternatives, many of them free and open-source. Leading examples
are Gimp (image editing), Inkscape (illustration)Lightworks (video editing)
and KompZer (website creation).
Continued

NComputing's M300 trio of thin clients Image:

NComputing
Client devices
Desktops
The desktop PC market may be in decline , but plenty of small businesses still
require large-screen computers that don't need to be moved very often. If
expansion isn't an issue, one of the many all-in-one devices from leading
players like Dell, HP, Lenovo or Apple could fit the bill. Alternatively, an entrylevel thin-client/virtual desktop system such as the N-Computing M300 is a
very cost-effective and power-frugal solution: you can run up to low-power 45
M300 thin clients from a single host Windows Server system (the precise
number depends on the server configuration).

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Laptops
The current flavour of the month for laptop vendors is the '2-in-1' Windows 8
tablet/ultrabook, with the latest models based around Intel's new low-power
4th-Generation Core (Haswell) processor. All of the leading laptop
manufacturers have products in this sector, and a number of form factors are
being experimented with, including fully detachable screen/tablets from a
keyboard dock and screens that slide up and down over a keyboard section.

A high-end tablet/ultrabook: Lenovo's ThinkPad

Helix. Image: Lenovo
At the top end, we like the design of Lenovo's ThinkPad Helix , although it
reportedly runs hot and may benefit from an upgrade to the aforementioned
Haswell chip. Asus is the manufacturer with the most heritage in the
tablet/laptop hybrid sector with its Transformer and ViviTab devices; the
company's most recent announcement is the Transformer Book Trio , which
runs Android in undocked tablet mode and Windows 8 (by default) when
docked with the keyboard section.

Samsung's Series 3 Chromebook costs just

229. Image: Google

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If you're happy with the traditional clamshell form factor, there's a huge
amount of choice available, from desirable high-end kit like the 13-inch or 15inch MacBook Pro with Retina display to Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon
Touch , to Google's premium 12.85in. Chromebook Pixel , which not only
boasts a higher-than-Retina pixel density, but also a touchscreen (the Pixel's
downsides are its high price and limited-functionality Chrome OS operating
system). Chromebooks are available for much more affordable prices, in the
shape of Samsung's Series 3 device, for example. And of course, there's any
number of budget Windows 7 and 8 notebooks, with and without
touchscreens, available from the likes of Dell, HP, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer and
Asus.
Tablets
Apple remains the biggest player in the tablet market with its iPad, now on its
4th generation and joined by the small-screen iPad mini. However, things
have been made more interesting by the recent entry of Microsoft into the
tablet arena with its ARM/Windows RT-basedSurface RT and Intel Core
i5/Windows 8-based Surface Pro devices, and also by serious competition
from Samsung's Galaxy Tab and pen-enabled Galaxy Note Android tablets. At
the lower end of the price scale, Google's excellent Nexus tablets, which
come in 10-inchand 7-inch form factors, have also made an impact.

Microsoft's Surface tablets have enlivened the tablet

market, although Apple and Samsung remain the leading players. Image:
Charles McLellan/ZDNet

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Which kind of tablet should an SME choose iOS, Windows (RT or 8),
Android, large-screen or small-screen? That depends, of course, on the
budget and the use case: if you need to run Microsoft Office, for example,
you're looking at a Windows RT tablet (which comes with Office Home &
Student 2013 bundled), a Windows 8 tablet or at running Office web apps in a
browser. Alternatively, you can create and edit Office documents on nonWindows platforms using third-party applications like QuickOffice.
As far as native apps are concerned, the iOS and Android app stores have the
most choice (although a significant number will be optimised for smallerscreen smartphones), with 'modern' Windows Store apps a long way behind
at present. A Windows 8 tablet will run a huge number of 'legacy' desktop
Windows apps, but few of these are optimised for touchscreen operation.
What's key here, of course, is not so much the total number of apps available
on any particular platform, but whether the subset that your business needs is
supported.
Other factors to consider: do you need an add-on keyboard (for creating
longer documents than brief emails and notes); how much internal storage do
you require, and is storage expansion supported; is pen input important; do
you need mobile broadband or will Wi-Fi connectivity suffice?
Smartphones
The smartphone market has seen considerable change recently, with Apple's
once-dominant iPhone challenged, and now overtaken, in market share by a
flood of Android devices led by the prolific Samsung. Apple's next iPhone
(iPhone 6 or iPhone 5S), expected in the autumn, is awaited with great
interest, as there's a lot riding on both it and the recently unveiled iOS
7 redesign/refresh.

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ZDNet's current favourite high-end smartphone: the HTC

One. Image: HTC
Samsung is the dominant manufacturer in the Android space, with its
extravagantly-featured Galaxy S4 recently replacing the highly-regarded S
III as its flagship device. There's an almost bewildering choice of Samsung
Android smartphones, with the company's UK website listing no fewer than 34
models, so there's almost certainly something for every use case and budget.
Nevertheless, our current favourite high-end Android smartphone (high-end
smartphone, period, in fact) is the Editors' Choice-winning HTC One an
excellent effort from a company that has suffered badly from Samsung's rise.
Another once-mighty smartphone manufacturer to struggle recently is the
company formerly known as RIM, which is pinning recovery hopes on its
new BlackBerry 10 operating system and the (touchscreen-only) Z10 and
(keyboard-equipped) Q10 handsets. One of BlackBerry's biggest draws is
BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES), now at version 10.1 , which can secure
and manage not only BlackBerry devices but also iOS and Android handsets.
It does this via a new module called Secure Work Space, which adds the
company's native Balance functionality that separates work and personal
data. Of particular interest to SMEs is the fact that BlackBerry has recently
launched BES 10.1 as a cloud service previously it only ran on in-house
servers. For more on managing 'Bring Your Own Device' deployments, see
our special feature on BYOD and the Consumerization of IT.

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Windows is a minority platform in the smartphone space something that

Microsoft, in partnership with Nokia, is making a concerted effort to change.
Although there's a lot of ground to catch up, Nokia's Windows Phone
handsets such as the Windows Phone 8-based Lumia 920, 720 and
520 have generally been well received, with HTC and Samsung the main
third-party Windows Phone vendors.
Continued
Servers and storage
If you've decided that, for the moment, you don't want to put your entire
business in the cloud, you'll need to decide the level of in-house IT
infrastructure that's required.

Synology's SME NAS boxes like the 4-bay DS-413 run

the excellent DiskStation Manager software.Image: Synology
NAS and SAN
Small and micro-businesses requiring little more than basic file and print
services may well get away with a modern NAS (Network Attached Storage)
box rather than a fully featured tower, rack or blade server. These cost- and
space-efficient appliances are essentially hard disk arrays with added
invariably Linux-based software offering a variety of services. Leading NAS
vendor Synology, for example, runs its extensive range of DiskStation and
RackStation products on the excellent DSM (DiskStation Manager) software,
now at version 4.2. This is a sophisticated application that not only handles
the core file sharing, RAID configuration and backup/restore duties, but also

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supports virtualisation and has a thriving ecosystem of add-on

packages delivering a wide range of extra backup, management, multimedia,
productivity, security and data protection, and surveillance functionality. Other
leading SME-focused NAS vendors include Netgear, Qnap, Buffalo, Iomega
(an EMC company), Lacie and Thecus, among others.

Drobo B800i: an 8-bay iSCSI SAN aimed at

SMEs. Image: Drobo
The next step up from NAS is SAN (Storage Attached Network), which
supports the efficient block-level (as opposed to file-level) access that's
required by databases, for example. A leading SME-focused vendor here is
Drobo, whose eight-bay B800i iSCSI SAN earned an Editors' Choice award
when we reviewed it back in 2011 (Drobo also does a more affordable NAS
version of this product, the B800fs). Key factors underpinning our approval of
Drobo's solutions are the company's flexible BeyondRAID technology and
easy manageability via the Dashboard interface.
A recent storage development that should interest many an SME is
Connected Data'sTransporter a company and product with the same
founder, Geoff Barrall, as Drobo (with which it has recently merged ).
Transporter is an intriguing cross between a NAS box and, when linked to
others of its ilk, a private cloud storage solution. It's particularly suited to
organisations like law and medical practices that require easily manageable

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file storage, sharing and backup but may be wary of keeping data in public
cloud services such as Dropbox, Box or Egnyte.

HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen 8: an entry-level SME

server. Image: HP
Servers
If it's full-blown servers you require, there's plenty of choice. All of the leading
server vendors IBM, HP, Dell, Fujitsu have products aimed specifically at
SMEs. HP, for example, has its entry-level small-footprint, singleprocessor ProLiant Microserver Gen 8 range, which can run Windows Server,
Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and uses HP's
iLO4 technology for quick and easy installation, setup and provisioning. Dell's
equivalent is its range of single-processor PowerEdge tower systems, starting
with the T110 and including the T320 , which we described as "a real SME
power platform" when we reviewed it last year. As requirements are added
(virtualisation, web serving, mail serving, application serving, for example), so
servers with more processors and storage options, and denser form factors
such as racks and blades, come into play.
Networking
Many small businesses will be tempted by the ease of deployment and
increasing speed of wireless networks, and the latest standard expected to
be fully ratified next year is 5GHz 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The existing 802.11n
standard specifies up to four parallel 40MHz spatial channels, whereas
802.11ac specifies up to eight parallel channels of at least 80MHz, with
160MHz optional. Current 802.11ac kit , based on 3 spatial streams with

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80MHz channels, delivers a maximum throughput of up to 1.3Mbps, while the

standard supports a theoretical maximum speed of 6.9Gbps (8 spatial
streams with 160MHz channels).

Xirrus's XR-4000 modular Wi-Fi array supports up to 8

upgradeable 2.4GHz or 5GHz integrated access points arranged around a
central controller board.Image: Charles McLellan/ZDNet
One of the more interesting Wi-Fi vendors is California-basedXirrus, which
makes modular wireless arrays such as the XR-4000, with radio modules
arranged in a distinctive circular chassis using directional antennas for
efficient coverage. Xirrus has recently announced a software-programmable
802.11ac solution for its dual-band wireless arrays and radio modules,
allowing businesses to upgrade from 2.4GHz and/or 5GHz to the faster
standard as and when the need arises.
Despite still awaiting final ratification, next-generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi is now
making its way into mainstream products including high-end smartphones
such as the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One, and also Apple's AirPort Time
Capsule, a useful combination of Wi-Fi router and up to 3TB of network
storage.
Infrastructure as a Service
Small and medium-sized businesses are a major target market when it comes
to outsourcing IT infrastructure to the public cloud, as they're likely to be

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tempted by the cost advantages of not having to equip and manage an inhouse datacentre.
Parallels is one of the leading developers of cloud technology for service
providers that cater for the SME market. According to the company's latest
research, as of late 2012 IaaS contributes some $15.8 billion to a worldwide
SME cloud service market of $45.2 billion (the other services are hosted
communication and collaboration, web presence and web applications, and
business applications). By late 2015, Parallels estimates that the market will
have grown by 28 percent CAGR to $95.7 billion, with IaaS contributing $31.3
billion to that total.
Three types of small business will fuel this growth in cloud services, says
Parallels: 'converters' that currently have in-house solutions but will move to
hosted services when the time comes to upgrade their infrastructure; 'leapers'
(including startups) with rudimentary or no in-house IT infrastructure that move
straight to the cloud; and 'expanders' that already use some cloud services
and are looking to take on more. IaaS, as far as Parallels in concerned,
includes dedicated servers, virtual private servers, managed hosting and utility
(or elastic) computing.