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 Small business is a topic I write about elsewhere — as in my day job, so typically I eschew it here. However, as small business technology seems to be getting lots of attention today, I’ll wear my professional small business marketplace watcher hat and make a few observations about today’s announcement from Microsoft regarding Office Live, a tiered suite of online services for small businesses. Coupled with the announcement yesterday of a free accounting software product for the small business market, this is a major escalation in the arms race between Microsoft and Intuit — with other deep pockets like Yahoo!, Google, eBay and Amazon also in the fray, along with an endless array of other players focused on niche small business technology and online opportunities and specialized needs. (I guess, in a big-tent way, this includes me, but here I’m focusing on the tech-provider giants.)
First off, Microsoft’s announcement is impressive: a three-tiered “freemium” product (free plus two pay options with additional services and features). One of the major advantages Microsoft has in the small business market is an army of resellers and Small Business Specialists. These folks are, in most instances, small business owners themselves who have the relationship and trust of their clients. How these “middle” players direct their small business clients in adopting the new online services vs. selling them desktop software and servers is a mystery to me.
Here is some context for today’s announcement — most are things I have blogged about in the past:
Like Microsoft, Intuit has a major off-line advantage in the market with the accountants and bookkeepers who are “professional advisers” for clients who use Intuit products. For example, one of the most impressive company-sponsored wikis I am aware of is Intuit’s TaxAlmanac.org which it hosts primarily for this professional (and referral) community. Intuit has also launched a “social network” site for small businesses called Jump Up.
Intuit and Google have teamed up on the next version of QuickBooks. This is big news as the installed base of small business Quickbook users is dominant. At the time of the announcement, it appeared that there was room for both parties to work with other players.
Recent announcements by Google of services aimed at the small business market, including today’s acquisition of JotSpot. Google is also beta testing a version of G-mail that allows a business to use its own domain name instead of “GMail.com.” It now has an ecommerce transaction engine. With a few tweaks, the Blogger platform could be the simplest way a small business could set up a website. Wrap all that up with a branded product (most likely product name: Google Office) and you’ve got an impressive (and, more important, simple) solution for many small businesses.
Amazon has been announcing all types of services in the data and fulfillment arena designed for small and medium-sized businesses. Their web hosting services may compete with the other players, but the fulfillment service is unique and could be integrated into the offerings of others.
eBay is a major player (remember, it owns PayPal) in certain segments of the small business world and its acquisition of Skype has led the company to work on developing something Meg Whitman calls, “click to call.”
Most important point: This is not a new battle. It has been taking place for at least a decade. What’s new is the shift of the battle from the desktop to the browser; from boxed software to web applications. It’s now a Web 2.0 thing. It’s really fun to watch.
Disclosure: Most of the companies mentioned in this post have advertised in magazines published by Hammock Publishing, but none are clients — but, hey, my e-mail address and phone number are easy to find.
Technorati Tags: ebay, google, intuit, microsoft, small business, web2.0
(Note to those reading this via RSS - you’ll have to click through to my blog for this to make sense.) A week or so ago, I added a little code to the right sidebar of the rexblog that displays the photos of those who visit this page who are registered on a social-networking service called MyBlogLog.com. I was anticipating some problems with it as I’m leary of anything that has the potential of displaying a graphic on this site without at least chance of me previewing it. Despite my doubts and fears, so far it has been fun to watch who shows up over there. For example, I just noticed the photo of a person who got lots of money from Google today. That’s pretty cool that you can write a post about someone and then see their photo pop up as they come see what the heck you’ve written. It might not work on a heavily traffic’d site with dozens of photos streaming by, but it sure helps add a little hominess here. And it’s one of the first things I’ve seen that makes me want to actually visit a blog rather than read it through a newsreader.
Technorati Tags: mybloglog, social media
The dresser-uppers (or is that dressers-upper?) at Hammock Publishing.
I didn’t use the “acqhire” word earlier when I blogged the Google purchase of JotSpot as a round or two of VC funding took Jot out of that league. However, when a magazine/web property owned by a multi-billion dollar media giant buys buys Reddit, a company with four employees, now that fits the definition. Or, perhaps, in this case, I might call it “a long tail acquisition.”
Technorati Tags: acqhire
According to Terry Heaton, “aggregate traffic to (Nashville’s ABC affiliate, WKRN’s) 19 blogs last week exceeded traffic to the station’s primary Website, wkrn.com. This means the station has doubled its reach and created niche “businesses” in the market at the same time.”
I guess it’s because people like me are always pointing their way because they know how to point this way, as well.
Congratulations to Mike & Co. for jumping into the deep end while everyone else was afraid to stick their toes in the water.
Technorati Tags: blogging, media, nashville
From several sources, comes news of ‘The Google’ acquiring the wiki-creation tool, JotSpot. Here’s what the company’s blog says. Ross Mayfield, the early-entrepreneur in the wiki-tools category (his company, SocialText, focuses on wiki-tools and solutions for enterprises) is my go-to observer of this category. Here’s what he has to say.
I am pleased about this news for a totally selfish reason. Whenever I tell people in the real world — most of whom are still confused about “this whole blogging thing” — that a big portion of SmallBusiness.com is a wiki, I typically get the dazed response, “A what?” About six months ago, I toned down the whole “wiki” terminology on the site (although you can still get there via a redirect from the URL SmallBusinessWiki.com) and decided to wait until the term “wiki” is understood by a broader audience. We still have a long time before a general audience (i.e., the small businesses that Jotspot is targeting) understand a wiki is something more than Wikipedia (a site that uses a wiki platform) that can be used in many other ways. Google getting into the wiki-hosting space will help crank up the awareness meter.
Technorati Tags: google, jotspot, smallbuisness.com, wiki
Jimmy Wales has a response to Jason Calacanis’ unsolicited suggestion that Wikipedia run ads and contribute the revenue to charity.
It includes this jab:
“This was at Wikimania this past summer, and I barely even remember him… we were at a large table and there were some very much more interesting people at the dinner.”
For the record, I was at Wikimania but I wasn’t at that dinner. However, one night Dave Winer and I had dinner together and I think he’ll agree with me that we were the two most interesting people at the table for two.
Sidenote: Jimmy Wales, who rarely blogs, yesterday had a post about a neat jack-o-lantern he and his daughter made. I can say from experience, that kind of a project is way more fun than engaging in a flame war.
Technorati Tags: bloggers, blogging, wikimania, wikipedia
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