According to US customer relationship management (CRM) software provider LogicBright, small business CRM users primarily stick to the basics when using CRM products, leaving many of the features being built into modern solutions superfluous.

The company says that with CRM software packages springing up all over the place, the marketplace is getting increasingly complex, and doing so unnecessarily according to its research data.

While it doesn’t give numbers of demographics, LogicBright says that it has surveyed users on what they want in a CRM package, and found that 81 percent want to use their CRM as a straightforward contact manager that is accessible by all employees.

Extra features such as mobile phone support, or an offline versions of the software are not needed according to the survey, with users preferring a basic system everyone in the business can access simultaneously to share company and contact information.

“It is no secret that in a troubled economy companies are looking to reduce their expenditures,” says Steve Schmidt, president of LogicBright. “It all comes back to keeping it simple and giving [..] customers what they ask for.”

This is the kind of rhetoric that starts to proliferate when times get rough and budgets are tight.  I do believe that as the CRM market has matured, more and more functionality has found its way into some of the leading CRM packages.

However, the question that each individual SMB needs to answer is, is this functionality needed or is it just adding unnecessary complexity?

That answer to that question my friends is maybe, or maybe not. The notion that ALL SMBs are, or should be, looking for simplicity is foolish.

CRM is NOT just about technology, it’s about improving an organization’s ability to get, keep and grow customers.  So, before any organization spends its precious time and money looking at CRM software alternatives, it must critique its current situation and identify the specific areas where improvements need to be made.  Technology should be viewed as a facilitator for making these improvements. So, when looking at technology alternatives it’s imperative that one evaluate the ability of each product to help.  That’s where a given product’s functions and features become relevant.  If a simple, easy to use CRM product doesn’t have the features that are needed to make desired process improvements, then it won’t be of much use.  If it does have what’s needed, then great!

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10. HP EliteBook laptops

Hewlett-Packard has already overtaken the top spot for worldwide PC sales, but the company is making a stronger run than ever at the business notebook market. HP’s EliteBook line of business laptops now offers a variety of industrial-strength features that cater to IT departments.

9. Zoho online productivity suite

Zoho has quietly been building an impressive fleet of Web-based productivity and business applications that are far more numerous and sophisticated than what Google offers and truly take advantage of the Web rather than just bringing offline apps into the browser. Especially for small businesses, Zoho is a viable alternative to Microsoft Office, and it not only saves money but also provides productivity benefits with online collaboration.

8. LifeSize HD videoconferencing

A lot of businesses are naturally tightening up their 2009 travel budgets, so you can expect that video conferencing will be one of the growing areas of IT in 2009.  Cisco Telepresence offers an amazing video conferencing experience, but the price tag is often at least a half million dollars. Meanwhile, LifeSize  HD video conferencing is nearly as good and it costs far less (usually under $40K). It also uses a lot less bandwidth, which also saves big money.

7. Splunk

One solution that does a great job of consolidating all of that IT data and making it viewable and searchable: Splunk.  Splunk easily gathers data from virtually any system or source and makes it searchable and visual through Web-based reports.

6. Force.com

Salesforce.com is arguably the business world’s most popular Web-based application. It is a customer relationship management (CRM) and sales force automation (SFA) tool that is easy to deploy and simple for always-on-the-go sales professionals to access. Now, Salesforce.com has extended this concept to other applications by opening up the platform that Salesforce.com is built on to businesses to allow them to use it to run their own applications, from Salesforce.com extensions to custom line-of-business apps to third-party apps.

5. Amazon Web Services

Another company that is having an important impact on the way business technology is done is Amazon. Like Salesforce, Amazon has taken the platform it used to build its core business and opened it up to other businesses. In this case, Amazon.com’s robust e-commerce platform that runs its $15 billion retail business has been opened up as Amazon Web Services, which offers storage, databases, payment processing, fulfillment services, and Web site scalability.

4. Palo Alto Networks next generation firewall

Palo Alto Networks has developed a new line of firewalls that transforms them from blunt objects into much more sophisticated tools.

3. Apple iPhone 3G

While the interface has continued to improve with software updates, the second generation iPhone made this year’s list because of the enterprise-grade capabilities that Apple brought to the iPhone in 2008, including Exchange ActiveSync support and remote kill capability for IT. It remains the best-designed and easiest-to-use smartphone on the market, and its widespread publicity has helped stimulate the smartphone market as a whole.

2. Riverbed WAN acceleration

With businesses looking for easy levers to pull to cut costs out of the 2009 budget, one of the best solutions that IT can recommend is WAN acceleration, which can lower fixed leased-line costs while also improving performance for remote offices and telecommuters.  Thus, these appliances can significantly reduce bandwidth consumption and - after the first transfer - dramatically decrease the response time for file transfers and applications that rely on files that get transferred over the WAN. Lots of companies offer WAN acceleration products now, but the market leader is Riverbed.

1. BlackBerry Bold

Despite the buzz and momentum building around the iPhone, BlackBerry remains the predominant smartphone platform for the enterprise, especially in security-sensitive environments such as government and the financial sector. With the Blackberry Bold, Research in Motion has brought its smartphone to the forefront.  This device features top performance combined with all of the familiarity and manageability of the BlackBerry platform - and it includes a real keyboard.

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For business owners, the lure of software as a service and cloud computing is lower cost, quick implementation, and access to power and scalability previously out of reach. But what’s the reality? The “SaaS And Cloud Computing In Small And Midsize Companies” research report explores how and why growing businesses use SaaS and cloud computing. This exclusive report is offered as a no-cost bonus with your free bMighty.com registration.

During the past several years, more and more software companies have been making applications available over the Web. Software as a service (SaaS) has been making inroads into companies of all sizes; one-quarter of small and midsize businesses report using SaaS. Typically, they use them alongside traditional licensed software applications. And while some business technology professionals say they’re satisfied with the unique benefits of SaaS and cloud computing, they remain dubious about some of the perceived drawbacks. This exclusive new bMighty Research Report examines the challenges and benefits that small and midsize businesses experience when choosing and using SaaS, cloud computing, and open-source applications.

This exclusive report retails for $499, but is offered as a no-cost bonus with your free bMighty.com registration. Download it NOW.

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When it comes to instituting new technical systems, up to 70 percent of IT projects wind up as flops, according to Forrester Research.

In many cases, the new systems — whether hardware, software, or Web-based applications — sit idle because employees either find them too difficult to use or simply refuse to try.

“IT projects fail not because of the technology but because human beings resist change and uncertainty,” says Moez Limayem, who chairs the information systems department at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.

Here are a few ways to get your employees on board with your next upgrade:

Work From the Bottom Up

The most common mistake in implementing new technology occurs when the selection comes solely from the top, says Stephen Andriole, a former chief technical officer who teaches business technology management and corporate strategy at Villanova University’s business school. Employees bristle at being force-fed new ways to do their jobs, especially if the technology is difficult to use and actually makes those jobs harder in the short term.

Invest in Training

Another mistake companies make is skimping on training, says Patrick Gray, president of Prevoyance Group, a Fort Hill, South Carolina, consulting firm that specializes in IT strategy. “The more training employees receive,” he says, “the greater the chances that the project will be a success.”

Create Incentives

Often, business owners don’t give employees enough motivation to use the new systems. “Simply saying, ‘The company will be better off if we do this’ just doesn’t cut it,” says Limayem. He suggests stronger incentives: making a salesperson’s commission tied to his or her use of the new CRM system or giving bonuses for completing training programs.

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Here’s my list of 5 key trends (from Demian’s list of 10) that I believe will have the greatest impact on companies looking to purchase On-Demand solutions:

1. Software without borders: Applications are becoming less and less restricted to a particular organization and more oriented around user networks. This has the effect of making the applications more user-centric rather than organization-centric. Paradoxically, this is good for the organization since it will lead to better adoption.

2. Tier 1 support reigns: Now that there is less and less room for fancy, high priced consultants to answer the fancy, high priced questions, Tier 1 support will take on a bigger and bigger responsibility to represent the company and answer tough questions during the sales cycle. Will a good FAQ cut it? We doubt it.

3. More product alliances: SaaS vendors will dedicate more resources to integration partnerships with other SaaS vendors. Right now, they talk about it but they don’t do it very well. Alliances may be the key toward gaining some share of the elusive “channel” for SaaS vendors.

4. Video trumps text: SaaS products will begin to use more and more video for training, support, documentation, etc. It’s cheap and easy and more interesting to look at. Text based tools are being replaced by A/V.

5. Tech takes a back seat: There are fewer and fewer technical hurdles to get a SaaS application to market than when we started this in 1999. Now the emphasis is shifting more to marketing strategy; the technology, while obviously essential, is taking more of a back seat.

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With the economy lingering on the brink of recession, understanding the future becomes more important than ever. IT organizations can expect three important trends going forward:

1. Project failures. Project failures will decline as centralized, hierarchical control increases. Detailed instructions from the boss will outlaw failed projects, basically solving the problem.
2. Social networking. The trend to eliminate cubicles in favor of open seating will increase, reducing office space costs and fostering community among IT workers. Real-life social networking will play an important role in keeping vital team spirit alive.
3. Green computing. Recessionary economics will drive further reductions in the size of hardware; smaller packaging means lower cost. Note how screens are integrated directly into keyboard units, saving valuable desktop space while simultaneously lowering electricity consumption. Also many light ceiling light fixtures remain off, further saving energy.

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Not surprisingly, SaaS vendors have decided there’s no time like the present to make a full court sales press. In a down economy with slashed IT budgets, when there’s no tolerance for 18-month software implementations and the price tags for on-premise software from Oracle and maintenance fees from SAP applications are not falling, software-as-a-service and cloud computing offerings become more attractive options for businesses.

Gartner recently noted that worldwide SaaS revenue in the enterprise application markets was on pace to surpass $6.4 billion in 2008, which is a 27 percent increase from 2007 revenue of $5.1 billion. By 2012, Gartner predicted, the market is expected to reach $14.8 billion.

Here are five important considerations that business leaders and IT staffers must think about before they sign a SaaS contract…

1. Have You Prevented Against “Sticker Shock” Down the Road?

One of SaaS’s biggest selling points is its simplified pricing model: those pay-as-you-go, per-user monthly fees. The term “flat” usually stars in a SaaS vendor’s marketing materials.

However, companies are still confused by uncertainties in pricing models and contract agreements, note Forrester analysts William Band and Peter Marston.

“SaaS pricing models that seem simple and inexpensive (flat per-user monthly fees) can become costly and complex when users sign up for different pieces of functionality and support options,” the analysts write. “Additional charges often apply for support, configuration services, additional functionality or going beyond a preset storage limit.”

In addition, business users and IT staffers can also be “unpleasantly surprised by difficult-to-enforce service-level agreements or onerous provisions that kick-in at the end of the contract term,”

2. Has IT Been Included in the Decision-Making Process?

It almost seems apocryphal that IT staffers wouldn’t be included at all in today’s SaaS decision-making processes. But the reality is that business stakeholders have become quite adept at navigating the software purchasing world: they know what they want and SaaS vendors oftentimes go straight for the business side to sell their wares.

“Some SaaS buyers get into trouble by not thoroughly evaluating integration or customization capabilities at purchase time. They later go to IT with requests that the application simply can’t support,” note Herbert and Martorelli. “Instead, make sure to involve IT upfront to ensure that the application can support your needs before you buy in,” say Forrester analysts Liz Herbert and Bill Martorelli.

3. Is the SaaS Application Set Mature Enough?

Another reason for IT’s involvement: Vendor selection is of paramount importance right now, especially as startup SaaS vendors and others selling their applications under the cloud computing banner might be here today, but gone tomorrow. “As SaaS continues its fast-paced growth, providers are quick to jump into the market with new solutions,” write the Forrester analysts Herbert and Martorelli. “However, this makes it difficult for firms to feel secure about the long-term stability of their application purchases.”

4. Have You Calculated Total Cost of Ownership?

A late 2007 Forrester Research survey of North American and European software IT decision-makers found that “total cost concerns” was the second-most cited reason for why companies were not interested in SaaS.

In the rush to adopt SaaS, some companies may forget about potentially conflicting total cost of ownership figures. For example, TCO of “SaaS ERP suites likely will be significant and may not compare favorably with on-premises solutions,” writes Ganly, in the Gartner report. This problem applies to vendors as well. SaaS vendors “often have unrealistic expectations of their operating costs,” she adds. “The multitenant architecture needed for SaaS ERP suites results in high internal efforts and costs for the initial setup and the ongoing maintenance and upgrade of the system.”

5. Have You Considered All of the Integration Issues?

While SaaS applications can be implemented much faster than on-premise apps, there are still lingering and tough integration issues that don’t magically disappear with SaaS applications (like, how does IT connect that new standalone SaaS CRM app to the existing legacy infrastructure?). The Forrester survey, for instance, found that “integration issues” was the top reason (66 percent) cited by companies that had said no to SaaS applications.

One critical integration challenge for companies is deciding just what kind of a SaaS integration provider they’re going to use.

Of course, not all of this can be figured out by business stakeholders, eager as they may be. SaaS analysts note that an IT implementation team that takes the time to build a strong business case for the SaaS application and implement it correctly will, in the end, deliver the most value to the business.

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Most small and midsize businesses are eyeing one or more software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, yet have already made numerous investments in on-premises software. And despite the potential cost upsides of making the move to SaaS, one crucial success factor for running part or all of your business in the cloud is going to be the ability to tie cloud computing applications to on-premises systems.

Recognizing that obstacle, three software and hardware vendors — Boomi, Cast Iron, and SnapLogic — have their sights set on solving the SaaS integration challenges. While their approaches differ for on-premises software, hosted integrations, and even on-premises appliances, these vendors can all help companies integrate their business software, whether it lives on-premises or “in the clouds.”

Integration: The Achilles’ Heel Of SaaS

The state of integration gives many potential SaaS adopters pause. Indeed, a recent Forrester Research survey of companies’ SaaS attitudes found integration was the most common concern for the 38% of businesses that said they had no plans to adopt SaaS applications.

Furthermore, SaaS applications can’t just go hauling out data from inside your firewall. “You prevent that, just as a policy; never will anyone get through my firewall to my application to access my data,” says Chris Marino, CEO of San Mateo, Calif.-based SnapLogic. But at some point, many companies do want their SaaS applications to communicate with systems located inside the firewall. “How do you solve that problem?” Marino asks. “You need integration technology.

Integration Creates Interdependencies

Just as the typical SaaS application requires a degree of set-up and customization before it can be used, integration tools also require planning. In particular, integration creates interdependencies, and that requires keeping the big picture in mind.

“You can’t just throw applications in there and expect to be able to integrate the data across all the systems,” Awana’s Smith says. “That’s not a shortcoming of Cast Iron — that’s just a limitation of business processes and reality.”

That means setting some ground rules is in order. “The best approach is to try to only have the information on one system and use the integration to only display it on the other system, [and] don’t allow editing in other than the system of record,” she says.

What Application Ecosystems Offer

When it comes to solving SaaS integration, Boomi, Cast Iron, and SnapLogic are not the only players in town. Other approaches include numerous SaaS application ecosystems — collections of applications and add-ons certified to work with the core application. Examples include the open-source SugarCRM SugarExchange, NetSuite NS-BOS, and the Salesforce AppExchange.

Ecosystems, however, play by their own circumscribed rules. “Their approach to solving this integration problem is, ‘We solve the integration problem — just bring your data over here,’” Marino says. “And for some classes of uses, that’s the solution. But it’s not going to work for everybody.

Then there’s the question of pricing. SaaS applications often attract companies looking for a bargain. And perhaps not surprisingly, SaaS integration services do seem priced to appeal to the masses. For example, Boomi charges $65 per month, per connection, to an application such as QuickBooks or Peachtree, and $135 per connection, per month, to the likes of Salesforce, Intaact, or a database. “We wanted the reaction of the customer to the pricing to be, “‘Oh, this is a no-brainer,’” says Rick Nucci, chief technology officer of Boomi.

Finally, SaaS integration providers solve a slightly different challenge. The notion of a business being driven by a set of monolithic applications has begun to change, with mash-ups, widgets, wikis, blogs, and the like heralding a new era of lightweight applications that may just do one thing, albeit extremely well, says Laurent Lachal, research director at London-based Ovum. “The need now is not just to integrate a system, but to integrate a much wider array of systems — from a software-as-a-service to a small Google widget,” Lachal says.

Will Integration Become Baked In?

Today, SaaS applications offer soup-to-nuts software functionality, all hosted in the cloud. In the future, might integration itself become “baked in” to SaaS applications? In fact, that’s exactly what Ovum’s Lachal predicts will happen during the next five years.

In addition, Lachal expects distinctions between on-premises and cloud computing software to become largely irrelevant. “We are entering a hybrid world,” says Lachal, one in which on-premises and cloud computing approaches will co-exist and be offered by the same vendor. Accordingly, “the key is not to say, ‘I want one over the other,’ but determining — based on your own requirements — how you weave the two approaches together,” he says. “And that’s where integration as a service comes into play.”

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Enterprise software investments are make-or-break, long-term deals—huge outlays of capital that can span months or even years. Now that we’re all living in a world of hurt, it’s become apparent that the banks still left standing after this quarter won’t be dishing out credit as easy as before.

So what if your company needs serious finance help with your intended software or services plans right now?

One option, notes Paula Rosenblum, a managing partner at Retail Systems Research (RSR), is to look at software-as-a-service (SaaS) for tech investments. “Over the short term, capital may be hard to come by. SaaS allows a company to buy only the number of transactions and horsepower it needs,” she writes in a recent RSR column. “Non-intrusive optimization technologies can often bring rapid ROI by taking sales and order information and spitting out better assortment and pricing plans.”

On the other side of the fence, what if you’re a software vendor, and you can’t close any deals now because your customers can’t get the necessary financing?

“Enterprise software and service vendors without proper access to credit lines may find themselves unable to close deals with clients shut out from the credit markets,” says Ray Wang, a VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research.

Wang points to a deal that enterprise software-maker Infor announced in late June 2008. Infor now offers customers financing options through IBM’s Global Financing arm, which is the largest IT financier in the world, according to the two companies.

The new financing relationship allows Infor’s customers to “move forward with their technology initiatives while spreading up-front payments over time, conserving cash for other investments,” notes the announcement.

Hmmmm, isn’t this how we got into this mess in the first place?

Whatever you think of the “benefits” to the customer, Wang thinks the financial ability that vendors such as IBM, Microsoft and Oracle have to provide financing deals to their customers is critical, especially given the horrific state of the economy. “Vendor-led financing initiatives may prove to be the lubricant that keeps tech spending moving forward,” Wang says.

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Cloud computing is a marketing buzzword that’s thrown around an awful lot today. A vague (but useful) definition is that cloud computing refers to data, processing, or experiences that “live” out there somewhere in the cloud we call the Internet.

Cloud computing is becoming very popular, primarily as a money-saving technique—cloud services don’t require expensive in-house hardware, software, and staff. In addition, cloud services are usually available for a small monthly fee rather than a huge up-front expense, which makes them even more attractive from a budgeting standpoint. Like many things that seem to have only an upside, cloud computing makes me nervous.

More features, less expense, and fewer IT resources? It almost sounds too good to be true. And it may be. Much the way in the early eighties we asked “Where’s the beef?” we should now be asking “Where’s the security?”

To secure data, you need to understand something I like to call the data life cycle: How data is collected, entered, processed, transmitted, stored, reported, and exported. Any one of these stages may contain multiple vulnerabilities, some ubiquitous and some particular to your environment.

To assess the security of corporate data, you’ll have to understand the risks that apply to each stage of the data life cycle. You will be able to take proactive steps to prevent data from being compromised by understanding the integration of security risks, business processes, and the data life cycle.

By now you are probably beginning to see the downside to cloud computing—it’s difficult enough to protect data that doesn’t leave your control as part of ordinary business, but in the cloud you’ve relinquished control. Depending on your contract, you may not even own your cloud-resident data! And worse, there are clouds within the cloud—your provider may subcontract with another provider for data storage, and that provider might also subcontract for data storage management. Your provider may not even be able to tell you where your data is, or even which country it is in and whether the laws that apply to you regarding data security and breach disclosure even apply in that twice-removed jurisdiction.

Gartner published a great report in early June that is the industry’s first attempt to identify the security risks of cloud computing. In it, Gartner urges something that we at PC Magazine have been advocating for decades: full disclosure (aka “transparency”) with regard to security practices and procedures. The reasoning is simple: If your provider can’t tell you exactly what it does to protect your data at each stage of the data life cycle, then how good a job do you think that provider is doing?

What other recommendations spring from Gartner’s findings?

• Apply internal risk assessment and controls to all externally sourced (cloud) services.
• Assess all legal, regulatory, and audit issues associated with location independence and service subcontracting.
• Demand transparency. Anything less is a deal breaker! Don’t contract for IT services with a vendor that refuses to provide
  detailed information on its security and continuity management programs.

Yes, cloud computing is a set of powerful technology solutions that are here to stay. It provides cost savings that may temporarily blind you to the risks. But don’t dive in simply to save money and time. Evaluate each service’s security the same way you would evaluate off-the-shelf hardware and software. Ask tough questions about data security. If your provider refuses to answer, or his answer doesn’t adhere to your current security policy, look elsewhere. I’ve sat through countless vendor meetings and I guarantee you this: Every time a security concern is dismissed as “taken care of” without explanation, it’s a potential problem.

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