Yahoo raids Google\'s ranks for its latest CEO

Yahoo has hired longtime Google executive Marissa Mayer as its next CEO in the internet company's latest attempt to burnish its image and revive its financial growth after years of often-demoralizing upheaval.

The surprise move announced Monday makes Mayer the fifth Yahoo CEO in the past five years to attempt to turn around an internet icon that has become as well-known for its follies as its online services.

Yahoo Inc., which is based in Sunnyvale, California, has lost its luster, while Google Inc. and Facebook surged ahead in the battle for the attention of Web surfers and marketing budgets of advertisers. The struggles have depressed Yahoo's stock, pressuring the company to find a leader with the charisma, vision and skills to turn the tide.

Mayer, 37, becomes the second woman to get a chance to salvage Yahoo. Silicon Valley veteran Carol Bartz spent more than two-and-half years as Yahoo's CEO before she was fired last September.

Yahoo picked Mayer over an internal candidate, Ross Levinsohn, who had been widely considered to be the front-runner for the job after stepping in to fill a void created two months ago when the company dumped Scott Thompson as CEO amid a flap over misinformation on his official biography.

Thompson's bio inaccurately said he had college degree in computer science an accomplishment that Mayer can rightfully list on her resume. She earned a master's in computer science at Stanford University, the same school where the co-founders from both Google and Yahoo honed their engineering skills.

Plucking Mayer from Google represents a rare coup for Yahoo, said Gartner Inc. analyst Allen Weiner. "She brings great leadership and is very popular in Silicon Valley."

Yahoo shares added 37 cents, or more than 2 per cent, to $16.01 in extended trading after Mayer's appointment was announced.

When Yahoo first contacted her June 18 about its CEO job, Mayer told The Associated Press on Monday, she wasn't interested in leaving Google. But she became increasingly intrigued with the challenge as her discussions with Yahoo's board progressed.

"I just saw a huge opportunity to have a global impact on users and really help the company in terms of managing its portfolio, attracting great talent and really inspiring and delighting people," Mayer said during an interview.

Although she had her responsibilities at Google narrowed two years ago, Mayer is still widely considered to among the internet industry's brightest executives. A Wisconsin native, Mayer is a mathematics whiz with a photographic memory and a keen eye for design.

Mayer joined Google in 1999 as its 20th employee and went on to play an integral role in helping co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin exploit their online search technology to outmaneuver Yahoo and establish what still reigns as the internet's most powerful company.

Along the way, Mayer helped oversee the development and design of Google's popular email and online mapping services. She also became a topic of Silicon Valley gossip during Google's early years as Page's girlfriend for three years. They have since gotten married to other people.

"We will miss her talents," Page, now Google's CEO, said in a statement.

In another statement, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt hailed Mayer as "a great product person, very innovative and a real perfectionist who always wants the best for users. Yahoo has made a great choice."

Mayer becomes the second high-ranking female executive at Google to defect to one of the company's biggest rivals. Sheryl Sandberg, who helped expand Google's online advertising network, left in 2008 to become Facebook's chief operating officer.

"It's a bittersweet day for me," Mayer said. "Google is really my family. They have been life-defining for me."

As one of Google's earliest employees, Mayer already is extremely wealthy because of the stock options she received before the company went public in 2004. Yahoo didn't immediately define the terms of her contract as its new CEO.

Mayer's hiring threatens to alienate Levinsohn at a time he has been steering the company's efforts to feature more compelling content that persuades its website's 700 monthly visitors to stick around for longer periods instead of spending so much time on the services of Facebook and Google.

This marks the second time that Yahoo has snubbed Levinsohn, 48, who previously had been best known for overseeing the internet operation for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Levinsohn had been vying for the CEO job after Bartz's firing, only to be passed over when Yahoo lured Thompson away from eBay Inc.

"Marissa's first order of business should be convincing Levinsohn to stay," Gartner's Weiner said. "If he leaves, there will be an exodus" among the Yahoo employees working on the content for the company's website.

Mayer declined to comment on any discussions she might have planned with Levinsohn.

Weiner views Mayer's decision to join Yahoo as a "no-lose" proposition for her.

"If she can pull this off and turn around Yahoo, it will make her legacy," he said. "If it doesn't work out, she can still walk away with great class and dignity."

Mayer starts at Yahoo Tuesday, when the challenges facing her should come into sharper focus with the scheduled release of the company's second-quarter earnings. The results are expected to show Yahoo's revenue growth remains sluggish, even as advertisers are spending more to promote their products and services on the internet. Most of that money, though, has been flowing toward Google and Facebook.

Mayer said she intends to skip Yahoo's conference call to review the second-quarter numbers so she can spend more time meeting with the company's senior management team.

- AP

Diligent sales almost triple in June quarter

Software company Diligent Board Member Services' sales momentum continued in the June quarter in which it says it made an operating profit for a fourth successive quarter.

Second-quarter sales nearly tripled to US$10.1 million (NZD$12.6m) in the three months ended June compared with US$3.7 million in the same quarter last year, the company said in a statement. That took first-half sales to US$18.3 million, up from US$6.6 million last year.

The software-as-a-service (Saas) company said it added 216 new clients in the latest quarter, up from 133 in the same three months last year

"Sales momentum in Australia in particular was gratifying as Diligent added 12 ASX companies to its client list," it said.

The company now counts 224 Fortune 1,000 companies as clients, with 35 of them added in the June quarter, as well as 30 per cent of companies within Britain's FTSE 100 index, it said.

Client retention on a trailing 12 month basis was 97 per cent while client upgrades of US$1.4 million in the June quarter were up more than five fold on the June quarter last year.

Diligent said its continuing profitability on an operating basis "highlights the financial leverage" of its Saas business model and further evidence of its operational and financial strength was shown in the US$5 million increase in cash flow in the latest quarter which took cash at June 30 to US$17.2 million.

Annualised recurring sales at June 30 reached US$39.2 million, up from US$14.9 million a year earlier, "dramatic top line growth by any standard," the company said.

"Most importantly, Diligent's senior management continues to deliver on both profitability and revenue growth," it said.

"Diligent's management expects the positive trends in cash flow and improved balance sheet strength and flexibility to continue throughout 2012."

Diligent shares closed yesterday at $3.92, just below their record $3.97, and were being bid higher.

That's a long way from the year low at $1.02 and as low as 7 cents in March 2009 when the company's future looked doubtful.

- BusinessDesk

How Running a Small Business Has Changed: Recap

Last week on July 9, we brought together oodles of small biz people for an online chat on Twitter, netting almost 1,000 tweets and retweets before, during and after the chat.  We've put together this recap in case you missed it, with some key answers to 8 questions asked during the chat.  The questions and a small number of selected answers are below.

1. How are the challenges of starting a new business now different than they were ten years ago?

• “Information moves so fast and the net makes us all more dependent and connected to each other.” ~ @ramonray
• “Startup funding is tighter.” ~ @karenlinder
• “You can run a business virtually now â€" no need for high overhead.” ~ @aMaryica
• “Easier to get into business because of the information available. With competition & the current economy harder to stay in business.” ~ @HowardLewinter
• “Global competition for some markets.” ~ @m4bmarketing

2. Who are some of the people and organizations that provide good advice to help your small business that you follow on Twitter?

• “@NFIB, @Entrepreneur, @INCmag @smallbiztrends @openforum and many more.” ~ @gflorence77
• “SEOchat has been helpful.  Also @justincutroni @avinash @TAanderud @TJMcCue” ~ @ZimanaAnalytics
• “Surround yourself with smart people. Look at @DIYMarketers & @strategystew and @smallbiztrends.” ~ @HowardLewinter
•  ”I like @LisaBarone â€" neat tweets â€" and I pick up much from the @AllAnalytics @Digital_Draw communities.” ~ @ZimanaAnalytics
• “Another great #smallbiz mind is @HowardLewinter. I consider him to be an excellent and needed resource for my company!” ~ @brianmoran

3. What influences small businesses the most today?  Was it the same ten years ago?

• “I think customers have more influence on #SMBs thanks to social media.” ~ @Ileane
• “SMBs are influenced by global markets more today than in the past because we are more aware due to the Internet.” ~ @BasicBlogTips
• “Customers have the POWER so leverage it â€" don't fight it.  http://t.co/57NImPHi” ~ @ramonray
• “SMBs just have so much more information. About their markets, their customers, their competitors.” ~ @robert_brady

4. How has social media evolved the small business space?

• “Social media makes the world smaller, more accessible and at the same time easy to reach many.” ~ @DeborahShane
• “#Smallbiz always had an advantage â€" connectability Social media let's us stretch that connection past the in-store experience.” ~ @KyleBellingar
• “Social media allows you to connect instantly with your customers and food trucks are a great example of putting it to work.” ~ @gflorence77
• “Social media so widely accepted, even fantastic for localized ad campaigns, so easy to spread the word fast!” ~ @TheAndrewWatson

5. What is one piece of advice you would give to someone who is about to start their own small business?

• “Bootstrap it!” ~ @DIYMarketers
• “Focus on sales and revenue.” ~ @TJMcCue
• “I would tell people to always expect delays and overruns in the beginning. Budget for that!” ~ @TheAndrewWatson
• “Never assume you know it all. You never will.” ~ @eggmarketing
• “No matter how good the idea, if your start-up runs out of cash, your idea remains just an IDEA. #cashflow” ~ @umaInvests
• “Patience is still a virtue. Love and kindness are precious. Plan, act, monitor, change; and don't sweat the money.” ~ @dynamicnet
• “Keep your business focused. Lack of focus sinks so many businesses. Avoid going in 100 directions.” ~ @rajmalikdc

6. Is it harder or easier to keep up with emerging trends in small business than it was ten years ago and why?

• “It is SO HARD to keep up with trends in #smallbiz â€" the barriers to entry are so low.” ~ @ramonray
• “Big challenge for small biz is sustainability with media and messaging. People lose interest in it. Hard to stay motivated.” ~ @DeborahShane
• “Easier as long as you know which trends are important for your biz.” ~ @m4bmarketing
• “Employee turnover happens much quicker so it's harder to keep trained staff on board.” ~ @BasicBlogTips
• “Easier to learn about technology trends due to an abundance of news resources, but harder to know which ones to implement.” ~ @PhilipNowak
• “It's easier to keep up on the trends but keeping up on all of social media is time consuming.” ~  ?@NuThreadz

7. How has the Internet changed the way you stay updated about small business and your industry?  What sources do you get news from?

• “It changes everyone. New thinking. Better time management. Connected to biz world. @WSJ @Marketwatch @smallbiztrends.” ~ @HowardLewinter
• “Mobile devices enable us to get important news and info in REAL TIME.” ~ @ramonray
• “70% of my daily news comes from the Internet.” ~ @karenlinder
• “Internet + mobile = speed, viral, immediate, real time, NOW! That's what we want and expect! Twitter is stronger than ever now!” ~ @DeborahShane
• “My business is the Internet and small business. I have to research many tech and business avenues to stay on top of it all.” ~ @KyleBellingar

8. Who do you consider to be a small business legend?  Alternatively, do you know of any emerging and promising fresh faces?

• “I think Michael Gerber and eMyth are legends for sure.” ~ @ramonray
• “@JimBlasingame is a living legend with the small business advocate.” ~ @Lyceum
• “Richard Branson is a small business legend. Over 400 businesses in the Virgin empire! http://t.co/xx4bQrxP.” ~ @PhilipNowak
• “I know so many SMB legends, but one is @TimBerry, the father of business plan software.” ~ @smallbiztrends
• “Inc Mag's @NormBrodsky = small biz legend.” ~ @rajmalikdc
• “I really like Rob Walling and his stuff for entrepreneurs.” ~ @TJMcCue

Thank you to all who participated, and if you didn't get a chance to drop in, please join us for a future chat!  It's fun and informative, and you make friends and raise your social profile in the process.

For another recap of the chat, see the post on the BlackBerry blog.

Many thanks to BlackBerry (@BlackBerry4Biz) for hosting this chat along with guest of honor, Ramon Ray (@RamonRay), Editor and Technology Evangelist at SmallBizTechnology, and yours truly, Anita Campbell (@Smallbiztrends).  Please note that this is not a full transcript but a selection of representative tweets. Tweets have had hashtags and other repetitive information removed for ease of reading.

BlackBerry is also the title sponsor for the Small Business Influencer Awards. Voting commenced on July 15th, 2012.

Tweet Bird Photo via Shutterstock

Microsoft unveils new Office

Microsoft unveiled a new version of its widely used, lucrative suite of word processing, spreadsheet and email programs, one designed specifically with tablet computers and internet-based storage in mind.

Like an upcoming redesign of Microsoft's Windows operating system, the new Office will respond to touch as well as commands delivered on a computer keyboard or mouse. The addition of touch-based controls will enable Office to extend its franchise into the rapidly growing tablet computer market. Apple dominates that market with the iPad, though Microsoft has plans to compete with its own tablet, called Surface.

Microsoft said the new Office was developed as a service first, meaning it's designed to run easily on multiple devices connected to the internet. The programs can store documents online through Microsoft's SkyDrive service and will remember settings, including where you last left off in a document, as you move locations. The internet-based services approach is one Google has been promoting with its own suite of similar programs.

"This is the most ambitious release of Office that we have ever done," CEO Steve Ballmer said in unveiling the new Office in San Francisco.

A preview version of the new Office suite is being made available online.

Microsoft isn't saying when it will go on sale or what the price will be. Those details will come later this year.

-AP

Tech Essentials Covers The 7th Annual Small Business Summit

Jane Applegate, author of '201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business' and host of ‘Tech Essentials' sponsored by Microsoft, hits New York City to cover the 7th Annual Small Business Summit, produced by Prime Strategies and Smallbiztechnology.com

Jane sits down with some small business professionals, including Austin Craig of Orabrush, Connie Kadansky of Exceptional Sales Performance, Wendi Caplan-Carroll of Constant Contact, Scott Hints of TripIt, Robb Patterson of Progressive Computing, Grant Wickes of Wasp Barcode Technologies, Melanie Gass of Center Point Solutions and Rhonda Abrams, Author and Small Business Contributor for USA Today, and asks some great questions including:

• Having been in business for a while, what advice do you wish someone would have given you when you were just starting out?
• What technology advice can you not live without?
• How important is it to have a disaster plan and be backing up your system and data?

Check out the video below to see how these professionals answer these questions and to see other great footage from the summit.

 

Introducing The First Professional Social Network: Muxi

The business community already has options when it comes to social networking, but is there a need for a social networking platform that is strictly for professionals?

Muxi, a new mobile social media platform, aims to be “the first professional social network.” Unlike LinkedIn, Muxi's founders claim that the app is a more social place for professional types to connect and network with one another, rather than just a place to post resumes like many do on LinkedIn.

Is there a place for a more social social network for professionals?

Small business owners and entrepreneurs could use a service like Muxi to make connections with other professionals who might help to further their business ventures, and to share ideas with others in similar professional situations. It can be used to find new employees or partners, ask questions, and share experiences.

Muxi's features include “fraternities,” groups where users can network with others who share similar business goals or work in similar fields. This idea stems from professional fraternities that were used centuries ago. But with Muxi, business owners and other professionals can use this concept to network with others from the convenience of their mobile phones. Muxi also gives users the option to share their posts on other sites like Facebook and Twitter.

However, some critics may argue that professionals already have plenty of places to network online and on their smartphones. From Facebook groups to Twitter chats and even LinkedIn's group feature, many professional types and business owners are far from strangers to social networking.

Muxi may have its own niche and provide some useful features, but will enough business owners actually sign up so that the app will be useful for networking purposes?

Currently, Muxi is an invite-only app, but prospective users can request an invite from the site itself. In addition to its mobile app, Muxi has plans to launch iPad, Chrome, and desktop apps in the near future.

Small Business Leaders: How Social Should You Be?

Social media can be an effective tool when used to help establish and promote a brand, as well as enable interactions with a company. The question that businesses must answer is: who should act as the communiqué for a company?

While higher-ups within a company might be tempted to delegate all corporate social media interactions to other staffers, a recent BRANDFog 2012 CEO, Social Media & Leadership Survey determined that 82% of respondents were more likely to trust a business whose top leadership communicated openly via social channels.

Of course, before a company turns anyone loose on social media, there needs to be a corporate strategy and set of best practices in place. It does very little good to simply prop a business leader in front of a Twitter profile and tell him to go at it.

George Colony, of Forrester Research, believes that business leaders (he mentions CEOs directly but this applies to any business leader) should engage in social interactions if they meet the following criteria:

1. The CEO has something valuable and specific to say.

Note that there are two details here: valuable AND specific.

Posts, tweets, whatever, must be unique. This does not mean that the content has to be entirely original. In fact, sharing others' statuses and retweeting others' tweets is effective and useful. Rather, it is important to bring a unique perspective to the table, and to make sure that the message will be of direct benefit to readers.

It also means that sweeping statements are not nearly as valuable as detailed, specific advice. It does little good for an investment professional to say, “Be sure to choose the best companies in which to invest your hard earned dollars.”

That much is obvious. However, stating “Industries X, Y, and Z have shown appreciable growth for the past three quarters and, based on statistics, looks like solid investments,” will demonstrate expertise and be valuable for readers that want information on that topic.

 2. The CEO is prepared to navigate thorny and unique restrictions.

Obviously, business leaders are in a unique position since they represent a business at the highest level. Therefore, it is important to exercise a modicum of caution and be prepared for unforeseen circumstances when communicating directly with the public through social channels.

While specific issues are too varied to address, the best piece of advice I can give is to avoid getting mired in any sort of argument on a public social channel. There are always going to be disgruntled customers or individuals who simply have too much time on their hands, and they will enjoy attempting to incite a public reaction from a business leader. If someone is blatantly trying to cause trouble, it is best to just ignore them. If they have a legitimate customer service complaint, then forward it to the appropriate staffer and send them a private message letting them know you are working to resolve the issue.

3. There is an audience who will, over time, tune in to the CEO's social message.

Out of all of Colony's criteria, this is the most difficult to recognize and apply immediately. Therefore, it is best to define goals when entering the social realm, and attempt to follow them to the letter. What is the specific reason that you, as a business leader, wish to use a social channel? Whatever it is, find a way to track it so you have actionable metrics that can be viewed in relation to the overall time spent using social media. And no matter if it's the CEO or the intern or social media, corporate branding and voice should be adhered to so that the interactions don't take on the personality of the individual instead of the company.

Despite the hype, and the numerous benefits social media can have for a company, one size does not fit all and it may not always make sense to have top executives on social media. As always, if a strategy does not meet its goals, it is important to modify or pivot to something new.

Ultimately, having a top executive act as the face of corporate social media efforts has the potential increase trust and lend validity to social efforts, resulting in direct benefits for a business.

Ceo Photo via Shutterstock

Check Point launches virtual systems to help build private clouds

Check Point is to launch new virtual systems to allow businesses to consolidate their security gateways onto a single appliance or open server.

With each virtual system having customised software blade protections and policies, up to 250 can be consolidated onto a single gateway. This allows users to build secure private clouds on any gateway or open server, according to Check Point.

The company also said that the virtual systems allow users to use the GAiA's OS, which was launched in April of this year, to enable organisations to benefit from over eight times more concurrent connections than previous versions (VSX).

Dorit Dor, vice president of products at Check Point, said: “An effective way to minimise complexity and cost is through security virtualisation. Check Point has been providing customers with virtual firewalls on dedicated systems for years, now we are taking virtualisation to the next level by enabling customers to provision virtual systems on every gateway and with the breadth of software blade protections.

“With Check Point virtual systems, we're pleased to provide customers a way to consolidate multiple gateways on one device, while offering enhanced security performance and scalability based on GAiA OS and patented VSLS technology. Organisations now have the ability to truly leverage the power of virtualised security and deploy all of the protections they need using virtual systems just as they do with their physical gateways.”

Sophos launches UTM to offer security services in one box

Sophos has launched a unified threat management (UTM) solution, designed to integrate gateway and endpoint security in a single hardware or virtual box. 

Utilising technology acquired from Astaro a year ago, Sophos said that UTM 9 provides complete security protection regardless of location and combines endpoint protection and unified threat management solutions in a single management console.

Among its features are wireless hotspot support, integration of the Sophos anti-virus engine and LiveConnect cloud service to protect users and manage endpoints regardless of location or device and a HTML5 VPN portal for access through applications such as VNC, remote desktop and SSH.

John Shaw, vice president of product management at Sophos, said: “UTM 9 marks a milestone not only for Sophos, but for organisations worldwide. In the year since we acquired Astaro, we've been able to bring to market an integrated industry-first solution that's game-changing for Sophos partners and easy-to-use for customers.”

Why your Sales Tools are Useless without Social Media

We've all heard it hundreds of times. Social media is the new way to reach today's consumers. For the small business owner still using services like Salesforce to manage customer databases, implementing social media can be involved. Sure, you can add in social media sites for various contacts, but including data about those contacts' social media contacts is impossible.

Social123 goes beyond other databases to search social media sites and bring back relevant contact data. Using Social123, you can learn helpful information about your current contacts, such as their social media pages, number of followers and friends, and posted contact information. But the information isn't limited to only your business's contacts. You can trace information on your competition's social media contacts and on others in your industry.

“Social123 micro-monitors social media outlets for key word mentions and brings back contact data for direct marketing,” Social123 senior sales executive Bo Turner states. “Our customers call it Google Ad Words for Social Media. We also append existing contact databases with publicly available information from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn â€" and score them based off of their content mentions so you can reach out to the people who matter most.”

This just reinforces the point that nothing posted publicly online is private. While customers have taken great strides over the years to keep their names off telemarketers' phone lists and direct mailers' mailing lists, those same customers willingly post phone numbers, addresses, dates of birth, and even children's pictures and names on social media sites for the world to find. As businesses learn to harvest this information to help with sales, will individuals learn to keep this information locked down?

Social123 only simplifies a process that's already available. Through simple Google searches, sales personnel and small business owners can research prospects prior to meetings and find out their kids birthdays, as well as see pictures of their last vacation. While this may not be information a small business owner would reveal in the sales meetingâ€"after all, you wouldn't want to come across as a creepy stalkerâ€"you may find common ground in the information you find online. A shared interest in a sports team or a similar hobby, for instance.

Services like Social123 are just the beginning of what social media can do for database sites like Salesforce. Imagine being able to pull a list of every car dealership owner in your area with a Facebook page that includes more than 3,000 followers. Then imagine extending that to only those who fit a certain demographic or level of education. You could even pull all business owners in your area who graduated from your alma mater.

Of course, if you're interested in social media integration, don't overlook the services provided by other database providers. While Salesforce's Data.com and Hoovers aren't yet specializing in social media integration, they provide valuable contact information that smaller services can't provide. It might be worth integrating Social123 with Salesforce, while using the power of Data.com. With these services combined, you'll be sure to make the most out of your database services.

Offering Strong WiFi and Cell Reception At Your Business Is Not Just A Customer Convenience, But A Marketing Necessity

In a resource guide called “The Mobile Playbook” from Google, quite a few revealing statistics come through: Mobile search has increased 5X times in the past two years alone. Over 20% of all telecom searches, 30% of all restaurant searches, and more than 25% of all movie searches are done through a mobile device.

What's the size of the mobile audience, you ask? Smartphone penetration is about 51% in the UK; 44% in the U.S; 38% in France, and over 29% in Germany. In another interesting statistic, a whopping 570 years worth of Angry Birds and more than 600 million videos are accessed on mobile. The Apple App Store registered more than 500,000 million applications.

For business owners, all these numbers equate to new ways of accessing information, using tools, and unleashing the value of utility is underway for customers.

WiFi plays a vital role in making Internet accessible to your customers while at your business location. Customers might want to log into Foursquare and look for recommendations of products or “check In” to your location on Facebook;  all of which is extra exposure for your small business. Yet, most businesses don't give WiFi connectivity a second thought. So, given consumers' need for information access, lack of WiFi or weak cell phone signals can be annoying for customers and prohibit them from doing free marketing for your business.

Here are some tools that can help you increase your cell phone signal and/or WiFi access for customers:

ZBoost: Recent tests by Wi-Ex, as reported on Business Wire  reveal that using a cellphone signal booster such as zBoost  helped increase data speeds to a whopping 180%. That's a blessing for millions of tablet and phone users. zBoost allows you to connect with your smartphones, tablets, cell phones, etc., by boosting the signal outside and then bringing it in.

Get your hands dirty: Of course, you don't have to depend on solutions and software for everything. A few tweaks and you'd still be able to boost cell phone receptivity and WiFi signals within your business premises. Switch channels (Use a software such as InSSIDer, if you'd like, which is a free WiFI Network Scanning tool), invest in a hardware upgrade such as routers and high-gain antenna, update firmware for your hardware and call in new drivers. If your hardware is older and outdated, perhaps it's time to bring in the new, more up-to-date hardware.

Bear Extender PC: It's simple, affordable, and easy to set up. While it does require a connection to the wireless client using a USB cable, it's an affordable solution to help you boost up your WiFi network and allow your patrons/customers to access the web while they wait in the lounge. BearExtender PC works with Windows and it solves the one problem that most WiFi networks suffer from: weak or dropped signals. It does have its limitations like the fact that it operates only at 2.4 GHz and it cannot extend beyond 100 feet approximately.

While you, as a business, may look at offering WiFi and stronger cell phone signal as more of a convenience to your customers than a necessity for your business, just remember that offering your customers this convenience may certainly lead to free marketing and exposure for your business…which makes it well worth it!

The Politics and Economics of Taxing Small Business Owners

President Obama wants to raise taxes on households making more than $250,000 per year by letting President Bush's tax cuts on upper income earners expire. Mitt Romney opposes this move, saying that raising taxes on the wealthy would hurt job creation.

Because both candidates want to appeal to small business owners, each is careful to argue that his approach is better for them.

The president is focused on how many small business owners will be affected by his tax increase, which is relatively few. The Office of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Treasury crunched the numbers for 2007, the most recent year that data are available, and reported that only 4 percent of small business owners would be subject to a tax increase if the Bush tax cuts expired.

But the Republicans aren't arguing that raising taxes on households earning more than $250,000 will adversely affect a lot of small business owners. They know the performance of small businesses is skewed, with a few companies accounting for most small business profits.

They claim that raising taxes on households earning over $250,000 a year will adversely affect a lot of employment. The small number of highly profitable small businesses, they claim, account for most of the hiring done by small companies. Therefore, letting the Bush tax cuts expire will mean higher taxes on the people who provide jobs to a lot of Americans.

Finding an estimate from a reputable source on the fraction of employment provided by those small business owners isn't easy. Most data on small business income isn't linked to data on small business employment. But the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), a representative sample of a cross section of American households, does.

George Haynes of Montana State University, who has conducted much research on small business using the SCF, took a look at the employment of small business owning households for me. In the 2007 SCF, his analysis showed that small business owning families earning more than $250,000 per year employ 93 percent of the people working in small businesses.

The message from these different data sources is clear: Letting the Bush tax cuts on households earning more than $250,000 per year won't affect very many small business owners â€" just the ones who employ the vast majority of people working in small companies.

Tax Photo via Shutterstock

Symantec fixes \'blue screen of death\' bug

Symantec has admitted that a bug in an anti-virus update caused a 'blue screen of death' for Windows PCs last week.

The company disclosed the problem on its website, saying that an update to its Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 and Norton anti-virus software for businesses caused some PCs running Microsoft Windows XP software to crash repeatedly.

Reuters reported that around 300 corporate and 60 consumer users had been affected, and that it took Symantec hours to identify and fix the bug. Symantec blamed the glitch on software compatibility issues that arose after an update was released late on Wednesday. It said in an advisory that PCs could be fixed if customers manually removed the software from each disabled computer.

A Symantec statement said: “Symantec is aware that a subset of some of its Microsoft Windows XP desktop users may have experienced ‘blue screen' issues. Symantec has determined that the issue was limited to machines running a combination of Windows XP, the latest version of the Sonar technology, the July 11th rev11 Sonar signature set and third-party software.

“New definitions were rolled out shortly after to correct the issue. Since then, no new customer issues have been reported from the field.”

Specifically affected were Windows XP machines with third-party file system drivers (usually encryption) running: Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition (SEP SBE) 12.1; Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) 12.1; and Symantec Endpoint Protection.cloud (SEP.cloud). It said that Mac users and those running Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 are not impacted.

ICO fines NHS trust after personal details were sent to old address

A monetary penalty of £60,000 has been issued to St George's Healthcare NHS Trust in London after sensitive medical details were sent to the wrong address.

According to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), two letters were mistakenly sent to the wrong address and both contained ‘confidential and highly sensitive personal data'. This included medical history, details of a physical examination and its findings and a medical opinion on those findings.

The ICO investigation also found that the person had lived at the address the letters were sent to, but not for five years, while the individual's current address had been provided to the trust's staff before the medical examination took place. Additionally the correct address had been logged on the national care records service, known as NHS Spine, in June 2006.

The trust had set up a prompt to remind staff about the need to check and update patient information against Spine; however the trust knew the prompt could be bypassed and failed to take action to address the problem until it was too late.

The mistake was made after the trust's staff failed to use the address supplied before the examination, or check that the individual's recorded address on their local patient database matched the data on the Spine.

The trust has now taken action to ensure that the personal information they handle is kept secure. This includes making sure adequate checks are in place to ensure that local information the trust has for patients is correct, by cross checking that information against Spine and other relevant sources.

Stephen Eckersley, the ICO's head of enforcement, said: “It's hard to imagine a more distressing situation for a vulnerable person than the thought of their sensitive health information being sent to someone who had no reason to see it. This breach was clearly preventable and is the result of the trust's failure to make sure the contact details they have for their patients are accurate and up to date.

“This is the fourth monetary penalty we have issued to the NHS in the past two months. It is vital that these organisations make sure they have the necessary measures in place to keep patients' details secure.”

Yahoo! fixes vulnerability that led to password breach and apologises to users

Yahoo! has said that it has fixed the vulnerability that led to around 400,000 user email addresses and passwords being compromised.

In a statement, where it ‘sincerely apologised to all affected users', Yahoo! said it had taken swift action and had fixed the vulnerability, deployed additional security measures for affected Yahoo! users, enhanced its underlying security controls and was in the process of notifying affected users.

“In addition, we will continue to take significant measures to protect our users and their data. If you joined Associated Content prior to May 2010 using your Yahoo! email address, please log in to your Yahoo! account where you may be prompted to answer a series of authentication questions to change and validate your credentials,” it said.

As revealed by SC Magazine last week, Yahoo! confirmed that up to 400,000 of its Voices account user names and passwords had been stolen and published online. The credentials were reportedly stored in clear text and were taken from the Yahoo.com subdomain dbb1.ac.bf1.yahoo.com.

Later, research by Imperva found that the breach of the Voices application was enabled by a union-based SQL injection vulnerability in the application, the basic form of SQL injection and a well-known attack.

Rob Rachwald, director of security strategy at Imperva, said: “The Yahoo! Voices breach demonstrates an inherent problem with the security development lifecycle (SDLC) as a sole solution for web app security. Even in the case that you have a very good SDLC program, when you acquire some code that was developed outside of your organisation, you need to quarantine it behind a web application firewall. This is true not only for acquisition, but also for the more common use of using some third party applications and modules.”

Yahoo! said that an older file was compromised and that information was provided by writers who had joined Associated Content prior to May 2010, when it was acquired by Yahoo! This has since been rebranded to be the Yahoo! Contributor Network. “This compromised file was a standalone file that was not used to grant access to Yahoo! systems and services,” it said.

Quest Software launches architecture layer to manage backup and recovery services

Quest Software has launched a platform unifying its data protection technologies that enables users to align backup and recovery to their service continuity needs.

Quest, who is set to be acquired by Dell, said that the next-generation platform is redefining data protection by enabling users to manage their backups based on specific business and technology services.

Named the NetVault Extended Architecture (XA), it allows administrators to organise, schedule, view and manage backups, giving them the ability to set specific recovery time and recovery point objectives for each place, regardless of whether the servers, applications and databases that power those services reside on- or off-premise, or in a physical or virtual environment, or a combination thereof, the company said.

Currently in beta with a full launch expected later this year, it will be available to customers as a downloadable thin-client at no additional charge.

Speaking to SC Magazine, Walter Angerer, senior vice president and general manager of data protection at Quest Software, said that the problem with data protection is that there is an increase of data that is collected and to deal with. “Virtualisation and cloud enable you to be more agile, but now there is more complexity over classification and what to back up,” he said.

“We have tried to create visibility onto the problem and what is the service level expectation? If you lose a leading service for more than an hour, there is significant pressure, so how much are you allowed to lose? This is a huge amount of pressure on IT on what is acceptable.”

As well as offering enterprise-wise security via an intelligent and adaptive policy engine that enforces specific data protection controls and requirements, the NetVault XA also alerts users on whether or not an SLA is achievable based on the established backup and recovery parameters, according to Quest.

The NetVault XA sits at the centre of Quest's data protection solution, enabling users to deploy and manage all of the company's backup and recovery technologies â€" including the NetVault, vRanger, LiteSpeed and Recovery Manager product families from a single console.

Angerer said: “The XA sits on top of our products as a layer that we have built from scratch that allows you to manage and run tools underneath through the interface. It addresses problems to start telling the system where an SLA is and what test you are trying to solve.

“Also to define services, it allows you to group into a system and manage it. A business runs on agreement and expectation and the XA will do the transaction for you. With the XA you can give role-based multi-tenant access that allows you to verify and do the procedure to restore services.”

Social Media Pioneer Digg Sold for $500,000

In a surprise move for the entire online business community, social bookmarking site Digg was sold last week for the unimpressive sum of $500,000. Some insist the sale was a final step in what has been a steady decline for the social media pioneer. Whatever the ultimate cause, there is a belief in the online entrepreneur community that Digg's downward slide may be a cautionary tale about what happens when you don't pay enough attention to your customers and community.

Digging In

A new beginning. Though for many the sale of a social bookmarking site of Digg's calibre to New York-based incubator Betaworks for a fraction of what the site might have once been valued seems like a disaster. But on the company blog late last week, Digg CEO Matt Williams insisted the purchase was “a way to take Digg back to its startup roots.” Many businesses from time to time must reevaluate where they stand with their customers, but hopefully this can be done before the company is up for sale. Digg Blog

One of the great Internet brands. Although it may have been acquired for less than the funds it originally raised, Digg's value is considerable according to Betaworks. Loved by millions, Digg's reputation as a great brand known for pioneering the concept of community-driven news that has since become a major part of the Internet's ecosystem, remains an asset. But no matter how valuable the brand, a connection to a site's community is what's really important. Betaworks

Paradise Lost

The slippery slope. Just as there's no such thing as overnight success, the decline of a business is also a gradual process. Businesses do not generally fail because of one poor decision, but as a result of a series of poor decisions made over time. Those observing Digg's decline point to a number of missteps that may have led to the brand's difficulties after it established itself as a leader in community news. It's important to consider how each of your decisions will affect your business long-term. Gigaom

For what it's worth. Determining a realistic value for your business is an important skill. Entrepreneurs must understand how much their business is worth, not just to them, but to others. Effectively valuing your business has to do with understanding what your product, service, or company really provides to others. For example, in the case of social bookmarking sites like Digg, it can be argued that a network or site is worth exactly as much as its community. The Atlantic

Reaping the benefits. Even unsuccessful companies can be a benefit to other entrepreneurs in terms of the legacy and resources they leave behind. Two other companies, LinkedIn and The Washington Post, have benefited tremendously from last week's sale of Digg to Betaworks. While LinkedIn has acquired a number of patents from the social bookmarking site, The Washington Post's Web development arm acquired most the Digg team. TechCrunch

In Conclusion

Their own worst enemy. Business owners look instinctively to competitors when trying to figure out how to make the necessary business model tweaks for long-term survival. But, as Digg's difficulty shows, sometimes companies need to look no further than themselves for the source of their problems. Atrocious redesigns, sponsored links, and a failure to cultivate its community all lead to Digg's decline. Knowing what keeps your customers coming back is important and can keep you from making similar mistakes. Forbes

Filling the void. Digg's departure from the scene or, at the very least, its considerable decline, may create opportunities for other Internet entrepreneurs. Some are already asking who will fill the void left by Digg. Certainly, Digg's greatest competitor, Reddit, has gained much from Digg's fall, but social media networks like Facebook and Twitter are also catching up with Google search as two of the chief ways people find news on the Web. Other tools to fill the space left by Digg remain to be seen. The Wall Street Journal