Organizations have poor digital document security, survey reveals

Confidential documents are not being protected properly, and a recent survey found a lack of funding and other issues make digital document security a thorny problem to solve.

Sixty-three percent of IT specialists surveyed said confidential or sensitive documents at their organization are not fully secured and protected, according to a study conducted by Ponemon Institute, a research think tank that specializes in privacy and data protection.

The study, 2012 Confidential Documents at Risk Study, surveyed 622 IT and IT security professionals in the U.S. It revealed trends in how enterprise IT deals with digital document security. The results show poor practices are leaving companies susceptible to document leaks. Of those surveyed, 90% said they have experienced a leakage or loss of confidential documents in the last 12 months. The survey was commissioned by Palo Alto, Calif.-based WatchDox, a file-sharing service for confidential documents.

Funding issues contribute to the lack of action in protecting confidential documents, said Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Traverse City, Mich.-based Ponemon Institute.

"It does require resources; it's not free, and you can't just start training people," Ponemon said, adding that while training is a good course of action, it shouldn't be the main one.

Digital document security has become a widespread concern with the increasing popularity of browser-based file-sharing services such as Dropbox, Box.net and YouSendIt. WikiLeaks, which relied on anonymous tips and whistleblowers, has also raised questions about the security of confidential documents.

So far, little action has been taken to address the issues brought up by file-sharing tools. Forty percent of those surveyed said they were not taking any of the suggested steps to reduce risks. Suggested steps included manual monitoring and controls, employee training and awareness, and enabling security technologies.

Organizations cited the critical success factors for implementing security controls. The top answers included ample budget resources, compliance monitoring procedures and centralized accountability and control, with resources being noted as "very important" or "important" among 80% of responders. Currently, organizations said they spend only 6.98% of their IT security budget on document protection.

Further complicating the problem of protecting digital documents is the plethora of ways employees can share them. While enterprises were focused on email attachments and USB drives, smartphones and remote storage services make it easy for multiple devices to access the Internet and receive a file. In the Ponemon study, which was published in July, 65% of organizations said they believe there is a serious security risk in accessing documents on mobile devices and tablets.

To accommodate the need for file sharing and the multiple devices it occurs on, Ponemon believes in a multifaceted solution, including governance, a document security tool and security intelligence.

"You can't just have one solution," he said.

Until the right tool is available, Ponemon said organizations can take basic steps to secure their documents. Organizations need to take a look at data they're not using and if they don't need it, they should get rid of it, he said.

"Organizations have way too much data," Ponemon said.

He also said encryption across devices and creating a policy for the use of cloud technology are important steps.

Many Entrepreneurs Not Cut Out For Franchising, Says Joel Libava

While many people evaluate buying a franchise when they're looking to own a business, most people, in fact, are not cut out for franchising, according to Joel Libava (pictured below), who is known online under the name “The Franchise King.”  Joel is a franchise expert, and he's passionate about franchising.

He loves helping people find a sense of freedom and control through franchising. But not everyone is going to succeed in franchising, he says, due to two primary factors:

1.     There is financial risk involved.  Yes … even with a franchise there's some risk.  It's true that franchising can help you piggyback on the success of an established brand. But buying a franchise from a well known brand doesn't guarantee success.

2.     Lots of people don't like rules, and the franchise business model is riddled with them.  Rules are part of the reason that franchisees succeed.  However, if you hate being told what to do, those rules will quickly become an irritant.

Joel says:

“I help prospective franchise owners avoid [pain] by teaching them how to choose franchises that match their skills and personal traits, and then teaching them how to do careful and thorough research.  Most people have no idea what they're doing when it comes to buying a franchise. I provide the how-to.”

Entrepreneurs Make Terrible Franchise Owners

Joel, who is the franchise expert-in-residence here on Small Business Trends, and who writes on SBA.gov and is regularly seen on high profile business sites, says if someone is looking for a business to launch quickly and likes the idea of following a proven system, he or she should consider buying a franchise. But for those who have trouble following the rules, starting your own business from scratch might be a better option:

“True entrepreneurs are a terrible match for a rule-based business system like franchising.”

Writing the Book on Franchising

Joel is so passionate about helping business owners navigate the world of franchising that he wrote a book on the subject:  Become a Franchise Owner!: The Start-Up Guide to Lowering Risk, Making Money, and Owning What you Do. The book is aimed at helping people determine whether franchising is a good fit, and determining what sort of franchising is most appropriate (read a review here).

Taking DIY Too Far

He certainly has had his fair share of experiences on his path to becoming The Franchise King. One lesson he's learned and is working to implement is leveraging the help of others. He, like so many of us, has done most of the things in his business, and is now learning to step back and hand the reins over to others who are better skilled in particular areas, like marketing.

Joel is one of the judges volunteering his time and expertise for the Small Business Influencer Awards. Being an inside part of this award has shown him how many smart small business people are out there:

“Just when I think I've met all the smart people that contribute their ideas, products, and services to the small business world, more of them appear.  In other words, I get to learn about influential people in business that I may have never known about unless I was a Judge.”

* * * * *

Editor's Note: This article is one of a series of interviews of key players in the Small Business Influencer Awards.

VerticalResponse Rolls Out Integrated Social Media Marketing Tool

We've talked about social media to death, so what's new? Well, social media is enough of a jungle to require large volumes of information about it. You might know how social media works, but you also have to factor in the fact that social networks are composed of people, and people behave in manners that are kind of difficult to predict.

You must learn how to entertain your fickle audience and harness the power behind it. Let's take a moment and listen to Ramon Ray, the chief evangelist at Small Business Technology, with his advice on establishing a proper social media empire. He starts out by saying that you shouldn't just join every social network you find. It's going to get real hard very fast. Just focus on what works for you, joining networks that complement your business model.

His second piece of advice is to try to make engaging material with an engaging topic. This is much like blogging, requiring you to keep your users coming for more. Oh, and about that, you should also make sure your posts are frequent and consistent with the schedule of your chief audience.

Enter VerticalResponse Social, a new platform that comes as part of VerticalResponse's dashboard. VR's platform mines the web for engaging content that provides a large amount of clickthroughs. This will ensure that the followers you currently have will be entertained with the sweet stuff. While you otherwise would have to worry about constantly updating your pages and feeds, the new platform allows you to create a month's worth of update material in just 20 minutes. It streamlines the process of keeping your presence relevant and constantly refreshes engagement in your followers.

Above all this, you also get to see social media metrics that will give you an idea on how you're performing. This helps you keep record of what you did right and what you should work on in the near future.

If you're interested in gathering opportunities from social media without putting in the extra hours, here's your chance. Just don't forget to interact with your followers once in a while to show them that they matter to you.

Timetastic Simplifies Taking Vacation Days

The process of taking time off is not only a pain for employees, but can also result in a lot of added work for employers who need to manage vacation days for multiple employees or departments. Now, a new app, Timetastic, aims to make it easier for employees to take time off and for employers to manage staff leave.

Currently in beta testing, Timetastic gives companies the ability to manage time off online or via mobile devices. Employees can check their calendar and request time off, and the boss is given the ability to authorize time off simply via email. Everything is recorded instantly, so there is less opportunity for lost communication or error.

Upon signing up, users can view a calendar and select how many days off each employee can request. Then employers can invite their employees, who can select the days they'd like to request off, specify the type of leave, and submit it to their boss for approval. Managers or small business owners can then view a simple wall chart or calendar showing which employees have vacation time and when, so they can avoid clashes between team members.

For small companies without an HR department or with limited HR resources, a simple system like Timetastic could help to reduce paperwork, spreadsheets, and confusion surrounding something as simple as an employee's request for a day off. Employees don't need to be in the office to request vacation days, and managers can approve their leave remotely as well.

Timetastic is produced by English-based company Mediaburst, and is currently in its final testing stages. The web app is free for beta users.

Once the application goes live, Timetastic will be free for a company's first three employees, with an added monthly fee for each additional employee. Timetastic is also building apps for iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone platforms.

Liam Dann: NZ needs more Victoria Ransoms

Most of us just want our kids to grow up happy. But if they do make a hundred million dollars selling their internet company to Google that would be okay.Manawatu farmer John Ransom must have been the proudest dad in the country...

Mark Adams of Verizon: WeCommerce Bartering and Networking

When birds of a feather flock together, they become stronger as their numbers grow. Networking, bartering and grouping together with like minded individuals provides opportunities for all involved. Tune in as Mark Adams, Director of Marketing for Verizon, joins Brent Leary to discuss this concept and Verizon's WeCommerce solution.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Can you give us a little bit of your personal background?

Mark Adams: I joined Verizon in 1995, came from MCI and I currently head up the National Small Business Marketing team. We are responsible for all of the online and off line marketing associated with channels and also our social media strategy within the telecom group.

I've been spear heading strategic online partnerships and really trying to support a distinctive ecommerce marketing presence.

Which is why we have developed WeCommerce.com.

Small Business Trends: What is WeCommerce?

Mark Adams: In a nutshell, it's a Match.com for business. We are trying to help businesses find each other and create new opportunities and respond to proposals and really help them generate more revenues, more customers for the businesses that they currently own.

They can post any needs, offers that they have, and can also search available listings. Basically, it is a way Verizon supports this community of small businesses, trying to help them get together and create new businesses, new customers and new revenues for their business.

Small Business Trends: Was this something small businesses were asking Verizon for?

Mark Adams: I think what we have found is they were struggling on how to use social media platforms. How they could get their business out there to the vast number of customers that they were looking for.  It was a really tough for them to network and find each other.

So WeCommerce is really about giving them a very specialized community where they can go create a profile in as little as ten minutes and then make connections and market themselves to like-minded businesses.

If you are a wedding planner and you just got an opportunity to do the wedding of the year, you need to get a caterer; you need to get a venue; and you really want this business.  But you just don't have those assets within your small business. You can go to WeCommerce, look for florists, event planners, anything within the WeCommerce platform, and actually create a proposal that you can go and present to somebody and say, “Hi. I am a wedding planner and I am going to do your wedding.  This is how it is going to come off.”

So it really is expanding your company to address some of the bigger opportunities that you may be unable to do today on your own.

Small Business Trends: What role does Facebook play in WeCommerce?

Mark Adams: WeCommerce originally was a community on Facebook, on a Facebook App, that really wanted to take all of the businesses that were there and help them find each other on this particular platform.

While we started on Facebook we are going to be launching a site in the very near future.  That way, any small business, even those that don't have a Facebook user profile, can actually join WeCommerce. We are in beta mode right now just testing it out, getting good feedback from customers that have joined us so far.  But we are going to launch a site.

Again anybody can check it out and it is free. That is the other thing.  Some of the other sites that are similar, like Elance, and some of the other potential bartering sites, they charge a fee. We are free and literally in less than 10 minutes with no cost to the small business owner you can join WeCommerce and start getting new business, new ideas, new connections and new partnerships for your small business.

Small Business Trends: Are there any other differences between what other sites do and what WeCommerce does?

Mark Adams: Elance, just as an example, is a site for freelance jobs or temp jobs.  We are not potentially in the employment business with WeCommerce.

Really what they are using WeCommerce for is to partner with each other. So if you are a graphics design company and I am a bakery, I will potentially design your website and you will provide goods at the launch of my company or something like that.

Again, the nice thing about it from a WeCommerce perspective about being free, is they can publish their current offers on there. They can use this website to market their services as well, and they can potentially join forces to make a greater purchase power. Let's say you have a stationary provider and an office supplier and both of you need paper.  Maybe you can combine resources in that way and get more of a volume discount, just as an example.

It is a really good opportunity for them to connect with businesses both nationally and locally.  Because sometimes you are going after national type business as well. Then, of course, we as a company use it as an opportunity to promote our products and services to these customers.

Small Business Trends: Have you received any feedback from the small business community about how it has been working for them?

Mark Adams: The one thing that we learned early on is the profile process was taking a little too much time so we have streamlined that. We also made some additions to help businesses find each other a little easier. Basically, they give great, positive feedback and help us improve this site.  We are going to make sure we keep this advisory board and continue getting feedback from the customers continually so we can improve the site.

People also wanted to make referrals and one of the things we just added in terms of the new functionally was Yelp ratings. If a business had tremendous Yelp ratings, that gives them a sense of confidence. If the customers are happy with what you deliver then your partnership is going to deliver.

This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.

Whether you're growing your business or starting a new venture, BlackBerry solutions provide you with the freedom you want and the control you need. [Series sponsor]

 

Control Your Entire Financial Ecosystem With ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)

Financial operations are a complete burden on small business owners as they have to constantly get their paperwork together and strive to keep up with the ebbs and flows of the system while still running a business. This can be hard on you especially if you have kids and want to, well, keep your soul.

Automated accounting and payment integration systems have been offered to large companies ever since a computer was a big hunk of aluminum with large rollers that filled up a room the size of today's average living room. We're in a different era now, when computers became more accessible to smaller businesses and average households. Why not make ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems smaller?

Companies that normally used to offer these systems to larger businesses are now pondering the potential for giving small businesses the same attention. You can now get your payment system integrated into an ERP platform for simpler accounting, less paperwork, and PCI compliance. This will save you tons of time and money you would otherwise spend on an accounting firm that's prone to make mistakes. After all, money is the lifeblood of your business. It's natural to want to let it flow easily.

Here are a few services that offer ERP services for small businesses:

• NetSuite Online Business Software Suite - NetSuite comes up with a rather sweet offer, letting you have a cloud-based ERP system along with a CRM system integrated into one piece. The ERM system allows you to integrate payments into the accounting platform, which keeps your business compliant and virtually error-free. This kind of solution benefits businesses in the mid-range more, however. You must contact them to get details on pricing and features.
• Sage Exchange - Sage Exchange offers something similar to what NetSuite does, but it does a better job of serving smaller businesses that have multiple locations, allowing them to consolidate their entire payments platforms within one panel. This service is a godsend if you have mountains of paperwork to file for every Benjamin that comes in, especially if you have a retail business. This ERP solution will save you a load of cash in a short time.

No matter what industry you're in, you need an ERP software to give your business a kick forward. Otherwise, you're stuck having to either get used to an Eiffel-tower-sized stack of papers on your desk, spend exuberant sums in an accounting department, or outsource to people who won't handle your workload with as much care as you do. These are just not realistic options for an efficient small business. Take the torch and get yourself an ERP service just like the fat cats do.

Confused By Analytics And What Metrics To Look At? Let\'s See If We Can Help!

I've seen a large amount of people relying on certain analytics services that just don't really show them a realistic view of who is on their sites. There are several situations in which these are reliable and where they aren't. Today, we will discuss what metrics you've been told to rely on and when you should or shouldn't rely on them. This kind of dilemma hits people hard especially when they're led to think they don't have as many visitors on their site as they really do.

Let's have a look at a couple of analytics services and discuss when it's appropriate to rely on them (if it ever is) and why it would be inappropriate to completely base your opinion of your current situation on those numbers:

Alexa

Alexa gives you a sufficiently nice comparison of how you're doing compared to other sites. Often times, it shows you your traffic rank amongst other sites on the web and in your country. This can be a great way to compare yourself to the competition by searching for your site on it and then looking up a competitor's site. It's hard to hide from the eyes of Alexa, since it relies on data gathered from clients with its toolbars installed.

When You Should Rely On It: As mentioned previously, you should rely on Alexa when comparing your site to another one. Other than that, you shouldn't really rely on it.

Why You Shouldn't Rely On It: The list of sites linking to yours is an inaccurate way to track how many sites actually link to yours. Google Webmaster Tools does a much better job of this, and gives you much more insight. Also try Open Site Explorer for this.

Besides that, your traffic rank is also updated with a slight delay if you're below a certain rank. The traffic estimations come from people using the toolbar, so it's not generally an accurate depiction of who you're reaching. Just take these things into consideration when using the service.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is an awesome tool that gives you a very deep insight on visitor trends and behavior. The service will show you how many people are clicking the “Back” button on their browsers, who's searching for your site, and what keywords they're using (if you integrate it with Google Webmaster Tools). The software works via a script that you place on your site's header on each page. The data coming from it is immensely useful and can help you get a very broad picture of what's right and wrong on your site.

When You Should Rely On It: You should rely on this service to get a general idea of what kind of behavior your visitors exhibit. It helps you see how much engagement your site provokes in them. However, there is one huge issue with this service, which brings us to…

Why You Shouldn't Rely On It: It doesn't like clients that don't use JavaScript or decide to ignore it. The script you place on your site is solely JavaScript, and if someone's browser refuses to adhere to it, the visitor won't even be counted. You are left in the dark about your non-JavaScript visitors, and there are a lot of them at times. Besides that, it's a good service.

Looking At Likes, Tweets, Etc.

The biggest mistake people do when measuring the popularity of another site's article is to look at how many people liked and shared a page on that site. You might see an article with 20 likes, but that might have been 20 visitors who came from the fan page to enter a contest. There's no time when you should rely on this. On the contrary, you have every reason to avoid using this as a metric of a competitor's performance. Some people have written articles with only 3-4 likes but scored thousands of sales through it. It's all about whether the content is useful or just something meant to go viral on social media. You can use this to see how your competitors are planning their content strategies, but that's pretty much it.

Some Final Thoughts

As you can see, while you must avoid relying on each of these analysis methods totally, there are some reasons why they're still useful. If you really want a reliable view into your traffic, try getting modules or services that analyze your website locally by counting and looking at the HTTP requests it receives. This paints a much more accurate picture of who's visiting your site. Unfortunately, there's no way to accurately determine how much traffic your competitors are getting, but you can always focus on building yours up to be the best it can be!

Let Me Do All The Talking

This is a pretty good joke. Not great, not bad, but pretty good. You've got your standard phrase with a funny scene and sort of a “well, of course” gag. And it sells, which in the end is really what you're looking for. But it's also one of those cartoons where I like to imagine the scene immediately after the scene we're presented.

Think about it. A room full of people who are apparently waiting to hear what this guy has to say, and then he walks in with a ventriloquist dummy. Does he give a funny presentation? Does he do it straight? Does he acknowledge the oddness of what's happening, or does he present this as perfectly normal?

And as much as you'd think I should know what happens (I created it after all), I don't. But I'd really like to find out.

Exclusive: Almost 200 e-commerce websites vulnerable to shopping cart flaw

A vulnerability in open source shopping cart software osCommerce has affected almost 200 websites that have been listed and posted online.

A source informed SC Magazine of the Pastebin list of 198 websites, which they said were fairly small e-commerce sites and vulnerable to the osCommerce flaw and could be subject to attack soon.

SC Magazine showed the list to a number of industry experts. Andrew Barratt, partner at PTP Consulting, confirmed that all of the websites have the same vulnerability and said it appears that the examples given allow the password file to be stolen, or access to be granted to their database information including connection strings and passwords.

Michael Jordon, information security consultant at Context Information Security, said that the osCommerce bug affects the ‘extras' directory bug that may let remote users view files on the target system and according to securitytracker.com this was originally reported on in April 2006.

Jordon said: “So all the websites have not patched their version of osCommerce. The vulnerability allows for any file on the system to be read which could easily lead to a full compromise of the server, for example if they read a database backup file it would contain all the details in the app including usernames and passwords, but they would have to know the exact path.”

Asked if he was familiar with osCommerce, Jordon said he was not, but he found out that it is used by small-scale online shops and hosting providers who may provide it for people to use.

“The vulnerable websites would most likely be ones where they were set up a few years ago and have been working, so nothing has been changed. It is not really osCommerce's fault if they provide the necessary fix for people but they have not applied it,” he said.

Showing the list of websites to a penetration tester, he confirmed to SC Magazine that the osCommerce shopping cart appears to be vulnerable and it looked like a simple local file inclusion.

He pointed to a link that he said contains the PHP source code and the database connector passwords.

“If the database is available from the internet, then it's game over,” he said.

“I guess the list of sites have been found using a Google Dork. This looks related to a similar bug in categories.php in the same app that was disclosed in 2009.”

Asked if all of the 198 sites use the osCommerce shopping cart, he said it appears so, as the syntax of the URI is identical in all cases.

He said: “The various websites all appear to be small e-commerce sites, which may explain the use of an open source commerce platform. I don't think anything particularly clever has been done here; the Pastebin user has probably found them on a Google Dork that relates to an old vulnerability, and realised it applies to other .php scripts on the same platform.

“The listed websites need to patch urgently and change all database connector credentials and then check that no credit card, personal data or passwords were in clear text in the database.”

OsCommerce was informed of the issue. A spokesperson for osCommerce denied that the ‘extras/' directory is part of the installation, but that some users copied this directory manually to their servers.

“We noticed this and deleted the offending PHP files in the directory five years ago,” they said.

The list has also been passed on to the Information Commissioner's Office. An ICO spokesperson said: “This incident highlights the need for all website operators to make sure their systems are secure and the importance of performing regular maintenance checks.”

Google Play takes fresh steps to offer secure apps

Google Play has issued a letter to developers to offer advice on building better and more secure apps.

The letter said that Google had made changes to its policies in regard to ‘dangerous products' that disclose personal information without authorisation and the behaviour of adverts in applications.

Google said that it is providing more detail on the kinds of dangerous products that are not allowed on Google Play, and has added a new section that addresses advert behaviour in apps.

It said: “First, we make it clear that adverts in your app must follow the same rules as the app itself. Also, it is important to us that adverts don't negatively affect the experience by deceiving consumers or using disruptive behaviour such as obstructing access to apps and interfering with other adverts.”

This policy states that adverts are considered part of the app for the purposes of content review and compliance with the developer terms, so all policies, including those concerning illegal activities, violence, sexually explicit content and privacy violations, apply.

In terms of the context of adverts, Google said: “It must be clear to the user which app each ad is associated with or implemented in. Adverts must not make changes to the functioning of the user's device outside the ad by doing things such as installing shortcuts, bookmarks or icons or changing default settings without the user's knowledge and consent.

“If an ad makes such changes it must be clear to the user which app has made the change and the user must be able to reverse the change easily, by either adjusting the settings on the device, advertising preferences in the app, or uninstalling the app altogether.”

Also, adverts must not simulate or impersonate system notifications or warnings and adverts associated with an app must not interfere with any adverts on a third-party application, it said.

Research by MWR Infosecurity and Channel 4 News found that some leading applications were sending personal data back from devices to advertising companies without user knowledge and that permissions were granted to the apps when they were downloaded.

Updating its Google Play developer program policy, Google said that it is required to update its policies when it launches new features and when it sees unhealthy behaviour such as deceptive app names and spam notifications.

It has also restricted the use of names or icons that are "confusingly similar to existing system apps in order to reduce user confusion". It said that any existing apps will be given 30 days to fix and republish the application and after this period, existing applications discovered to be in violation may be subject to warning or removal from Google Play.

44Con offers upgrade to Tesco staff

Following its security worries at the start of this week, Tesco has been offered a complementary ticket to attend the three days of the main 44Con conference in September.

In an open letter, the 44Con organisers said that for every person Tesco registers for any one of the training courses, they will extend to them a complementary ticket to attend the whole three days of the main 44Con conference.

The letter said: “Recently there's been a lot of discussion on the twittersphere about Tesco email password security. Sadly, this has extended to discussions about the Tesco website itself.

“While we're sure you take information security very seriously we thought we'd do the right thing and try to help. After all, many of the crew are Tesco customers who, after seeing some of the problems being highlighted are rightfully concerned about shopping online. There's been a lot of negative commentary about Tesco and it's clear things could be improved, so we're just trying to do our bit.”

The conference is in its second year and will include a number of industry speakers and training courses. The letter said: “By sending the right people to the right courses, they'll be in a better position to address these alleged vulnerabilities, as would anyone who wants to learn more about the dark arts and ‘black ops‘ of pen testing. Should the worst happen, we even have courses to help you prepare, detect and respond.

“Rest assured, we will not disclose your employer on your name badge, nor will it be shared. We just wanted to help out and had no direct way of contacting you. Feel free to contact us directly and we'll take care of the rest.”

Go Daddy CEO Steps Down

Every Internet entrepreneur knows the importance of good Internet hosting, and the misery that can ensue when hosting problems occur. Heck, just look at our recent coverage of the problems experienced by Famous Bloggers founder Hesham Zebida when he briefly lost two of his domains for several days last week. It's important to know as much as you can about your hosting company before making the decision where to host your Website. Be sure you are getting the services you need.

Changes

Musical CEOs. Once a darling of the Internet entrepreneurial community, Go Daddy has experienced some shakeups in management recently. The company announced that CEO Warren Adelman had stepped down after just 8 months on the job, and will be replaced by Scott Wagner of KKR Capstone, a major investor in the company. TechCrunch

No accounting for taste. Earlier last month, Go Daddy seemed to be bolstering its offerings to its small business clientele, acquiring automated accounting application company Outright with plans to add financial management features to its Web hosting and domain name registration services. PC World

The Future of Hosting

Ease of operation. Before his departure, former Go Daddy CEO Adelman talked about the reasons for the Outright acquisition. Go Daddy makes domain name signup and hosting simple, while Outright focuses on making it easy to combine data from e-commerce sites like eBay, Etsy, and Amazon, invoicing Web sites like Freshbooks and Harvest, and receipts sites like Shoeboxed. Both are hyper focused on supporting online small business. eCommerce Bytes

One stop shop. The ultimate aim for Go Daddy, said Adelman recently, is to move from a simple Web hosting and domain registration company to a sort of one stop shop for entrepreneurs seeking to create an online business. That shop offers Web marketing tools, e-commerce functions, SEO and social media marketing assistance, accounting, and more. Tech Biz

Dangerous domain. But no matter how much effort might be placed behind making hosting a safe and easy process, business owners must always remember that the security of their site is their own responsibility. Here blogger Tuan Do makes some suggestions for protecting your online security without leaving everything up to your Web hosting company. TechWalls

Other Hosting Options

More than a Website. Of course, hosting possibilities go far beyond simply getting a Website online in this era of cloud computing. Microsoft, for example, has introduced a version of its Windows Azure cloud platform, which allows the company's partners to offer business customers an infrastructure-as-a-service experience including deployment of many different applications. Gigaom

A gracious host. Meanwhile Dell has partnered with hosting automation software Parallels to provide its business users with a hosted Microsoft Office 365 offering. The Dell announcement means that business customers of the computer company will be able to use features like email, shared calendars, document creating and editing tools, instant messaging, Web conferencing, and internal team Websites through computers, tablets, smartphones. Web Host Industry Review