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David and Goliath. The FA Cup third round. There are plenty of examples of small triumphing over big, but in business, it is generally accepted that larger is better. Bigger budgets, more resources, greater power and higher profile brands are all the things that most small business owners have traditionally coveted. But this situation may…
read moreThere can be few people who didn’t hear about BlackBerry’s massive service problems last week. A faulty switch at a datacentre left customers unable to use the messaging and web browsing services on their handsets. Initially, BlackBerry tried to play it down, giving little information to the press and customers except short statements saying that…
read moreSteve Jobs’ passing was rightly lamented in the world’s media, but I wonder how many people will note the passing of Dennis Ritchie? Far fewer, I’ll bet, but arguably he was many, many times more important to IT innovation than the Apple founder. Ritchie’s software creations and their direct descendants run pretty much everything we use…
read moreBlackBerry users now find themselves facing a 3rd consecutive day of service disruption. As a result, RIM, BlackBerry’s maker, whose recent financial results have disappointed investors (we blogged about it here ) is now under further pressure as it faces the prospect of losing subscribers who are disgruntled due to service quality. In addition, BlackBerry’s competitors…
read moreAs a business owner, I bet you get several calls a week from companies promising to upgrade your office technology with revolutionary new systems that will transform the way you work. But when you take the plunge and install this technology, you find that these claims were overhyped, or certainly premature, as the technology fails…
read moreI have to confess that I didn’t really want to write this blog, because I fear that I am now contributing to the self-fulfilling prophecy that says we are talking ourselves back into recession again… We, as business owners and managers, need confidence. Confidence from our customers. Confidence from the banks. Confidence from our suppliers.…
read moreA couple of days ago we blogged about how red tape for businesses can sometimes be a good thing. But today’s post highlights new rules which are unlikely to be received warmly by UK SMEs. From tomorrow, agency workers will have additional rights in pay and benefits which are similar to full-time staff once they…
read moreIf you visit a McDonalds drive through you’ll notice they now have signs advertising contactless payment. And Barclaycard ran a huge promotional campaign, including an iPhone game, about contactless payment too (remember the waterslide through the city?). So, it is little surprise that Google, one of the greatest innovators of our time has gone into…
read moreRules and regulations. They’re not everyone’s taste and in business there is a widely held view that there is far too much bureaucracy and red tape which simply holds SMEs back. But sometimes you need to see what happens when there aren’t any rules, to know just how important they are. Let me explain… India…
read moreAnother sign of the times perhaps as, Techmesh, the IT and telecommunications business-to-business member network, has merged with the Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce. Techmesh was originally set up and launched in 2010 by Connect Yorkshire on the back of Yorkshire Forward’s initiative to set up an IT and telecoms B2B member…
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