Business column: Boost your marketing with online search tools

Search-engine optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a Web site. When SEO is done properly, it will place you high on search-engine result pages for certain key phrases and terms (i.e. real estate, law firms, doctor, etc.).

In today's online-driven world, the names Google, Yahoo and MSN are rapidly becoming more of a household name than the Yellow Pages. Most of us now have access to the Internet via work, home and mobile phone. According to research by Jupiter Media way back in 2004, more than 64 percent of people who are looking for information online use search engines. The number is closer to 80 percent today.

Low risk, high impact

In these tough economic times, business owners are becoming increasingly challenged and conservative with their marketing budgets. Most of us are seeking low-risk, high-impact marketing options in a down economy. When it comes to meeting these needs, search engines like Google provide a viable and cost effective solution.

So where should your advertising dollars be spent in today's market?

Consider the traditional advertising option of the yellow pages. For a prominent ad, your costs could be thousands of dollars per month Also, Yellow Page ads have limited flexibility, and you are usually locked in to a one-year commitment.

Optimize your Web site

How many times have you used the paper Yellow Pages this month?

How many times have you searched for a business or service on Google or Yahoo this month?

Now consider your Web site. You can further your business leads by making sure that more people are viewing it. You can optimize your Web site to rank in the main listings without any media spending at all. You can test multiple ads and list under multiple words or phrases all at the same time and get instant tracking on which ads are working for you.

The major search engines also can determine where the search is coming from. This means you can target ads all the way down to a city, or ZIP code.

If you are not currently utilizing this marketing channel, I recommend you take half of your local marketing this year and invest in search optimization or paid search ads. Work with a search-analytics professional to track the new program for 90 days. You likely will be surprised to see who's been searching for you, and see an immediate impact for your business.

Source:- recordonline.com/

SugarCRM wants to be the Linux of the CRM world

SugarCRM seems to be doing quite well, at least well enough to rankle its larger competitor Salesforce. John Roberts, the CEO of SugarCRM says Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce wasn’t too pleased when he found out SugarCRM was hosting its user conference at the Marriott, just a few yards from the Salesforce Dreamforce conference at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco.

“When Marc Benioff found out we were at the Marriott he pressured the hotel to move us out. That’s how we ended up here at the St. Regis, and Marriott is paying for it.” The move might have backfired for Salesforce because the St. Regis is a lot nicer than the Marriott and just as close to the Moscone.

The reason SugarCRM might be irking Mr Benioff is that it’s growing very fast. “We now have more than four thousand customers, and more than half-a-million users, in 80 languages. That’s in just four years.”

While Mr Roberts credits Marc Benioff with educating the market about the benefits of software as a service, he says SugarCRM is winning business because there isn’t any customer lock-in as there is with Salesforce and its proprietary behavior. For example, application developers for the Salesforce Force.com platform have to use a programming language called Apex.

“What is the point of Apex? We built SugarCRM in PHP and we use Internet standard technologies. We are open source, our technologies are owned by the Internet. We view ourselves as the Linux of the CRM world.”

Much of the demand for SugarCRM comes from word of mouth, says Mr Roberts. “I don’t have to have a big sales force that needs to travel all over the place.” Daily downloads average 5,000 per day and recently exceeded 5 million total. Site licenses are $449 per user or customers can choose to the on-demand version for just $40 per month.

“The Internet has totally changed the software industry. We allow our customers to try before they buy.”

SugarCRM is home grown and developed in Cupertino from scratch. “We don’t off-shore development. I don’t believe that you can build innovative software that way,” Mr Roberts says.

The company has strong growth and money in the bank. “We raised $20m last year but we haven’t had to touch it. We were planning an IPO in 2008 and we needed to show we had $20m in cash.”

Mr Roberts says the company might have to wait until 2010 before it can IPO. SugarCRM was hoping that MySQL would be the first commercial open source company to have a successful IPO. But MySQL abandoned its IPO plans and agreed to be acquired by Sun Microsystems for $1bn at the beginning of this year. Now SugarCRM could become the first commercial open source public company.

Until the IPO market reopens, Mr Roberts isn’t twiddling his thumbs. “There are five million businesses in the US, and only 10 per cent of them have CRM, the rest are using spreadsheets. That’s a huge opportunity for us.”

Source:- blogs.zdnet.com/

Microsoft "Not Against" Open Source

The division between proprietary software vendors and open-source providers is not as clear as some industry players perceive it to be. As more enterprises consider adopting open source technologies, even traditional software vendors such as Microsoft have taken steps in responding to such customer needs.

"Open source is not a product but an approach to software development," said Matthew Hardman, platform strategy manager at Microsoft Singapore. "Microsoft does not compete with open source, just as Nike does not compete with running."

Hardman said the software giant seeks to provide the best possible platform' for open source applications to run. "We believe that enterprises and vendors should have a choice of software development methodology, and open source is one such choice."

The platform strategy manager noted however, that Microsoft will compete with open source-based providers, just as it also competes with other proprietary vendors.
Open-source contributions

According to Hardman, Microsoft has contributed to technologies that are deemed open source. "PHP, a technology used to build web pages, ran into multiple issues around performance and scalability on Windows Server 2003," he said. "With the introduction of Windows Server 2008 and host technology such as Fast CGI, we are now able to run PHP up to 200 per cent faster than Linux."

Hardman said the company has contributed code to PHP libraries for database support, making it easier for PHP developers to connect to Microsoft databases.

"Linux is open source, but open source is not Linux," Hardman noted. "PHP was designed to make it easy for people to build web pages, not specifically to run only on Linux."

As part of its open-source strategy, the company hosts a website called CodePlex, where Microsoft employees and the developer community work on some 6,000 open-source projects. "Examples of such projects include the AJAX Control Toolkit, SugarCRM, .Net, and code that can interact with the 'World of Warcraft,'" Hardman said.

CodePlex includes more than just projects that Microsoft has released, according to Hardman. "It's a hosting platform where people can create and share projects, and we have also used it to share some of our technology to encourage further innovation."

Some five million developers worldwide have created various applications using Microsoft platform technologies such as Windows, .Net, Windows Server and Microsoft Xbox, according to the software giant.

Different business models
Unlike Red Hat, Microsoft does not have a subscription-based model for open-source solutions. "When we want to share source code, we will share it for free," Hardman said. "For example, if someone took the AJAX Control Toolkit, embedded it into a project and commercialised it, that's fine with us."

"It's not so much an issue of opening up the source code," Hardman said. "Rather, it's about how to make open-source technology work for the enterprise, without it having to change its existing platform or infrastructure."

In short, interoperability among solutions, whether open source or not, is very important, Hardman noted.

Other open-source issues
Enterprises need to consider several other issues when deciding whether to adopt open-source technologies, according to Hardman. Knowledge about the level of support provided by the service provider, such as ready availability of security patches, is crucial.

"It's not enough to only have technical expertise in building the open-source solution," Hardman said. "Business knowledge is also essential to ensure the solution works for the enterprise."

Additionally, the open-source provider must be confident that the contributing community can ensure adequate information security. "There must be no weak links in security features," Hardman said.

Open source and SaaS
According to Gartner's State of Open Source report for 2008, software-as-a-service (SaaS) will eclipse open source as the preferred enterprise IT cost-cutting method by 2012.

The report stated that both the open source and SaaS business models price by subscription, operate on low profit margins and can reduce enterprise IT costs. Gartner contends however, that SaaS reduces enterprise requirements for IT technical skills, while open source tends to increase such requirements.

Gery Messer, president of Red Hat Asia Pacific, disagreed: "Open source does not increase the requirement for IT technical skills within the enterprise."

Messer said Red Hat's subscription model provides enterprises with a predictable cost structure and allows them to outsource IT development and support requirements.

"Open source is an infrastructure platform on which many enterprise applications run," Messer said. "Its community-based accelerated innovation approach multiplies software development capacity many times over, providing enterprises better, more innovative solutions."

Messer agreed however, that like open-source software (OSS), SaaS can also help enterprises, especially small- and medium-sized businesses, cut IT costs.
Defining open source

"While I agree with Red Hat's general definition of SaaS, I wouldn't agree with their definition of open source," said Brian Prentice, Gartner's research vice president for emerging trends and technologies. "Open source is not just an infrastructure platform, it can be a lot more than that and is."

According to Prentice, Gartner's definition of open source is software governed under a licence agreement recognised by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). OSI is a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting open-source software. "It is the licence agreement, and specifically the rights to modify and redistribute the code, which is the most important component of open source."

As a co-author of the Gartner Open Source report, Prentice explained that OSS tends to increase skills requirements because new technologies require new skills in an organisation.

"If, for example, my organisation uses Windows Server, the addition of Linux, regardless of distribution, would require new skills," Prentice said. "If I am currently using a mix of Oracle 11g and SQL Server, and then introduced MySQL, that needs a new set of skills."

Prentice said SaaS tends to avoid this problem because it is "run on someone else's infrastructure".

"I concede there is some nuance in this area particularly as we start looking at platform-as-a-service capabilities like Force.com from salesforce.com," he noted.

Source:- cio.com/