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Companies of all types must handle problems on a constant basis, but these challenges are more difficult for a small business. Having limited resources makes it difficult to compete with larger enterprises. Companies of all types must handle problems on a constant basis, but these challenges are more difficult for a small business. Having limited resources makes it difficult to compete with larger enterprises. 

In the past, access to something as powerful as Big Data was limited due to the costs and skills required.

I’m a guy and of course delay going to the dentist and so on. Over morning coffee, today March 31, 2018, I realized I can’t avoid it any longer. Today is World Backup Day! Darn it,  I’m making a couple special backups just to honor the holiday. 

I spoke with John Zanni, well-known in the SMB partner channel for his work as a Microsoft general manager back in the day plus his tenure at Parallels. Today he is the president of Acronis, a leading backup solution ISV. Later in this blog I’ll do a “where is John Zanni now?” commentary. 

World Backup Day

"This is of course an international event,

Calvin Price

Strengths, Weaknesses, and the Likely Road Ahead

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most exciting paradigms in emerging technology. The principle of connecting billions of devices to automate networks is absolutely thrilling and has considerable applications in agriculture, manufacturing, consumer tech, and virtually all mechanically intensive industries. It also has a big problem: at its current stage, IoT is objectively infeasible and dangerous.

Depending on how much you know about big data, you may be surprised to learn that a data scientist and a business analyst don’t provide the same results. If that’s the case, then you’re not alone—since these two professions are often confused with one another. That’s why Analytics@American, a masters in business analytics, created this infographic to help clear the data science fog.

 By Todd Clark and Dan Wiesenfeld

During the past decade, business analytics platforms have evolved from supporting IT and finance functions to enabling business users across the enterprise. But many firms find themselves struggling to take advantage of its promise. We’ve found three main obstacles to realizing analytics’ full value, and all of them are related to people, not technology: the organization’s structure, culture, and approach to problem solving.

One of the hottest questions in Information Management now is how to deal with Big Data in all its applications: how to gather, store, secure, and – possibly most importantly – interpret what we collect. Organizations that are able to apply effective data analysis to massive amounts of data gain significant competitive advantages in their industries.

Pre-recession, my basic mo·dus op·e·ran·di (MO) was to take fun seriously in business. I’ve emerged battle-tested over the past decade and have adopted a tougher stance on life: Lead…or follow…or get out of the way. I still try to have fun where I can find it but the economy isn’t as fun as a decade ago and neither am I!

First, before you proceed, I’d ask you to

By James M Connolly

Even with the ongoing new developments in core technologies, IT organizations are facing dramatic changes in how they work in 2018 as they embrace new business concepts and strategies.
We just might be at a point where IT professionals -- from the overworked help desk staffer up to the CIO in the fancy office -- long for the good old days. You remember those days, when technology, that "T" in IT, ruled the day.

Christine Ashton

It’s beyond debate that data is one of a company’s most valuable resources. The total revenue from online advertising in 2014, for example, reached US $49.5 billion, the majority of which is based on users’ personal and demographic information to show more relevant messages. The direction of travel since then has only been in one direction.

Here’s the good news. Those MSPs who rode the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) boom in the 2009 time frame (as part of the 2009-era Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act) and more recently the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) wave, will love this story. It’s about my time at the three-day CannaCon conference in Seattle this past week. And I’ve concluded it’s the next great thing in health care IT.

Mario Farag

Last year, most of the world swooned over new technological evolutions such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, the Internet of Things, and automation. Even though these technologies are proving to be catalysts for growth, many small business leaders have decided to concentrate most of their investments on data analytics.

I’ve had this blog written in my mind for months. I’ve just been trying to find the words to articulate my vision of animal behavior as the best way to explain “machine learning.” So what motivated me to type this out? I read an article in the New York Times this week here about artificial intelligence (AI) and how animals are helping with machine learning. 

My study was based on the SMB Nation mascot,