Netgear is making strides in helping businesses make the move into AI-powered network operations and management with the launch of Netgear Insight 10.0.

This next-generation cloud network management platform will be game-changing for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and Managed Service Providers (MSPs), plugging the gap between need and resource, according to the firm.

Insight 10.0 is designed to support organizations through delivery of enterprise-grade AIOps, intelligence, and operational simplicity, helping them to make decisions faster and move their business forward.

One key benefit of the new platform is empowering network administrators to move from being purely reactive to being proactive, according to Luca Marinelli, Netgear’s head of Europe.

In terms of launches, Marinelli said this is a pretty significant one for the company and a key focus during his time with the business so far, following his appointment in October last year.

“The opportunity to have a single pane of glass, which will be managing simultaneously – like with multi-tenancy – several networks will free up time for [MSPs] to maybe start providing other additional services to attract new customers, which is always something very healthy to do in business.”

“[Also] if you perform certain types of activities in a reduced amount of time, your margin can be better. This results in a much more profitable business. So, there are multiple impacts [from] using more sophisticated state-of-the-art tools," Marinelli added.

"Sometimes the feeling is that AI is just a nice slogan that you need to just add in everything you say. [But] I think the important thing is to know what to do with this superpower. If you know what you want to do, it is extremely valuable.”

Outside of product innovation, Netgear has been heavily focused on how it partners to do business. Indeed, in November 2025 it unveiled changes to its partner program in a bid to make it easier to work together and drive joint success.

At launch, Netgear’s president and general manager, Pramod Badjate, said partners were at the center of everything the company does.

“Our big play at Netgear is delivering enterprise-grade products with the simplicity that the SME market needs. That all boils down to a product that is ready for those environments, but also, from a TCO point of view, fits that customer experience really well,” said Jordan Hobday, Netgear’s UK country manager.

“The Netgear Drive Partner Program is three tiers. It's there to really incentivize and reward our partners. There's a commercial benefit to that, but equally it's about how we [can] provide a good experience to our partners, like certifications, self-serve material, all the good things that you would expect.

“A big part for us is simplicity, and how easy it is to work with or do business with Netgear.”

Netgear’s EMEA business is in good health, according to Luca, but he said the company’s turnaround journey was not finished yet. Indeed, one priority for him is not just growing partner numbers for numbers' sake, but really focusing on deeper engagement.

“I think we have, in my opinion, enough partners that we are working with. The game is to keep them interested; I don't necessarily think we need to increase the number of partners broadly. It's going to be a very selective move in both the AV and IT markets to capture the real players that we need to work with, in a given territory, in a given market,” he said.

“We work with a lot of partners, but the number of partners we have this business intimacy with is not at all at the level where it should be. It’s about ways of working with partners; it's about tools that we keep evolving; it's about the value we bring to those partners and the way we spend time. We do spend time [with partners] already, of course, but [it’s about] the way we spend [that] time. It has to evolve.

“It's [about] more quality, more depth, more intimacy, more shifting the way we work with partners, which takes a little while. It doesn't happen overnight.“

Having access to the right technology is a driving force that can make the difference between success and failure for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) today. They must keep pace with digital transformation, cybersecurity threats, remote work, and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). All this creates immense pressure to constantly evolve their infrastructure and business models.

The biggest mistake that vendors and integrators can make, however, is to assume that the right technology for large companies will work for SMEs, just on a smaller scale. Disparities in resources, business goals, and organizational structure inevitably lead to implementation and operational challenges, such as longer lead times, heavier resource demands, and prohibitive licensing costs.

For many SMEs, productivity is hampered by outdated infrastructure that is often pushed to capacity by ever-increasing user loads and unwavering uptime demands.

Because SMEs often lack the internal resources to deploy and support complicated, labor-intensive networking solutions, they are reliant on integrators and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to install, maintain, and service networks.

This equates to a strong demand for solutions that are reliable, scalable, easy to deploy, and great value for money. Unfortunately, many integrators struggle to find the right fit, let alone a channel strategy that will support this segment of the business market.

Equip partners with more than just tools and support

Integrators and MSPs continue to play an essential role in the networking space, but this doesn’t mean they have always been provided with the necessary tools and support to make them successful. Serving SME needs can make them susceptible to high ongoing operational costs and continued demands for technical support, which easily absorb the slender margins available.

If vendors truly value their MSPs, they need to reevaluate their partner programs and ensure they are fit-for-purpose for the SME market and the partners that service it. ‘Partnership’ is the operative word. This, of course, means equipping them with streamlined tools, training, and enhanced technical resources.

There’s more to it than that,t though. These things take time. Netgear’s own Drive partner success program, for example, was a whole year in the making. Our MSPs provide customers with the solution they need at the right price point, with comprehensive support at every stage, fully backed by us. The really important element here is to ensure the customer experience remains front and center.

Given that SMEs currently make up 90% of all businesses globally, providing more than 50% of jobs worldwide and contributing up to 40% of national income in emerging economies, integrators and MSPs must really stand out in a highly competitive market.

How do they do that? By aligning more closely with customer needs and delivering exceptional value and expertise. This is only possible with committed, collaborative support from vendors.

But there’s another benefit to aligning partner programs with SME needs, which is the value that vendors gain in return. Partners possess deep insight into the challenges SMEs face and the technology and support they require to meet their goals. When partnerships are truly collaborative, those insights can flow more effectively back to vendors, informing their planning and strategic direction.

Building for SME needs

Vendors can do more by providing solutions designed for SMEs that are the right fit for their market, and that can be easily managed using a unified multi-site/multi-tenant, cloud-based platform. This helps maximize partner margins and helps to limit the need for repeated visits by MSPs or hours spent delivering technical support.

Providing the right stack for the SME market means filling in gaps in IT or security knowledge, along with specifying the right tools, roles that in larger enterprises would be met by dedicated technical departments. It’s why there is a growth market for smaller manufacturers and MSPs to work together, delivering end-to-end services of which networking is a key component.

Vendors serving SMEs today can’t just focus on segmented, fragmented solutions. Instead, they need to deliver enterprise-grade, reliable, fit-for-purpose technology that is quick to onboard and easy to troubleshoot. Simplicity is the key to success in this growing, changing market.

Partners at the center

For vendors, the SME market is rich with opportunity – but capturing it means building a strong partner ecosystem. One where partners lean in and lead with a specific vendor because the solutions are the right fit, but also because they are confident that the vendor is with them, supporting them every step of the way.

Alongside networking solutions tailored to the specific needs of SMEs, vendors must do more to empower partners and drive mutual value.

Changing the emphasis from selling to delivering value at the right price is a new approach, but it will forge a relationship that benefits both the vendor and the partner. Ultimately, it will deliver a better service to the SME customer.

There comes a time in every organization’s journey when old systems and workflows must be modernized or replaced. In recent years, we’ve seen this play out with the widespread adoption of cloud systems.

For some, the willingness to adopt new tech comes naturally. Innovative startups, or businesses in fast-growth sectors such as SaaS, may have been cloud-first from the get-go. Launched with the help of entry-level cloud solutions, and now on the lookout for something more advanced, that can address more complex needs and serve larger, cross-functional teams.

For others, however, the prospect of modernizing systems is prompted by necessity rather than choice. This is something we see a lot with smaller, mid-market organizations. When we look at mid-market finance functions, specifically, this becomes even more common.

It’s estimated that there are around 100,000 mid-market organizations in the UK still reliant on legacy, on-premises finance systems. Many of these systems are now nearing end-of-support deadlines. Or have simply become too cumbersome for finance teams to keep using; unable to integrate with other cloud-based systems within the organization. Acting as mere ‘data repositories’, with time-consuming Excel sheets and data consolidation needed on both ends to make the month-end reports stack up.

So, why have mid-market finance directors been slower to embrace change? In most cases, it’s not denial or naivety. Ultimately, Finance directors know their systems are out of date and causing inefficiencies. But they are often paralyzed and unable to effect change.

We recently surveyed 1,000 mid-market finance decision-makers in the UK about this. While seven days to prepare and submit month-end accounts is widely accepted to be the best practice, our research found that the majority (55%) of businesses still cannot achieve this goal, and many say this is down to manual data entry and outdated finance systems.

Atychiphobia: fear of failure

In many cases, it’s because the term "implementation" itself evokes great fear, and mid-market finance directors often feel this the most. For finance directors used to plug-and-play entry-level solutions, there may be a lack of experience with implementation and a fear of the unknown.

For those used to ‘on-premises’ systems, implementing a new solution has long been perceived as an overwhelming challenge, traditionally linked to sky-high costs, disrupted operations, and a grueling process that stretches over months, if not years. A fear that is often grounded in experience for established finance directors, who will remember implementations from a decade ago that could have derailed the business with the amount of distraction it caused. Additionally, when we consider the history of ERP implementation, at the hands of Big Tech incumbents, this fear is understandable.

Imagine the same car arriving at a mechanic’s shop, time after time, in 10,000 parts. The first nine months are spent building the same rolling chassis before the mechanic can even think about customizing it to the customer’s needs. This is essentially what has happened to businesses in the past with ERP implementation. Only for these so-called ‘state-of-the-art’ systems to break or require ongoing repairs and patchwork once they were up and running.

Jonny Billington, UK sales lead at implementation consultancy Xplor Solutions, told me that understanding is needed when guiding customers through this process today.

“Some customers won’t be familiar with the implementation process, and there can be anxiety linked to it as a result, so there’s an education piece that’s really needed there,” he said.

“Then there will be others who perhaps have had bad experiences implementing systems in the past. Projects that took a lot of time, that overran, that were very challenging for them and their team. This not only reflects badly on the vendor and reseller but can often reflect badly on them as the finance director leading on this project.”

Taking the stress out of implementation

Tech resellers and implementation partners can play an important role in alleviating these concerns and making system upgrades an enjoyable, stress-free experience for SMEs. But the key to doing so lies in understanding where implementation hesitancy originates from.

Our research identified some of the biggest fear factors:

1. Cost and disruption: when asked about the top barriers to upgrading finance systems, 23% of mid-market Finance directors said they felt it was too expensive to change, and 32% said Right to Use (RTU) licenses would make it too costly.
2. Resistance to change: more than a quarter (26%) said a lack of digital skills to use a new system was a key barrier, and 24% feared distraction from core day-to-day responsibilities.
3. High stakes for leaders: how a new system will reflect on finance directors plays a major role in implementation hesitancy. 42% said they feared losing their historical data and would therefore have to run two systems in parallel to access it. 20% simply weren’t convinced that the pain of change would be worth the potential backlash and disruption.

Dispelling myths

In most cases, these concerns can be easily overcome with a safe pair of hands. Resellers and implementation partners today are uniquely positioned to redefine the implementation process, leading with a clear set of processes, a well-planned project, and reassurance that – with solutions that are purpose-built for the mid-market – many of these fears are nothing more than urban myths.

In the case of costly RTU licenses, we now have cloud solutions with open application programming interfaces (APIs), that allow for the easy migration of historical data from other systems into read-only data archives.

The use of project management tools, shared by finance directors and the implementation partner, gives all parties full visibility of how a project is progressing against key deadlines. Providing ease of mind when all is going to plan, or highlighting what blockages need to be addressed, in real time.

Challenges with the adoption of new systems can be remedied with effective training and post-implementation support, tailored to suit the skills and knowledge levels of each customer’s finance team.

As Billington puts it: “For mid-market finance teams, budgets, time and workload are a challenge, and there are a lot of important deadlines and dates on top of this that they must consider for month-end reports and audits. It’s important to recommend solutions that are purpose-built for SMEs, that can often be implemented in as little as 15–20 days.

“Highlighting this efficiency from the offset is key to reducing anxiety and demonstrating that modern solutions have evolved, and can, in fact, be flexible, scalable, and pain-free.”

He continued: “For resellers, support doesn’t end with implementation, either. The adjustment period post-implementation should never be overlooked. Finance directors (and their teams) need reassurance, patience, and training to adjust to a new system.”

“Partners that stay involved in the months following implementation, offering training and troubleshooting issues, can deliver immense value and ensure the system upgrade is perceived as positive by everyone on the finance team. Again, alleviating stress and providing reassurance that the right move was made.”

Final words

For finance directors, a failed implementation isn’t typically viewed as a minor mistake. It can be feared as a career-defining failure. And it’s this fear of failure that’s keeping mid-market organizations anchored to their outdated, inefficient systems that likely no longer align with their growth requirements. For sectors such as education, nonprofit, and hospitality, where resources are already stretched thin, this fear can feel almost paralyzing.

One of the biggest motivators for change is a clear and compelling vision of how the new system will improve operations long-term. Tech partners can play an important role, not only in articulating the benefits of transitioning to a modern system. But also, in challenging negative perceptions of tech implementation – born out of past failures or a fear of the unknown.

The word “implementation” doesn’t have to be synonymous with stress and high stakes. By empathizing with customer concerns and framing change as incremental rather than disruptive, partners can help make the process feel less intimidating.

Tradespeople are being warned to take the potential of cyber attacks more seriously after new research showed almost two-thirds had fallen victim to at least one successful attempt in the past.

Commercial insurer NFU Mutual surveyed 500 tradespeople in the UK at the beginning of January 2025. Of the 61% who said they had been a victim of cyber crime in the past, 12% had customer information stolen.

The most common form of successful attack was phishing, with 20% of respondents having fallen for this type of scam. This was followed by 14% who said they had found malware or viruses installed on their computers.

Despite all this, and with 13% of respondents saying they had been targeted in the past 12 months, nearly a quarter (22%) said they were either not very concerned or not concerned at all about cyber crime in their industry. By contrast, only 25% said they were very concerned.

In response, NFU Mutual has urged trades people to reconsider their attitude to this threat.

“Tradespeople are often sole traders or small businesses so may not have the technology or protection in place against these types of attacks and that makes them a prime target,” said Nick Baker, the insurer’s cyber specialist.

"Using digital devices for payments, customer information or supplier details can all be vulnerable, so it is essential to take action against cyber risk, ensuring adequate insurance cover is in place and taking some simple, but effective, steps to try and mitigate this."

The company also highlighted the vulnerability of internet-connected devices such as CCTV and lighting, which can be used to access the corporate network or be recruited into a botnet if not properly secured.

NFU Mutual recommended that tradespeople implement some simple steps to secure their data and devices, including implementing two-factor authentication (2FA), using a firewall, strong passwords, and changing factory set passwords on hardware like routers or IoT devices.

It also recommended creating a business continuity plan (BCP), which should lay out the necessary steps to be taken in the event of a cyber incident, as well as a list of contact details for important people needed in a recovery effort. These could include IT contractors or vendors, insurers, and legal representatives.

Phishing on the rise

It’s not just tradespeople who are concerned about phishing. Research carried out for ITPro’s Future Focus 2025 report found that IT decision makers in large enterprises also consider phishing to be the main threat to their business – overtaking ransomware as their biggest area of concern. Research from analysts Gartner in May 2024 identified the emerging field of AI-enhanced phishing attacks as a new front and major area of concern for large businesses.

Smaller organizations and sole traders can also take a lesson from the recent experience of security expert Troy Hunt, whose email database was stolen in a phishing attack. Hunt was distracted and tired – a feeling probably familiar to many – and fell for a simple scam that seemed at first to be a legitimate customer service contact from his email provider.

Commenting on the attack against Hunt, Aditi Gupta, principal security consultant at Black Duck, said: “This recent phishing attack further highlights that, in the end, we are all humans, and sophisticated phishing attacks could get the best of us."

MORE FROM ITPRO

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UK tax relief schemes could require an overhaul to compensate for regional disparities in venture capital investment, according to a new report. 

Research from the UK Treasury Select Committee into the state of venture capital investment found that funding is disproportionately concentrated in the country’s ‘Golden Triangle’ - London, Cambridge, and Oxford. 

The study noted that London-based SMEs accounted for nearly half (47%) of investment deals in 2020, despite only making up 19% of the total number of SMEs across the country. 

While regional disparities in venture capital have long been identified as a key hurdle for firms outside of London, the current tax relief framework could also be exacerbating the issue further, the report suggested. 

At present, the UK runs three tax relief schemes aimed at businesses. These include the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), and Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs). 

Specific conditions of tax relief schemes, such as the requirement that companies be aged between seven to ten years, mean that firms outside of London could be placed at a disadvantage. 

The report found that this was due to traditional growth challenges experienced by firms operating in other regions of the country.

Because of this, it means that SMEs in other towns and cities could take so long to reach the same level of business maturity as Golden Triangle-based firms that they no longer fall within the company age limits to receive tax relief, further inhibiting potential growth.

“Given firms elsewhere in the UK can take longer to become established, the maximum company age limits of seven and ten years written into the tax reliefs currently hold back economic growth,” the committee said in a statement yesterday. 

The report called for the extension of this age limit to support growth for regional SMEs which takes into account traditional growth-related challenges.

Tax relief evaluations underway

An evaluation of the tax relief schemes by HMRC is currently underway, the report noted. 

HMRC told the Treasury that the results of its evaluation of EIS and VCTs will be “published in late summer or early autumn of 2023” and will provide clarity on any future changes. 

Will Fraser-Allan, chair of the Venture Capital Trust Association, welcomed the calls for an extension to tax relief age restrictions, adding that the report sheds light on the lingering concerns aired by businesses in recent months. 

“We welcome the Treasury Committee’s Report and their recommendations; these very clearly demonstrate the concerns of the VCT community and represent a very positive future vision for continuing growth in the sector, to ensure continued investment in small businesses across the UK.”

“We hope that the Treasury will take on board the recommendations, as the report notes, because as the April 2025 deadline draws closer, the absence of a clear plan from the Treasury could seriously harm investment, which relies on certainty,” he added.

SMEs not sold on tax relief packages

Tax relief support for UK tech firms has been a contentious topic in recent months in the wake of the Spring Statement. 

In April, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s changes to R&D tax relief credits were met with a mixed reception. The government’s ‘enhanced’ tax relief package for SMEs would enable firms that currently spend 40% or more of their total expenditure on R&D to be able to claim a credit worth £27 on every £100 spent.

Hunt said at the time that the package amounted to more than £1.8 billion in support for SMEs across the UK and would help some 20,000 firms access vital support.

Critics described the move as a “partial climbdown” on previous commitments, with others noting that the package would still leave many SMEs left with a financial shortfall amid challenging economic conditions.  

Data has become a competitive advantage, helping businesses anticipate and react to change. But with data in multiple formats and locations, costs quickly add up and expertise becomes a limiting factor, forcing businesses to fall back on spreadsheets and disconnected databases.

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Almost 30% of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) cancelled their cyber insurance policies in 2021 due to cost cutting.

The price of cyber insurance is likely to still be too high for UK SMBs, according to a survey from GlobalData released on Friday. 38% of these businesses think it is unlikely they will be targeted in a cyber attack while 29% cancelled their policies in 2021.

The data and analytics company carried out the survey between August and September last year, where it explored SMB behaviours, purchasing preferences, and attitudes across commercial insurance products. Every company included in the survey had fewer than 250 employees, with 2,001 businesses surveyed in 2021.

GlobalData noted that as risk of attack increases, so will the premiums. It said that given that cutting costs is one of the leading causes of policy cancellation, this will be a significant obstacle.

The firm added that the Ukraine-Russia war has only heightened potential cyber security risks. It pointed to the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) advising all organisations in the country to bolster their cyber security in March 2022, specifically due to the increased risk from the war.

“Even if UK SMBs do become more concerned about their business being targeted by cybercriminals, they are unlikely to be willing to pay even higher premiums to protect themselves,” said Ben Carey-Evans, senior insurance analyst at GlobalData. “It is a difficult product for insurers to price, as unlike other products, they cannot look to limit risk—any SMB could be hit with a cyber attack at any time, and the costs can be significant.”

This is the biggest challenge for NCSC as SMBs are more vulnerable as they don’t take cyber hygiene seriously, said Muttukrishnan Rajarajan, professor of Security Engineering and director of the Institute for Cyber Security at City University of London. This, in turn, makes them the most vulnerable targets for a cyber attack.

Rajarajan has been teaching cyber security essentials for CEOs and CTOs as part of a programme at the university. He found that most of the individuals from the companies he taught didn’t take cyber security seriously and didn’t know about cyber insurance.

“Interestingly, a few came back to me after a few months of my lessons and said they have been attacked and need help! So I have seen first-hand the impact of these SMBs without any cyber security protection,” he explained.

A good cyber insurance policy should offer training to employees that specifically targets areas of risk within a business, said Steve Arlin, VP of the Americas, UK and APAC at ProLion.

“It can cover loss in income from a data breach and it can cover the cost of investigation work following a GDPR breach as well. While the cost of cyber insurance has certainly risen in recent years to keep pace with developments in cybercrime, it is definitely worthwhile.”

“This is a disturbing statistic as it illustrates that arguably businesses – faced with rising costs – are looking at saving money where they think it won’t matter,” he added. “This is short sighted in the extreme.”

Small businesses were warned in December 2021 to prepare for a potential surge in ransomware attacks in 2022 as cyber criminals turn to campaigns that are less likely to draw coordinated action from law enforcement. A report found that cyber criminals were adapting to increased pressure from police agencies that launched several successful operations to dismantle criminal networks.

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Small and medium-sized organisations (those with fewer than 250 employees) account for 95% of business in the UK and contribute around 50% of the UK economy. So when COVID-19 hit, the impact on these small-scale companies, and the UK economy, was serious.

SMBs were catapulted into financial limbo, with the government forcing many to close during lockdown to stem the spread of the virus, while others shuttered their doors due to lack of customer demand. Sadly, as a result, nearly a third of these enterprises have closed their doors for good.

Now as we begin to move out of lockdown restrictions, supported by the success of the vaccine rollout, we look at five obstacles facing small and medium businesses that are still prevalent.

Digitisation

Despite the initial shock, evolution to survive was the nature of the game. This meant that some SMBs not only survived the disruption, but also thrived as a result. Those that had the financial ability and operational flexibility adopted new ways of working and embraced digitisation, investing in automation and shifting to remote working.

Most often, those that made the most of the opportunity to digitally transform had previous knowledge of digital capabilities and, therefore, the confidence and capability to continue.

Others, however, were not as agile and lacked the cash flow to adapt; even when some of those SMBs attempted digitisation, they felt left behind due to a lack of web skills and IT resources to support the transition.

As we look ahead to a post-pandemic world and “new normal”, for some SMBs digitisation continues to prove a significant challenge. Some businesses simply can’t go online because of the nature of their consumer interactions that occur in the same location e.g. hairdressers or groomers. Even the concept of going cashless - with supermarkets phasing out cash payments, accelerated by the pandemic - could impact negatively on these trades.

Even when smaller enterprises have taken the plunge and introduced social media to their marcomms, the knowledge required to build an online brand is significant and for some, the companies just can’t unlock social’s true potential.

But not having an online presence, whether social media or an e-commerce platform, could be the difference between staying open and going under. If anything is to be learned from the impact of COVID-19, taking inspiration from those organisations that have thrived by doing things differently - changing their business model and investing in technology - could set others apart from the competition and ensure their future.

Cash Flow

Two-thirds of SMBs looking to reopen - if they haven’t already - but there are some that simply can’t afford to. A lack of profit from the last 12 months has meant cash flow is limited, and with other businesses and suppliers potentially in the same position, late payments have contributed to the cash flow restrictions.

Some SMBs also have government loans to pay back, and despite many expected to bounce back and repay their debts without difficulties, other SMBs don’t feel they’d generate enough additional income to make reopening worthwhile.

The way consumers shop today, also as a result of the pandemic, means for some customers, those retailers with an online presence are their store of choice. This has only made it harder for SMBs who’ve lost loyal customers to these businesses, where it would take significant time and investment to build up a client base again and win back previously loyal clientele.

A lack of funds also limits the opportunity to plan, and in not knowing what may lay ahead, small and medium businesses may struggle. However, if these enterprises have some cash aside, planning ahead and buying additional supplies or products may cost upfront initially, but could help their future survival.

Supply chain

Another contributing factor still affecting SMBs today, and another reason why some will delay getting back up and running again, are their supply chains.

With all organisations affected by COVID, some products aren’t available as a result of limited access to materials, or there are longer turnaround times from manufacturers. Shipping costs have also increased with the global stock shortages and nation’s governments affecting suppliers with imposed restrictions.

Even the ability to network with suppliers continues to be limited, with social distancing measures still in place. Technology advancements can help with the use of video conferencing, but this cuts down the personal touch that is such an advantage for smaller organisations.

There is a definite need for SMBs to increase communications with suppliers over the coming months and factor in whether they have what they need. Considering alternative suppliers to fill the gaps, and being honest with customers to manage their expectations, can help.

Staffing

In a bid to continue operations and retain some profitability, SMBs have also either reduced staffing levels or moved to remote working models with their investment in cloud based technologies.

Remote working has benefited many organisations, enabling continuity of work, but without the budgets of larger corporations, and if the required security isn’t already in place, the risk of cyber attacks and malware is increased in SMBs; especially if employees are using personal IT equipment.

For those enterprises looking ahead, some may not be able to bring employees back if business hasn’t grown. In other cases, having let staff go during the first lockdowns, former employees have moved on to other roles and they’re not returning.

It is difficult enough for SMBs to attract talent, even without the pandemic, as often they can’t afford to offer benefits and other perks to prevent loss of employees to larger competitors.

To counter this in a cost-effective way, creating flexible working environments will attract staff back, and with the more direct relationship that SMBs have the advantage of - i.e. fewer management layers - smaller businesses can check in regularly to ensure staff are ok and help them feel valued, resulting in greater employee motivation and productivity.

Work/life balance

Not only do some SMB owners have businesses to run, but they can also have dependents at home, which is a continuing issue regardless of COVID.

In having both business and personal obligations, there’s no clear room to grow and with working longer hours (in a lot of instances, at home) to keep things going - blurring the lines of work and home life - the stresses facing SMBs are significant and have a negative impact on mental health.

It is vital for these business owners to ensure they’re investing in, not only their staff, as mentioned above, but in themselves, and ultimately their business.

Moving ahead beyond the pandemic, despite those issues that will always affect SMBs, there is hope. Having an open, supportive work culture will overcome staffing issues, and being small enough to ask customers what they want and communicate on a personal level will offer further ways to adapt.

Ultimately, in order to safeguard SMBs as much as possible, they need to use what they’ve learned during the pandemic, putting in place what they need, to be better prepared for the future and ensure they remain operational.

In this week's exclusive feature for The Business Briefing readers, Bobby Hellard delves into the government's new scheme to support SMBs through training, discounted tech, and a free advice network.

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Buffalo Technology boldly claims its TeraStation NAS appliances are the most secure on the market and ideal for SMBs tussling with GDPR (general data protection regulation) compliance. Stepping up as its flagship desktop business appliance, the 8-bay TS5810DN does, indeed, offer a number of valuable security features and partners them with a heap of storage and an embedded 10-Gigabit port.

Buffalo's first security measure is the TeraStation administrative account which doesn't have root rights. This stops third-party apps from being installed which will reduce the number of available features but does close any potential security holes they could introduce.

Next up is AES 256-bit volume encryption while optional antivirus scanning comes courtesy of Trend Micro, with a three-year OP-TSVC-3Y subscription costing around 128. Buffalo's free Boot Authentication Tool could prove very handy if the appliance is stolen.

It runs on a separate Windows host and if enabled on the appliance, it will look for this during system boot-up. If it can't find the network service, it will continue to load but won't make the web interface or shares available and neither can it be reset to defaults.

The appliance is very well built, with a sturdy steel chassis and all cooling handled by two rear 9cms diameter fans. These are very quiet and the SPLnFFT iOS app on our iPad recorded only 39.5dB at one metre.

The TS5810DN is available with 16TB, 32TB or 64TB capacities (Buffalo doesn't offer diskless models) and we have the 32TB version on review with eight 4TB Western Digital Red SATA hard disks. Should a drive fail, Buffalo includes a 24-hour exchange service in its standard 3-year warranty - but don't use your own drives as this may invalidate it.

The drives come preconfigured in a RAID6 array so it's ready to go out of the box. The NASNavigator 2 Windows utility discovered the appliance and provided direct access to its somewhat basic web interface along with a handy share mapping service.

Access controls are good; shares can be designated as read/write or read only and you can decide whether they are accessible over CIFS, NFS, AFP and FTP. A local user and group list can be applied to each share, the appliance will integrate with Active Directory and user limits have been increased massively to 10,000 AD users.

For 10GbE performance testing, we hooked up the appliance directly to a Dell PowerEdge R640 rack server running Windows Server 2016. A mapped share returned good raw read and write speeds with Iometer reporting rates of 9.2Gbits and 4.9Gbits/sec.

Real world speeds are reasonable with our 25GB file copies delivering average read and write rates of 4Gbits/sec and 3.2Gbits/sec. Backup tasks over 10GbE won't take long either with a 22.4GB test folder and 10,500 small files secured at 1.5Gbits/sec.

Backup gets off to a flying start as the price includes the NovaStor NovaBackup 19 software with one server and ten workstation licenses. It uses selected shares on the appliance as backup destinations and we had no issues using it to secure our Windows 10 desktops.

Cloud options are very basic with an option to copy local data to an Amazon S3 account. Dropbox is the only other provider supported but we had no problems using it to create file syncing jobs with our cloud accounts.

Shares can be made available as destinations for Buffalo's on-appliance backup utility simply by checking the Backup box during creation. Buffalo has also finally added Rsync support and we were able to replicate shares on the TS5810DN to a Qnap NAS appliance.

Value-wise, the TS5810DN stacks up well against Synology's 8-bay DS1817+ as it costs nearly 300 less for the same 32TB capacity and has an integral 10GbE port. It can't match Synology for software features but SMBs that want uncomplicated NAS and IP SAN services with a keen focus on data security will find the TS5180DN a worthy choice.

Verdict

Basic storage features but Buffalo’s affordable 8-bay NAS teams up good 10GbE performance with valuable data security measures.

Desktop chassis

1.7GHz quad-core Annapurna Alpine AL-314 CPU

4GB ECC DDR3

8 x 4TB WD Red SATA hot-swap hard disks

supports RAID0, 1, 10, 5, 6

2 x Gigabit

10GBase-T

3 x USB 3

NASNavigator 2, NovaBackup Buffalo Edition (1 server, 10 desktops) software

300 x 230 x 215mm (WDH)

3-yr limited warranty

SMBs that want an affordable, feature-rich IT asset management solution will love NetSupport's DNA as it offers everything they could possibly need and more. At its foundation is solid hardware and software inventory, application metering and license management but unlike much of the competition, the price includes Internet access controls, SNMP device and energy monitoring, endpoint security and printing costs analysis.

DNA 4.5 sharpens its focus on mobiles and introduces an app for iOS plus new and improved agents for Chrome and macOS devices. There's more; along with a new auditing module, it provides activity monitoring, extra logon controls and profiles to simplify access policy management.

It's easy to deploy and we loaded DNA on a Windows Server 2016 host in 10 minutes. We used the console's deployment tool to push the DNA agent to our Windows 7, 10, Server 2012 R2 and Server 2016 systems, with the whole process taking less than 10 seconds for each one and no reboots required either.

The DNA console hasn't changed much from the previous version but there's no need to - it's already clever enough. As agents report back to the DNA server, the console is populated with their details and they are placed in a default group with a pre-defined policy assigned.

The base policy enables a raft of features including full inventory, application and Internet metering, alerting and print monitoring. Only USB device and logon controls are disabled but it's easy to enable them or create custom policies and assign them to selected groups of agents.

The macOS agent requires manual intervention, as we had to copy the DMG package file to our MacBooks running High Sierra and run it locally. Even so, each one only took a minute and their agents then furnished the DNA console with full system and software inventory, app usage, web sites visited and printing activity.

Bringing iOS devices under DNA's watchful eye requires the new Web Browser app installed. Previously, DNA could only provide hardware inventory but this app now allows you to monitor and control Internet access.

For this to work, your users must browse the web using the DNA app. To enforce this, you'll need to source a suitable MDM (mobile device management) solution that can block access to Safari.

The DNA console is a pleasure to use as it puts everything at your fingertips. The central pane provides a total overview of all monitored systems, the number of web pages being accessed, energy and printing costs, apps being run and detected hardware changes.

Switch to the Explorer tab and the console presents a real-time thumbnail view showing the desktops of all systems in the selected group. The activity monitor goes further by providing a complete overview of all logon, application and Internet activity which can be fine-tuned by selecting individual devices or groups and applying time periods.

Inventory is extremely accurate and bang up to date as well. One test system was a Dell PowerEdge R640 server with Xeon Gold 6130 CPUs and DNA correctly identified their model, clock speed and number of cores.

Add power usage estimates for server, PC and portable device classes, plus costs per kW, and DNA provides a complete rundown on your power usage and utility costs. Assign a power schedule to selected agents and you can ensure desktops aren't left running overnight.

Once usage reports of Internet and application usage had been gathered, we enforced access controls by dragging selected web sites and applications into restricted lists. There's more on the way as NetSupport advised us that the next release will include file scanning for GDPR compliance, system error alerting and enhanced activity monitoring.

NetSupport DNA 4.5 offers an impressive range of features, is a cinch to use and far more affordable and versatile than most enterprise-level solutions. SMBs looking to bring their IT systems and users under control should place this software at the top of their list.

Verdict

NetSupport DNA 4.5 offers an impressive range of features, is a cinch to use and far more affordable and versatile than most enterprise-level solutions. SMBs looking to bring their IT systems and users under control should place this software at the top of their list.

We've been hugely impressed with Samsung's internal SSDs, as they've pushed the boundaries of what's possible, both in terms of speed and capacity. Now the company is turning its attention to the portable market with the T5 SSD.

Traditionally, the downside of having a USB-connected SSD has been that the interface isn't fast enough to really make the most of it. Not so with the T5, as it uses the latest USB 3.1 Gen2, which has a maximum throughput of 10Gbit/sec. Samsung's drive has a USB Type-C connector on it, but the company thoughtfully provides both a Type-C cable and a Type-C-to-Type-A cable, so that you can plug this drive into any computer.

As SSDs require less room than a mechanical hard disk, Samsung has made the most of this, and the T5 is very small measuring just 74x57x11 mm. At just 51g, this portable drive is exceptionally easy to slip into a bag and carry around with you everywhere. It's finished neatly in a metal case: blue for 250GB and 500GB capacities, and black for 1TB and 2TB. With no moving parts inside, the T5 is fairly rugged and certainly can take more punishment than an old-school mechanical drive.

Samsung T5 review: Size and Capacity

Inside is one of Samsung's own 1.8in SSDs, using the company's 64-bit TLC NAND. This gives three bits per cell, which makes the drive slightly cheaper to manufacture than if MLC (two bits per cell) or SLC (one bit per cell) were used.

As with Samsung's internal SSDs, the big news here is that capacities stretch up to a massive 2TB. In terms of cost, the 250GB version is the worst value, coming in at 50p per GB. Moving up the range, the 500GB, 1TB and 2TB drives have a similar cost per GB of around 38p. That puts this drive firmly into premium territory and means that the 2TB drive costs a whopping 777. Most people will find the 500GB one hits the sweet spot for price and capacity.

As flash memory has a finite write limit, manufacturers usually quote the number of writes for each cell before the drive fails. Samsung hasn't done this, but based on its previous products we're confident that the drive will last longer than you'll want to use it.

Admittedly, mechanical portable hard disks are a fair bit cheaper, so you need to decide on what you need: if it's pure capacity and performance isn't so important, then go mechanical; if you want better performance and a smaller drive, go with an SSD.

This drive has built-in 256bit AES hardware encryption, activated using the on-disk software. With encryption turned on, you can't access any files until you've entered the correct password, making the T5 a secure SSD for transporting important files.

Samsung T5 review: Speeds and performance

Samsung claims 540MB/sec read speeds and 515MB/sec write speeds for the T5. Write speeds are helped with a fast NAND cache to speed up writes; once this has been filled, writes speeds slow down. To get the best speeds out of this drive, Samsung recommends a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port; older USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports are slightly slower with a maximum speed of 5Gbits/sec.

Things are actually a little confusing, as USB 3.1 Gen 1 is actually USB 3.0 with all of the changes and updates made to the specification since launch. USB 3.1 Gen 2 is most likely known as USB 3.1 on motherboards, with the ports often labelled as SuperSpeed+. So, if your computer has USB 3.1 ports, then it should support the full 10Gbits/sec speed, but check the manual to confirm this.

We tested with USB 3.1 Gen 2, to test the T5 at full speed. We recorded 456.66MB/sec read and 365.64MB/sec write speeds in the huge files test; 455.58MB/sec read and 359.47MB/sec write speeds in the large files test; and 333.1MB/sec read and 288.45MB/sec write speeds in the small files test. Crystal Disk Mark confirmed similar performance with 553.6MB/sec read speeds and 518.6MB/sec write speeds in the sequential test. The random 4K read/write test usually pushes drives to their limits, but the T5 performed brilliantly, with read speeds of 298.5MB/sec and write speeds of 203.2MB/sec. That's the best performance that we've seen from a USB powered SSD.

Samsung T5 review: Verdict

Running on the latest USB ports, the Samsung T5 is the fastest portable SSD that we have ever reviewed. It's also rather expensive; shop around and you can find slower USB 3.0 (but still quick) USB SSDs for around 90 less for 500GB. This is the sole issue that might make you think twice about picking up the T5, but at least if you do drop the cash, you can be sure of receiving the best performance on the market.

Wireless networks are now an essential requirement for businesses that want to be more productive. The proliferation of tablets, laptops, mobiles and smartphones in the workplace means employees don't need to be tethered to their desk and can reap the benefits of increased mobility.

Wired networks with structured cabling are expensive to install and difficult to upgrade so it makes sense to deploy a wireless network. With the right business-grade access points (APs) in place, they can be expanded easily to keep up with your growing business and the latest products offer vastly increased wireless performance and tight security.

Intense competition in this market sector means prices for business-class access points (APs) are dropping all the time. This is great news for SMBs as they can get a basic, secure wireless network up and running for under 100.

Radio waves

Wireless technology has come on in leaps and bounds over the past year, with the latest 802.11ac Wave 2 APs offering a number of valuable benefits. Along with increased throughput, Wave 2 APs offer a feature called MU-MIMO (multi user multiple input multiple output).

MU-MIMO builds on the older MIMO standard by using a larger aerial array that ups the number of spatial streams from three to four. It essentially increases the number of lanes on your wireless road and enables concurrent downstream communications with multiple devices, allowing it support a large user base without causing congestion.

The downside is Wave 2 APs are more expensive with prices starting at around 250. Worry not though, as you can still get cheaper Wave 1 AC1750 APs along with Wave 2 AC2500 and AC2600 APs.

The numbers refer to the total available data rates, with AC1750 offering 450Mbits/sec on the 2.4GHz band and 1,300Mbits/sec on the 5GHz band. AC2500 and AC2600 are the same (with a little added marketing flair) and push the numbers to 800Mbits/sec and 1,733Mbits/sec.

Business class ticket

Small offices may be tempted by cheap consumer-grade wireless routers, but they'll be missing out on many features essential for business operations. Many business-grade APs have the ability to present multiple SSIDs (service set identifiers) allowing wireless networks to be created for different user groups.

Each SSID can have its own security scheme and authentication method where it could apply a user and group list maintained on the AP or tie in with an external RADIUS server. Security can be tightened further with MAC address black and white lists so only specific systems will be allowed to connect to an SSID.

The first thing a partner or client will whip out when they visit your offices is their smartphone or laptop and providing instant wireless connectivity adds professionalism to your business. You'll want to apply even tighter security, so look for APs that provide guest wireless features such as L2 isolation which stops users on the same SSID from seeing each other.

For general guest wireless access, consider APs that offer a captive portal. This can be used to redirect them to a custom web page where they provide details about themselves, enter login credentials and agree to an AUP (acceptable use policy) before being allowed Internet access.

Intruder alert

When deploying wireless services it's all too easy to forget about the supporting backend network, which could leave a gaping hole in your security. Remember, if you can plug a wireless AP into your LAN - so can someone else.

A recent case in point is an educational establishment that couldn't understand why their ISP was reporting a much higher Internet usage than their internal web filtering appliance. After investigation, it transpired that some enterprising pupils had plugged six old BT home wireless routers into the school network, hidden them in cupboards, set them to hide their SSIDs and passed the details to all their classmates.

The web filtering appliance was configured as a simple proxy but the main gateway server happily handed out DHCP and DNS services to any device plugged into a classroom wall socket. It also placed them on the default VLAN thus circumventing the filtering appliance completely and giving the pupils unmonitored Internet access.

The lesson here is to tighten up your backend systems so this can't happen. Furthermore, all business-class wireless APs can scan for and list neighbour devices, and for greater control consider those offering features such SSID-to-VLAN mapping or intrusion prevention that can block 'rogue' devices.

Standalone or managed

A standalone 11ac AP will be fine for a small office but if you have many areas to cover or big expansion plans, look for those offering central or remote management. It will reduce support overheads as you can create one set of wireless networks and have all managed APs broadcasting the same SSIDs.

This brings roaming into play so as staff or guests wander around your offices, their mobile devices will move seamlessly from one AP to the next - ensuring they always get the best service. Clustering is a very flexible option as products that support this allow a 'master' AP to look after multiple 'slaves' which can be reverted to standalone operations on a whim.

Cloud management is ideal if you're looking after wireless networks in different geographical locations. Cloud enabled APs connect with your portal account to get all their settings, making it simple to manage, monitor and support each location from a single web console no matter where you are.

It's been a couple of years since Synology revamped its entry-level four-bay NAS, but straight out of the factory we have the DS418j. Designed for users that want a lot of storage at a more reasonable price, this is a NAS for busy SMBs with big media libraries.

From the outside, the DS418j looks like its predecessor, the DS416j. A rather plain-looking cube, the DS418j isn't going to win any design awards, but as you're likely to tuck the NAS away under a desk or in a cupboard, looks don't matter so much.

As with other Synology products, the DS418j is a barebones NAS, which means that you need to add your disks to it. By default, the NAS takes 3.5in hard disks, but you can buy adaptors if you'd rather fit 2.5in hard disks or SSDs. Given the value of 3.5in hard disks, we recommend sticking with mechanical storage.

Access to the drive bays is via removing the two thumbscrews at the back, opening the rear panel and then pulling the main case off. Drives are simply screwed into the disk caddies and slipped into the case.

The DS418j can take up to 48TB of storage, by way of up four 12TB hard disks. You only get the maximum capacity of your four hard disks if you don't have any data protection. We don't recommend doing this, as a single disk failing will wipe out all of your data.

Instead, we recommend using Synology Hybrid RAID, which gives you built-in data protection. You get the option of losing one disk's worth of storage, with the ability to weather a single disk failure, or losing two disks' worth, with the ability to withstand up to two disk failures. With 10TB hard disks, the first option would give you 30TB of storage space; the second would give you 20TB.

Using the single-disk option is the best combination for most people, but if you're storing critical documents, go for the two-disk protection.

The NAS also has dual USB3 ports for sharing hard disks or printers.

Once the disks are installed, and the DS418j is powered up, it needs to be configured. The simplest way to do this is to fire up a web browser and go to find.synology.com or diskstation:5000; if you can't find your NAS, the free Synology Assistant will scan your network looking for devices to connect to.

Once you're connected to the NAS via your web browser, you're taken through installing the latest operating system. Smartly, if you insert hard disks that were previously installed in a different DiskStation, you're asked if you want to convert the drives to work with the new hardware, preserving your files and settings. That's great news for anyone either transferring from an older four-bay NAS or perhaps upgrading from a two-bay NAS.

Conversion of the hard disks is quite a lengthy experience, as we found out when the DS418j recognised disks from our old two-bay model. However, once the job was completed, our NAS was running with all of the settings that we'd previously configured. Our only real job was to up the size of the storage volume by adding in the two additional disks.

Synology's real power lies in its desktop-style interface, which is beautifully simple to use for creating and managing storage, users and shared folders. Beyond simple NAS controls, the excellent Synology operating system has Package Center, your home for expanding what your NAS can do.

There are some powerful options in there, including Cloud Sync, which lets you save your cloud storage directly to your NAS; DLNA and Plex media servers; a web server; and an email server. Being able to expand your NAS to do more than just serve files makes Synology stand out from its competition.

Synology has fitted the DS418j with 1GB of RAM (up from 512MB on the DS416j), and there's a 1.4GHz dual-core 64bit Realtek TRD1293 processor, too. The combination is potent, and the web interface runs really smoothly.

More importantly, file transfers are very quick. To test actual throughputs, we fitted the NAS with four Seagate Constellation ES.3 2TB hard disks, configured in Synology Hybrid RAID set for one-disk fault tolerance. Starting with our benchmarks, we saw huge file read speeds of 110.43MB/s and write speeds of 108.06MB/s; large files came in at a similar 108.54MB/s read and 106.2MB/s write. Given that Gigabit Ethernet has a maximum throughput of 125MB/s, these speeds aren't far off maxing out the network connection.

Our small files test really pushes devices, with plenty of file operations often slowing things down. Impressively, the DS418j managed write speeds of 73.82MB/s and read speeds of 77.05MB/s. That's 31% and 12% faster, respectively, than the two-bay DS216j.

Switching to the CrystalDiskMark benchmark, we saw the sequential test complete with excellent read speeds of 117.8MB/s and 116.6MB/s. The random 4K file read/write test managed 7.10MB/s read speeds and impressive 20.41MB/s write speeds. That's good going and the read speed was 40% faster than on the DS216j.

For a great combination of features and performance, the DS418j is well priced for what you get. For those after plenty of storage, this is a great choice.

SMBs that want plenty of management choices and tight wireless security will love WatchGuard's AP420. It can be managed as a standalone AP, remotely via WatchGuard's FireBox UTM appliances or taken into the cloud with the Wi-Fi Cloud service.

This Wave 2 AC2500 dual-band AP looks pricey but it has another trick up its sleeve: it has not two, but three radios. Along with the 2.4GHz and 5GHz variety, the WP420 has a WIPS (wireless intrusion prevention system) radio designed to sniff out unauthorized wireless APs and quarantine them.

WIPS calms your concerns about wireless containment as the AP420 only takes an interest in APs that are physically wired into the same network. It has a very particular set of skills and if someone tries to sneak their own AP onto the LAN, it will find it, will alert you to its presence and, if intrusion prevention is enabled, will disable it.

WIPS requires a Wi-Fi Cloud account and we started deployment by using its Go portal to create wireless SSID profiles. All you do is provide a name, choose an encryption scheme, enter a key and you're done.

We tested using AP420 and AP320 devices and soon as they were powered on and linked to our cloud account, they received the relevant default template and started advertising the secure SSIDs. Our next stop was the main Wi-Fi Cloud portal. This opens with a Launchpad providing quick access to sections for management, demographics analysis and an Engage app for creating marketing campaigns for guest user portals.

The management portal provides a customizable dashboard showing everything you need to know about wireless networks, clients and rogue APs. Templates provide full control over wireless networks and include settings for all four WatchGuard AP models, where you choose the SSIDs to be assigned to them.

SSIDs can have a captive portal, walled garden, rules-based traffic and application firewalls, traffic shaping and QoS for voice and video traffic. BYOD onboarding redirects smartphones and tablets to an authorization URL or walled garden, you can enforce black and white MAC address lists and enable automatic packet capture for failed client connections.

WIPS works passively out of the box, where it identified 47 APs in our vicinity and classed those with no physical LAN connection as external. We connected a ZyXEL dual-radio AP to the LAN which popped up in the portal as a rogue and to test containment, we logged a Windows client onto the AP and enabled WIPS intrusion prevention.

It took two minutes for the change to propagate from the cloud portal but when it did, our wireless client was kicked off the AP and kept from associating with it. WIPS defaults to disrupting rogue APs by firing 'deauth' packets at up to two 11n and two 11ac channels but you can change to blocking, interrupting or degrading levels depending on how many channels you want affected and lock the list of authorised APs to stop more being added.

The AP420 is a good performer as well with real world file copies using a 5GHz 11ac connection on a Windows 10 Pro desktop averaging 60MB/sec at close range dropping to 56MB/sec at 10 metres. Coverage is good too, as the SweetSpots app on our iPad only registered a loss of signal after we got 45 metres down the main building corridor.

The AP420 isn't cheap but SMBs that want enterprise class wireless security and central management will find it will be money well spent. The cloud portal is one of the best we've yet seen, performance is great and WatchGuard's WIPS delivers smart wireless security.

Verdict

The AP420 isn't cheap but SMBs that want enterprise class wireless security and central management will find it will be money well spent. The cloud portal is one of the best we've yet seen, performance is great and WatchGuard's WIPS delivers smart wireless security.

Dual band 2.4GHz/5GHz 802.11ac

4 x 4 MU-MIMO

2 x 2 WIPS radio

internal aerials

2 x Gigabit (LAN and PoE+)

USB 2

Kensington lock

ceiling/wall mounting plates

220 x 220 x 57mm WDH

1.3kgs

1yr support contract with advanced hardware replacement

1yr Wi-Fi Cloud subscription

Don't be put off by its blocky retro look; Oki's MC573dn colour MFP is offering a lot of features for your money. Along with 4-in-1 print, scan, copy and fax operations, its LED-based engine is rated at a true 1,200dpi resolution and has a speedy 30ppm print performance.

The recommended monthly duty cycle of 6,000 pages makes it a great choice for print hungry workgroups and Oki will extend its warranty to three years if you register it within 30 days of purchase. The printer's flat paper path allows it to handle heavy 220gms media and print banners up to 1.32 metres long when you open up the front MP tray and rear output slot.

The classy output quality of the LED engine makes the MC573dn a great choice for producing marketing material, as it delivers Oki's characteristic vibrancy and high levels of detail. Text quality, even for 6pt fonts, is razor sharp while colour photos and graphics benefit from good contrast and detail.

The driver's Photo Enhance setting made visible improvements by increasing sharpness and contrast giving our test colour photos extra depth. Our only complaint is large areas of single colours show a slight cross-hatching effect.

Despite the numerous consumables, printing costs are within the expected range for this market sector. The four high yield toner cartridges and individual drums plus belt and fuser deliver a mono page for 1.7p and a colour one for 9.1p.

Performance for general office printing is impeccable, with a 30-page Word document despatched in 60 seconds at both 600dpi and 1,200dpi resolutions. It had no problems with our challenging 24-page colour DTP document at 600dpi, but faltered at 1,200dpi where the frequent pauses as it encountered large colour photos dropped speed to 18ppm.

The scanner delivered top quality copies of colour reports and glossy magazine covers but its ADF only supports one-pass simplex scans. Fine if you're running one-sided copies but for duplex copies, it has to pull each page back to reverse it, resulting in copy speeds dropping to 6ppm.

Walk up operations are simplified as the big flip-up 17.5cm colour touchscreen is very clear and easy to use. Its job macro feature will prove handy as this combines groups of scan, copy or fax settings for quick two-tap selection.

Connection options extend to USB 2 and Gigabit but Oki's optional wireless module plugs easily into a side panel and costs around 33. AirPrint is enabled out of the box but only Google Cloud Print is supported, while Oki's Mobile Print iOS app doesn't offer any remote scanning features.

The Windows Configuration Tool remotely manages the printer's fax speed dial and email address lists while those running the ActKey utility can be accessed from the printer's panel as remote scan destinations. Along with 1GB of system memory, the MC573dn has 3GB of eMMC Flash memory which can be used to store custom forms and logos uploaded from the Storage Manager desktop plug-in.

The driver allows a PIN to be assigned to protect confidential prints but for greater access security and printing controls try Oki's free smart PrintSuperVision (sPSV) web server. We tested this on a Windows 10 desktop and used the sPSV web console to restrict access to colour printing, set page limits and control scan, copy and fax operations for selected users and hosts.

Busy SMBs that demand the best output quality and tight access security from their MFP will find Oki's C573dn a worthy contender. Cloud support is minimal and wireless is optional, but this LED MFP still delivers a lot of document management features at a very good price.

Verdict

Busy SMBs that demand the best output quality and tight access security from their MFP will find Oki's C573dn a worthy contender. Cloud support is minimal and wireless is optional, but this LED MFP still delivers a lot of document management features at a very good price.

1200 x 1200dpi A4 colour LED MFP

600dpi colour flatbed A4 scanner

1GB RAM

3GB eMMC Flash

30ppm mono/colour

17.5cm colour touchscreen

2 x USB 2

Gigabit

33.6Kbps fax/modem

2 x RJ-11

Duplex

250-page input tray

100-page MPT

50-page ADF

Rec. monthly duty cycle, 6,000 pages

427 x 576 x 472mm (WDH)

31kgs

3yrs on-site warranty on registration. Options: 11n wireless, £33 ex VAT

Running costs

The Xeon Scalable family is Intel's biggest product launch for nearly eight years and it augments this huge range of server CPUs with a feast of motherboards and rack platforms. In this exclusive review, we look at the CyberServe Xeon SP2-R2224 from Broadberry Data Systems - an all-Intel system aimed at SMBs and enterprises with power, storage and growth on their minds.

The CyberServe is based on an Intel Server System R2224WFTZS 2U rack platform sporting an S2600WFT motherboard. This partnership offers an impressive range of features as along with support for the entire Xeon Scalable family, it has room for 24 SFF hot-swap drives at the front and two more at the rear using an optional cage.

It's a powerful package, and the price includes a tasty pair of 2.2GHz Xeon Gold 5120 CPUs offering 14 physical cores apiece. These are teamed up with 64GB of 2,400MHz DDR4 memory, which can be boosted to 1.5TB.

The embedded C624 chip supports up to twelve SATA drives, two M.2 SATA SSDs and RAID0, 1 and 5 arrays, but the CyberServe also has Intel's RMS3CC040 RAID controller nestling in its dedicated slot. This adds SAS3 plus RAID50, 6 and 60 to the mix, along with 1GB of embedded cache.

The system includes two 240GB Intel SATA SSDs and all 24 front bays are available, as the RAID card is connected to a SAS expander behind the drive backplane. The backplane also features 24 OCuLink ports for direct-attach NVMe SSDs.

The motherboard has four embedded OCuLink ports which can be connected to the backplane using Intel's optional SFF-8611 cable kits. You can have more than four NVMe drives, as Intel offers PCI-Express Switch AIC adapters with four or eight OCuLink ports.

Network options get off to a flying start as the motherboard has two embedded 10GBase-T ports. There are eight free PCI-Express slots but you won't need them to expand networking, as Intel's OCP expansion modules fit in a dedicated slot at the rear and offer dual 10-Gigabit copper or SFP+ ports.

Internal cooling is handled well; the CPUs are covered with a solid transparent shroud and looked after by six hot-plug cooling fans in front of the motherboard. It needs to be good, as the system is validated for CPUs with 205W TDPs so it can handle the top-dog 28-core Platinum 8180s.

The CyberServe has a big power envelope to match - it comes with dual 1.3kW hot-plug power supplies. Even though the Gold 5120 CPUs have a 105W TDP, we found power consumption to be reasonably low with the system drawing 110W in idle and 286W under extreme load.

Remote server management is present as the CyberServe has Intel's BMC controller, which activates a dedicated network port at the rear. Its web console can't match HPE's iLO5 or Dell's iDRAC9 for features but it does provide sensor views of critical components and issues email alerts if values exceed their predefined thresholds.

The BMC also maintains an event log, has a new view added for NVMe drives and includes full remote control as a standard feature and not as an option. Installed locally, Intel's Active System Console (ASC) also provides plenty of valuable information about hardware while the server is running.

ASC is a web service so you can access it remotely via a browser, keep an eye on the hardware and link its email alerting service with multiple policies. Last up ts Intel's freshly-designed RAID Console 3 which also provides local and remote web browser access to the server's storage controllers, arrays and drives.

The CyberServe Xeon SP2-R2224 is an impressive 2U rack server and its versatility makes it well suited to a wide range of data centre duties. Combining this with its innovative storage features and a low price the blue chips won't come close to matching puts Broadberry's powerhouse firmly on the IT Pro A-List.

Verdict

The CyberServe Xeon SP2-R2224 is an impressive 2U rack server and its versatility makes it well suited to a wide range of data centre duties. Combining this with its innovative storage features and a low price the blue chips won’t come close to matching puts Broadberry’s powerhouse firmly on the IT Pro A-List.

2U rack chassis

Intel Server Board S2600WFT

Intel C624 chipset

2 x 2.2GHz Intel Xeon Scalable Gold 5120 CPUs

64GB 2,400MHz DDR4 (max 1.5TB)

Intel Integrated RAID RMS3CC040/1GB DDR3 cache

supports RAID0, 1, 10, 5, 50, 6, 60

2 x 240GB Intel S3520 Enterprise SSDs (max 26 SFF)

2 x M.2 SATA

2 x 10GBase-T

Intel BMC with 10/100

8 x PCIe x3 slots

Intel OCP slot

2 x 1.3kW hot-plug PSUs

3yrs on-site NBD warranty

Power 110W idle, 286W peak

SMBs tempted to replace their older servers with the latest Xeon Scalable models seen in recent Dell EMC PowerEdge and HPE ProLiant rack models but worried about their budget may find HPE has the answer. Stepping up as the first single socket Xeon Scalable tower server to market, the ProLiant ML110 Gen10 offers a wide range of affordable processor choices and teams them up with plenty of storage options, plus loads of room to grow with demand.

Businesses with modest workloads generally don't need dual-socket servers, making the ML110 Gen10 an ideal alternative. It currently supports seven Xeon Scalable CPU models, so you can keep costs down and go for the entry-level 6-core Bronze 3104, pick from three Silver models or push the boat out with the 14-core Gold 5120.

Prices start at only 718 ex VAT for the model 880230-425 which includes a 1.7GHz Bronze 3104 CPU partnered by 8GB of DDR4 memory. If you find this isn't enough, you can upgrade the CPU later on as all supported Xeon Scalable CPUs use the same socket.

HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen10: Design

The ML110 Gen10 is well-built with a solid steel chassis and sturdy side panel, which can be padlocked shut and tethered to the desk with a security cable. The good news continues inside as the spacious interior leaves plenty of room to get at all the important bits for upgrades and maintenance manoeuvres.

The motherboard is covered by a large plastic shroud, separated into two halves and the CPU socket has an impressively large passive heatsink clamped to it. The system is cooled by 9cm diameter fans fore and aft which we measured emitting 44dB at one metre -- not the quietest of towers but one that won't be heard in a normal office environment.

The CPU is flanked by two banks of three DIMM slots, allowing DDR4 memory to be pushed to 192GB. Note that the Bronze CPUs support 2,133MHz memory speeds, the three Silvers and the Gold 5120 up this to 2,400MHz with only the powerful 3.6GHz 4-core Gold 5122 maxing out at the top 2,667MHz.

Expansion potential looks good as the motherboard offers five PCI-Express slots. These all accept full-height adapters and there's enough room horizontally for two of them to manage full-length cards.

HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen10: Storage

Pre-configured systems come with one 4-bay cold-swap LFF drive cage mounted behind the lockable door. The panel above it can be removed and a second 4-bay cage fitted easily by sliding it into place and refitting the four panel screws.

The dual 4-port SATA connectors on the motherboard support both LFF drive cages, and HPE also offers hot-swap versions. There are plenty more storage options as the CTO (configure-to-order) models can be specified with an 8-bay hot-swap SFF drive cage, which can be expanded to 16 drives with a second cage.

If you install both drive cages and fit 15K SAS drives, you'll need to replace the standard 350W or 550W PSU with HPE's 800W redundant PSU unit. The enablement kit costs around 178 and can be field-installed. You'll also need the redundant fan kit as well.

RAID starts with the motherboard's embedded Smart Array S100i Gen10 controller, which supports SATA drives only plus stripes, mirrors and RAID5 arrays. It also offers twelve SATA ports with two dedicated to HPE's optional dual M.2 SATA SSD enablement kit. The card costs around 84 and a 240GB mixed-use SSD pushes this up uncomfortably by another 400.

Go for SAS drives and you'll need a separate Smart Array RAID card. HPE offers four models, with the top dog P408e-p Gen10 adapter adding RAID6 and 60 arrays plus 4GB of cache protected by a Smart Storage battery.

The front panel has room for a low-profile DVD drive and a combined power/SATA cable is ready and waiting. And if you're in the mood for virtualization, the motherboard has a microSD card slot for booting into an embedded hypervisor.

HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen10: Management

There are no compromises in the management department as the ML110 Gen10 is endowed with the same iLO5 controller as HPE's enterprise servers. It offers a well-designed web interface with masses of information about critical components and enhanced OS provisioning tools while the controller's increased memory boosts performance.

Server security is a key feature as the iLO5 introduces silicon fingerprinting, firmware validation, encryption and breach detection technology. HPE has also switched entirely to its agentless management service (AMS) negating the need to load any OS agents.

The server comes with an iLO5 Standard license which activates features such as active health monitoring, embedded system health, agentless management, silicon root of trust fingerprinting plus configuration backup and restore. It includes the pre-OS remote console but if you want it to control the OS, you'll need to upgrade to an Advanced or Essentials license.

We found HPE's iLO Mobile iOS app worked fine on our iPad where it provided the same level of details about the server as the standard web interface. Selecting the app's Remote Console option also gave us full remote access to the server's boot menu and OS from our iPad.

HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen10: Verdict

Growing SMBs that like the look of Xeon Scalable servers but are less impressed with the price of dual-socket models will find the ProLiant ML110 Gen10 offers a great compromise. Its single socket can handle a good range of Xeon Scalable CPUs, there's plenty of expansion potential and storage choices while its iLO5 controller delivers some of the best remote management features around.

Verdict

The perfect solution for SMBs that want an affordable and powerful Xeon Scalable tower server with room to grow

Chassis: Tower

CPU: 1.7GHz 6-core Xeon Bronze 3104

Memory: 8GB 2,400MHz DDR4 Smart Memory (max 192GB)

Storage: No HDDs included (max 8 LFF/16 SFF)

Drive backplane: Cold-swap 4-bay LFF

RAID: HP Smart Array S100i SR Gen10 SW

Array support: RAID0, 1, 10, 5

Expansion: 5 x PCI-Express 3

Network: 2 x Gigabit

Power: 350W cold-swap PSU

Management: HP iLO5 Standard with Gigabit

Warranty: 3yr on site NBD

Large companies are learning that consumer trust is key to driving innovation in the Internet of Things (IoT), according to the R&D director of a government-backed start-up support centre.

Digital Catapult's collaborative R&D director, Maurizio Pilu, also claimed that enterprises are also looking towards SMBs and start-ups to spark new IoT developments, stating how important it is for smaller firms to "stir the pot" in order to accelerate innovation.

"What we are seeing here is going to explode in a few years time," he said. "Open innovation is very important to get the big guys to talk to the small guys, and get the big guys to understand what IoT can do for them, get them to co-create and work together to develop solutions."

Pilu added that the phenomenon is becoming increasingly business-focused as it develops.

"There are many applications of IoT that are less consumer-facing, they are in day-to-day business processes," he said. "You don't see them but they're happening and they're creating a lot of economic value supply chain, transport, asset management. All of these things are going to be revolutionised by this technology."

Pointing to a tension between customer trust and innovation, he claimed data privacy fears could be overcome by giving consumers more control over their data.

"It's correct to be cautious about personal data trust it's absolutely the right thing to do," he said. "At the same time, consumers and businesses have a lot of appetite for new services, so there's a tension between the need for new services and the fact that consumers need to be protected.

"That tension is a complicated one. In IoT it's going to be even more complicated because it can affect your personal life. Where you're going today in your car is intimate information that not many people are sharing on Facebook. Managing this tension is going to be a hot topic for the next few years."

One of the companies showcased at the event, digi.me, focuses specifically on the issue of personal data remaining personal to the user, doubling as a way for potential users to unite their social media data.

Chairman and founder of digi.me, Julian Ranger, also spoke to IT Pro about how companies are changing how they approach data privacy issues.

He said: "If it doesn't change you owning your own data, the world fractures because of different data protection, different views and the tension around the world. Companies can no longer provide one product for the world, but as soon as you go back and own it, you can control who gets to know about your car, where you're going and everything else.

"Europe is a great place to have this type of business, because we're so fractured and have so many different views, that actually, if you can manage to cater to that, you can do it virtually around the world."

"One of the problems with IoT is that it's very subtle, the temperature in your house can tell whether you're home or not," Pilu added.

"A normal consumer wouldn't think about that being potentially dangerous, so IoT is something more subtle than when you opt-in to share something on Facebook or Twitter, and that's why it's important to be careful. It's all about giving users more control."

Other companies showcased at the Digital Catapult event include chirp, targeted marketing platform beacontent, appyparking and Cupris Health, which turns smartphones into medical devices via connected attachments.

Nearly 70 per cent of UK businesses are planning to increase their technology spends in the next six months to improve productivity, a report by the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) has revealed.

The survey said that half of companies have already started to address productivity concerns exposed by the Office of National Statistics in its quarterly investment report, but eight out of ten said more investment was needed to remain competitive.

In the last six months, 57 per cent of the 859 manufacturing companies surveyed said they has started to see an uplift in productivity over the last six months. The biggest gains were in the chemical, food, automotive and pharmaceutical sectors.

Steven Barr, head of MAS, said: "Our Barometer shows that manufacturers are already responding to recent observations by the Bank of England (BoE) that productivity needs to be raised.

"This could include anything from introducing new processes and eliminating waste, to upskilling staff and investing in technology and state-of-the-art machinery."

Additionally, MAS said 95 per cent of firms are planning to either maintain or increase their workforce to help boost worker productivity.

Barr concluded: "Management teams are continually looking to get more out of the business, a feature that will become increasingly important with the market showing some signs of softening."

Business Minister Matthew Hancock added: "Britain's small manufacturers are driving our economic recovery, boosting our national productivity and helping create a record number of jobs. This is part of our long term economic plan to build a better Britain."

Chrome OS devices have proved popular in the US to-date, but momentum is starting to pick up in the UK. Barking and Dagenham Council deployed 2,000 Chromebooks to replace Windows XP systems earlier this year and ABI Research expects sales to reach 11 million units annually by 2019.

All the major PC manufacturers from Acer through to Samsung are busy churning out the low-cost laptops. It's clear these sub-250 devices can help SMBs, educational institutions and government organisations cut costs, but is performance capable of matching legacy operating systems like Windows? We put them head-to-head to find out.

Windows 8.1 vs Chrome OSFeatures and Flexibility Applications Performance Management and Security Cloud and Connectivity Price & Verdict

Interface and Ease-of-Use

It's no secret some companies and users have found the move to Windows 8.x a challenge. The Start screen and its Live Tiles are touch friendly, but not everyone feels comfortable using an OS where much of functionality is hidden and a simplified tile system is promoted over the traditional desktop.

Windows 8.1 UI arguably works better on a tablet or a smaller laptop, and business users will appreciate the smaller touches, like the way clicking or tapping on a URL inside a link opens up internet Explorer in a split-screen view, rather than simply switching to the browser. What's more, you can chose to boot to the conventional Desktop interface, use the Taskbar as an application launcher and disable the Charms if you wish.

Ironically, Chrome OS looks more like conventional desktop operating system than Windows. There's a dock/app launcher in the bottom left-hand corner and a system tray with time, network and battery indicators on the bottom right, which also provides one-click access to the basic settings.

Chrome OS supports multiple windows, with a multi-function maximise and minimise button that can also dock windows to the left or right of the screen and resize them to fit halfway a bit like Windows' snap feature.

It's not sophisticated, but it is simple and some users will find it more intuitive than Windows 8.1

Winner: A Tie. The Windows 8.1 UI is more sophisticated, configurable and effective on touchscreen devices, but Chrome OS is the more intuitive, consistent and strangely more conventional of the two.

Features and Flexibility

Chrome OS is tied to services in the cloud. This reliance on an internet connection makes it a flexible OS but can also limit its usage. Everything from your user profile, to email, calendar, contacts, bookmarks, documents and apps are all stored within your Google profile. Even your user photo, account picture and desktop background are synced. This allows you to sign into any Chromebook or Chromebox and find your personal environment waiting for you there.

Support for Google's own apps and services is baked in, so there's no need to install anything. Windows can match most of this through profile roaming, but the experience isn't as consistent. This is a real advantage if you want to move between, a Chromebox in the office and a Chromebook on the move, or if you want to use a micro-fleet of Chromebooks and hand them out as and when needed.

Chrome OS is growing more flexible too helped by the way the OS is continuously updated. You can already customise the look through Chrome themes, choose a desktop background and add tools through Chrome extensions. There are plans to enhance connection with Android phones, and even run selected Android apps within Chrome OS.

Concerns over Chrome OS remain. Printer support is restricted to Google's Cloud Print service, and while this isn't difficult to setup, you will need a supported WiFi or Ethernet-enabled printer with a live internet connection. Most new office inkjets and lasers will qualify, but the old laser printer sitting in the corner will need replacing. Many other peripherals will also be off the menu, so if your business relies on a scanner, for example, then you can't dump Windows entirely. Support is believed to be coming, but with no definite timeline.

Windows 8.1 undoubtedly has more features and and flexibility. The modern UI isn't as useful as the traditional Windows desktop, but you can alter the size and position of the live tiles, change backgrounds and pinned apps, or simply set your PC to boot to the desktop. It's easy to customise for tablets, laptops or desktops, and if you want a different browser, a different email client or a different voice and video communications app, then that's fine too. Windows 8.1 is tied into Microsoft's OneDrive cloud service, but it's not quite as locked into them. It's as happy to work with Google Drive, Google+ and Gmail, Dropbox, Box and even iCloud as it is with the Microsoft equivalents.

Winner: Windows 8.1. It's hugely customisable and can be extended to do anything you want.

Applications

This is where Windows pulls ahead. While the Windows store isn't packed with awesome business applications, it doesn't matter. Windows has Microsoft Office, the gold standard in office suites, and you'll find software from all major vendors available, excluding Apple. Whether you need accounting, backup, photo-editing and video-editing, project-management, technical drawing or engineering applications, you're guaranteed to find the big-hitters on Windows.

This isn't a knockout blow, however. Not everyone needs big, flashy applications to be productive. In reality, many users only use a fraction of the features in mainstream apps, like Word or Excel. There's no reason why employees couldn't use Google's office apps or the other business apps available through anything with a Chrome browser. They're lean, efficient, easy-to-use and perfect for collaboration.

What's more, many big business applications are moving to a cloud-based, SaaS model, anyway. Saleforce.com, for example, will run on a Chromebook, while there is a huge range of CRM, collaboration, accounting, logistics, marketing and invoicing services, all of which will work on Google's OS. A lot of the good stuff is free, or relatively inexpensive for a smaller business so there are savings to be made.

In fact, the biggest problem isn't so much finding applications for your needs as choosing between them. With a lot of smaller developers on the market and too few sources of credible reviews, it's a challenge to zero in on the best apps.

Windows 8 was meant to jumpstart a wave of smart, focused, lightweight business apps, but so far this has yet to materialise. It might simply be the case that these apps have already found their home in the cloud, where Chrome OS is ideally placed to take advantage of them. And while Microsoft doesn't like to draw attention to the fact, its Office web apps will also work on a Chromebook or Chromebox. If you have users who don't need full functionality, the cheap Office 365 Small Business plan, with email, Lync online conferencing and Office Online might be all they need.

Winner: Windows 8.1, but if your company is prepared to try Web-based services or you have employees who can work with Google's Office apps or Office Online, then a Chromebook could easily cover your requirements.

Performance

Microsoft continues on its journey to make Windows more memory and power efficient. It will run fine on a variety of hardware from dual and quad-core Bay Trail Atom processors with 2GB of RAM to faster quad-core Pentium and Core chips. Boot times swift with the OS taking between 8 to 20 seconds to boot depending on your hardware configuration. It's a significant improvement over Windows 7, which can take minutes to boot and is on-par with Chrome OS.

Chrome OS devices tend to have modest specifications and the system is runs happily on a modest ARM or Intel architecture processor with 2GB of RAM.

Chrome OS typically boots in less than eight seconds, and even the most basic device won't have problems running simple email and Office apps at the same time. Things slow down when you have a lot of browser tabs or windows open and the few more demanding apps there are on Chrome OS can leave older or slower Chromebooks struggling. For this reason we'd advise looking at models with an Intel Celeron or Core processor to get the best ROI.

Older Chromebooks would struggle to run heavy-duty video-editing, image-editing or even 3D modelling app and perhaps that's why they aren't available. If that's your thing, sticking to Windows is the best idea.

Winner: A Tie. Chrome OS starts up faster and Chromebook is good for the price. Windows 8.1 is snappy, and there's a bigger range of hardware available.

Management and Security

Windows systems are a major target for hackers and coders of malware so individual systems require time and effort to administer, manage and maintain. There are many effective, free or paid-for tools to help with this. Ideally an IT admin need to keep an eye out for emergency patches and updates. This can mean managing Windows 8.1 systems can be hard work for a small business.

With Chrome OS, you leave maintenance and administration up to Google. Patches and security updates are downloaded and installed automatically when Chromebooks start up, and are invisible to the end-user messages warning about imminent shutdowns are non-existent. Anti-malware protection is baked in, while most apps aren't ever installed locally, which makes the Chromebook an intrinsically more secure platform though there are enough potential vectors to stop anyone getting complacent.

With a small fleet of Chromebooks in a business there's little need to do anything, but Google provides a web-based Management Console as part of Google Apps for Business. This allows you to track devices, pre-install or block specific apps, as well as control user and network access.

Winner: For SMBs, Chrome OS. Windows has more advanced management tools and administration features, but in a smaller business Chrome OS devices need precious little time or work.

Cloud and Connectivity

Connectivity is often seen as the albatross around the neck of Chrome OS. Most Chrome apps are online apps running on a remote server, working with data also held remotely. Pull the connection and you can't access either. Reliance on connection is not a problem in an office with a stable Wi-Fi, but it is on the move, or even in areas where connectivity is slow or flakey.

To mitigate this, Google cleverly made its Drive app a core part of Chrome OS, so data can be cached locally and synced in the cloud when connectivity returns. It also made it possible for apps to run offline through Chrome extensions, so that they would keep working even when there was no internet to be found.

Finally, Chrome OS now supports small native apps which run direct from the Chromebook or Chromebox. These are often small and limited in scope or features, but you can use them to make notes, sketch out a document or make quick adjustments to a photo. Sometimes it gets a bit clunky - Google Docs documents created offline sometime fail to sync with Google Drive without some prodding but the offline experience is improving all the time.

Windows doesn't have this problem unless you're using online apps or services. Applications all run locally and of course data can be synced to cloud services if you wish. Microsoft is pushing OneDrive as the default location for saving documents in Office or SharePoint and OneDrive Pro in an enterprise environment but you're free to work in any way you please. As a result, Windows is less reliant on an internet connection.

This comes down to the requirements of your business, and most of all where your users will be working. If the answer is mostly in the office or at home, then Chrome OS is suitable, and there are advantages in convenience and accessibility to having everything stored online. However, for a more mobile workforce where connectivity can't be taken for granted, Windows remains the top dog.

Winner: Windows, Microsoft's approach to the cloud is more flexible and works better on the move, though Google's cloud-first approach has its strengths.

Price

While there are free builds of Chrome OS available online, these are unofficial, unsupported and not the software you want to be using in a business environment.

Investing in Chrome OS means purchasing hardware, but the cost is low. Chromebook laptops start at 179 while the latest Chromebox desktops from Asus start at 169 including VAT.

Combine this with a Google Apps for Business account at 3.30 per month ex VAT and moving to Chrome could involve real cost savings.

Basic Windows laptops and desktops are available at between 200 to 230, though performance is likely to degrade quickly and not all are as business-ready as the high-end Chromebooks. An entry-level Office 365 subscription with access to the online, rather than desktop, Office apps comes in at 3.10 per month ex VAT.

Winner: Chrome OS, but not by as big a margin as you might think.

Verdict

To recap Windows 8.1 won three categories: Features/flexibility, applications and cloud connectivity. Chrome OS won in the area of security and cost whereas performance and interface were tied.

For many small businesses, Windows 8.1 remains the most versatile and practical of operating system. But there are Office scenarios where a Chromebook or Chromebox could handle your requirements for less, and reduce the amount of time you have to spend maintaining systems. Employees who need access to basic word processing apps and the internet would have their requirements fulfilled with a Chromebook.

Moving from Windows to Chrome OS involves a little risk, but for many small businesses there could be significant savings to be made and opportunities to change the way you work.

The government's broadband delivery plans have been slammed by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) for lacking ambition.

Through initiatives such as the Broadband Deliver UK fund, the Government has pledged to deliver broadband speeds of 24Mbps to 95 per cent of homes and businesses by 2017, and speeds of 2Mbps to the remaining five per cent.

However, the industry body, which represents the interests of UK SMBs, has dismissed these targets for not being "sufficiently ambitious", and for not putting the needs of small business owners first.

Broadband needs to be accessible to everyone, the FSB argues, regardless of where they are located, and network provisions need to be "future-proofed" to ensure large-term demands are met.

According to its "The Fourth Utility: Delivering universal broadband connectivity for small businesses across the UK" report, the needs of SMBs have been repeatedly overlooked during the broadband deployments of recent years.

So much so, its research suggests around 450,000 SMBs are still having to rely on dial-up connections to access web-based services.

"ISPs have focused largely on attracting residential customers with low introductory deals rather than offering affordable packages suitable for smaller businesses," the report states.

"This approach needs to change if the enormous benefits of broadband are to be felt more widely."

To address this, the document fleshes out several areas where work is needed to ensure the deployment of broadband services becomes more geographically balanced.

"The level and scope of competition in the market is weak, particularly for fixed broadband... This limits access and choice for small businesses," the report states.

"Partly, as a result of this, investment in new infrastructure has been inadequate and the current regulatory framework has been insufficient in promoting effective competition and encouraging new entrants into the passive and active infrastructure market."

The report sets out a series of recommendations from the FSB, which it claims should ensure the broadband needs of SMBs are met in future.

For instance, the organisation wants the Government to revise up its existing broadband delivery targets, and agree to deliver minimum speeds of 10Mbps to all UK homes and businesses by 2018-19.

By 2030, it also wants to see guaranteed minimum speeds of 100Mbps to all UK premises.

Furthermore, it's calling on the Government to prioritise the delivery of fibre-optic broadband to business parks across the UK to help boost regional economic development, and support the arrival of new entrants into the broadband market.

John Allan, National Chairman of the FSB, reiterated the report's findings, before declaring the Government's existing plans to provide the "final five per cent" of the UK with speeds of 2 Mbps as unacceptable.

"As this report shows, too many of our small firms are held back by the current state of the broadband market in the UK. We want Government to oversee the creation of world-beating digital infrastructure that will enable businesses to grow, innovate and compete in international markets," said Allan.

"This means not only raising download speeds but also upload speeds that are so important and where provision is especially inadequate. Otherwise firms' growth ambitions will be blunted, while Government efforts to get every firm to go digital by default' when filing its taxes online will be impossible to achieve."

Dell's flagship PowerEdge R920 is an affordable system for businesses running mid-range and enterprise mission critical apps such as HPC, ERP, e-commerce or big databases.

The quad-socket in the R920 supports Intel's latest E7-4800/8800 v2 Xeons and offers a notable maximum density of 60 physical cores. Memory is spread across eight removable cartridges and once 64GB DIMMs become available (and affordable), the R920 can support up to 6TB.

It sports Dell's new PERC H730p RAID card so support for 12Gbps SAS drives is also on the menu. One of the R920's biggest competitors in this sector is HP's ProLiant DL580 Gen8 and the R920 offers a greater range of storage options.

The eight memory cartridges each have 12 DIMM slots and support a total of 6TB

Storage features

Externally, the R920 and its 4U chassis bears a resemblance to the R910 but Dell has boosted storage capacity from 16 to 24 SFF drives. These are arranged with two groups of six down each side of the front panel with another 16 bays mounted horizontally in between.

Dell offers the usual mix of nearline SAS, SAS and SSDs but the R920 is incredibly versatile. Using the top four bays on each vertical drive cage, you can add up to eight Express Flash NVMe PCIe SSD storage devices.

These are implemented with two PCIe extender adapter cards each connecting to a PCIe SSD backplane. Designed to bump up database performance, Dell offers a range of SSD capacities up to 1.6TB.

HP's DL580 Gen8 has a different approach to local storage as it only has ten SFF drive bays. HP's believes customers will offload server storage to a separate FC or IP SAN with larger servers.

Dell's iDRAC7 controller provides good server remote management and power monitoring tools

Internal design

Along with a larger storage capacity over the R910, Dell has revamped the interior. The CPU sockets have been moved further behind the bank of six hot-plug cooling fans for improved heat dissipation.

The R920 employs eight memory cartridges which slot in behind the hard disk backplane. Whereas HP uses booklet' style cartridges with six DIMM slots on each side, Dells' cartridges each have twelve slots on one side.

Initialisation of large memory installations mean long boot times. Our review system had 512GB of memory and we timed the boot process from power on to the Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter logon screen of over six minutes.

RAS features are extensive with the R920 supporting Dell's own Fault Resilient Memory which allows you to create a protected zone in memory for VM protection. And then there's Dell's unique dual SD card controller which mirrors the primary boot media to provide hypervisor redundancy.

The free OpenManage Essentials runs network discoveries and provides a handy dashboard view of monitored systems

Expansion and power

The R920 provides a total of ten PCI-e Gen3 slots so there's plenty of room to expand. Two slots to the left are dedicated to the PERC H730p RAID card and network daughtercard but it's possible to increase the slot count further by fitting risers in slots 1 and 9

Power redundancy is handled by four 1100W hot-plug PSUs and we found overall consumption to be good. With Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter in idle, we recorded a draw of 525W.

With SiSoft Sandra giving all 120 logical cores a maximum workout, consumption peaked at 890W. This compares well with Dell's older R910 as our review system had four 8-core X7550 Xeons plus 128GB of memory and pulled 539W in idle and peaking at 859W.

OpenManage Essentials device views can be drilled down into for more detailed inventory and system status views

OpenManage Essentials

General network system management comes courtesy of Dell's freely available OpenManage Essentials which provides SNMP and WMI based device discovery and inventory tools. Its home page opens with a tidy dashboard showing an overview of network devices with charts for alerts and task status.

You can keep tabs on all scheduled tasks using its Outlook style calendar. If you have any Dell PowerEdge VRTX servers you can use the interactive map to see where they are and what their status is.

The device view provides a rundown on all discovered systems which you can place in groups for easier access. Their coloured icons show at-a-glance status views and we could drill down to our Dell servers, view their hardware and directly access their local OpenManage Server Administrator software and iDRAC7 controllers.

If you have an Android device you can use the new OpenManage Mobile app. This provides a dashboard summarising the alert status of managed servers and sends alerts directly to the mobile device which can be forwarded to on-site support staff.

Conclusion

The PowerEdge R920 is a superb rack server, which crams multiple features into its 4U chassis. It teams a high CPU count with a mammoth memory capacity, offers a liberal helping of RAS features and scores over the competition for its high storage capacity.

Verdict

The PowerEdge R920 is ideal for processing intensive workloads thanks to its multiple CPU cores and mammoth memory expansion. It's the best choice if you need plenty of local storage or super-fast NVMe SSDs too.

Chassis: 4U rack

CPU: 4 x 2.5GHz E7-4880 v2 15-core Xeons

Memory: 512GB LV DDR3 (max 6TB)

Storage: 4 x 300GB Dell SAS SFF hot swap drives (max 24)

RAID: Dell PERC H730p with 2GB 1866MHz DDR3 cache/BBU

Array support: RAID0, 1, 10, 5, 6, 50, 60

Expansion: 10 x PCI-e

Network: Intel i350 Quad-Port Gigabit daughtercard

Power: 4 x 1100W hot-plug PSUs

Management: Dell iDRAC7 Enterprise

Warranty: 3yrs basic on-site NBD

Passwords have always been at the heart of data security policies, and often data security breach reporting as well. Be it the password re-use question, the too simple to crack versus too complex to remember debate, or, as I touched upon recently, whether passwords are old tech that should be sent to the security scrap heap.

The unravelling Heartbleed saga has brought the password problem to the fore once more for both enterprise users and consumers.

Wearing my small business security consultant hat, one of the arguments I often find myself on the receiving end of is that I shouldn't be recommending the use of password managers as a solution.

"They are OK for the consumer who has no business critical data to protect, but even then the adoption case is a marginal one in terms of the security they offer," I am repeatedly told by people who usually fall into one of two categories.

The first are security consultants who deal exclusively with the medium-to-large' bit of the SMB sector. No consultant in their right mind would recommend consumer-grade password manager software to this level of enterprise application. Just because they are not an acceptable fit with the bigger players, does not mean that the smallest enterprises cannot benefit from using them nor that they are inherently insecure.

This brings me to the second category: the password naysayers who want to sell you on some other method of authentication and access control. This second group will often use the 'all your eggs belong to us' argument. In that, putting all your passwords in one place creates a very attractive target for hackers.

I agree. If there was a compromise, it would be disastrous. Just like it would be if that small business was re-using passwords across services and one of them suffered a breach. Just like if the passwords being used were not strong enough to resist attempts to crack them. Just like so many data breach scenarios involve passwords.

Would I rather see every enterprise adopt tokenisation, multi-factor authentication method? Of course I would, but that ain't going to happen at the bottom of the enterprise sizing graph where money, time and technical knowledge are all too often in short supply.

Without the password alternatives, additional authentication factors, and some kind of password management system, the harsh truth is these small businesses and micro-enterprises will, undoubtedly, re-use passwords.

And, please, don't tell me a password management system that consists of a document filed away somewhere listing all the passwords within the enterprise is as safe as the next solution. Homebrew password solutions are best left to the hillbilly next door. There is no room for moonshine management in your business.

Whether you opt for an open source or proprietary password management solution makes little difference, as long as it has a proven track record and provides practical password creation, storage and retrieval.

The argument I mentioned earlier about keeping all your passwords in one place is ripe for debate, but holds little real world water to me.

There are plenty of good software solutions to choose from, and always one that will be a good match for any given smaller enterprise requirement. This means there are those where the password vault is stored locally, and those that use the cloud for 'anywhere/anytime' access.

The latter gets the most stick in the easy target stakes, but Heartbleed has blown a huge hole in that argument.

Most password manager services, even those who admit to having used an OpenSSL implementation, have stated that users don't need to change their master passwords.

This is because master passwords are never sent to the servers. Instead you will find something like the password being appended to an email or login validator and put through a salted one way hash that is sent to the server for authentication instead.

These hashes are as close to impossible as it gets to be reverse engineered. Oh, and they get signed by a key which is separate from the SSL key for good measure.

Players in the password manager market know their continued existence relies on users trusting them to know a bit about security, and implement it in such a way that the vault remains safe.

Will I continue to recommend password manager software to the smallest of enterprises on a small budget and with limited technical expertise? You betcha!

Of course, if your enterprise can run to using password management software and some form of two factor authentication as well, then I'd recommend that even more.

More than 200,000 of the capital's SMBs could register a .london web address when the new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) names are introduced on 29 April.

That's according to the findings of a new YouGov poll, involving 1,001 SMB business decision makers, which was commissioned by the promotional arm of the London Mayor's office London & Partners.

Twenty-six per cent of respondents said they were likely to take up a .london web address. YouGov has used this to calculate that more than 200,000 SMBs could be interested in the suffix.

Of that 26 per cent, 48 per cent said they would do so because they are proud to be a London business, 41 per cent said it would help customers find them more easily, and 27 per cent said it would generate more sales.

Martha Lane Fox, co-founder lastminute.com and former Government digital champion, said: "The new generic domain names are a big change to the web.

".london offers businesses and organisations in the capital a chance to be at the cutting edge of that change and show the world how innovative they can be."

The views of the remaining 74 per cent who did not say they were likely to take up the .london gTLD were not published.

The .london name is one of nine gTLDs - the last part of a web address such as .com, .co.uk or .net - that are being introduced by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which has governance over them. Other new introductions include .guru, .clothing, .singles and .cloud.

Web addresses sporting the .london gTLD will go on sale on 29 April, when they will be available to buy from various internet registrars.

Sarah Haran and Matt Mansell, MD and group MD of internet registrars Easyspace and 123-reg.co.uk, respectively, claimed their organisations had seen a great deal of interest in the new domain.

"We've had more customers register their interest in .london so far than any of the other extensions," claimed Haran.

".london is certainly one of the most popular [new gTLD]," added Mansell.

"The city is riding high after the Olympics and the .london domain will help businesses and organisations capitalise on the national and international interest in London," he concluded.

A Government-led campaign aimed at helping SMBs and their employees become more internet savvy has launched in the UK.

At the centre of the "Cyber Streetwise" initiative is a website featuring animations and interactive click-through elements to highlight key cyber security issues.

The site include guidance about keeping devices and operating systems updated, banking safely online, identity protection, password security and identifying insecure websites.

The campaign is being funded by the National Cyber Security Programme, and features input from several Government departments, including the Home Office, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Furthermore, Cyber Streetwise has also won the backing of anti-crime organisations Action Fraud, Crimestoppers, Financial Fraud Action UK, the Fraud Advisory Panel and the National Crime Agency.

A number of private sector firms have also thrown their weight behind the project, including Barclays, Natwest, RBS, Capital One, Noddle, Trend Micro, Sophos and Symantec.

Security minister James Brokenshire, said the campaign is designed to highlight the "few simple steps" people can take to keep themselves and their data safe online.

"The internet has radically changed the way we work and socialise. It has created a wealth of opportunities, but with these opportunities there are also threats," said Brokenshire.

"As a Government, we are taking the fight to cyber criminals wherever they are in the world. However, by taking a few simple steps while online the public can keep cyber criminals out and their information safe."

The campaign comes on the back of findings from the recent National Cyber Security Consumer Tracker, which suggests more than half the population are failing to cover the basics when protecting themselves online.

Forty-four per cent of the survey's 22,762 respondents said they always install internet security software on new equipment, while just 21 per cent said they installed patches on mobile devices. In contrast, 37 per cent said they do this on their PCs.

Higher compliance costs, stringent energy bills, escalating bank charges and a whole host of other financial challenges: SMEs are up against it from all angles at the moment.

So it’s little surprise that recent research by the Forum of Private Business found that the main financial concern for SMEs is the actual cost of doing business itself. When costs are only going up, how can the businesses act prudently to control their financial destiny?

Well, it’s worth starting with somewhere you can control – the office.

If a business owner comes through your door, the chances are that everyday office equipment will be a significant cost burden, meaning there’s a real opportunity to advise on the best way to save when it comes to sorting high volume administrative jobs.

We’re not being efficient

Regarding those fundamental tasks that businesses undertake on a regular basis, the printing of presentations, financial accounts and all manner of corporate collateral ranks highly in terms of frequency.

According to a study from Epson and research firm Coleman Parkes, however, inefficient printing is costing UK professional services over £45m per year[1]. The research, examining more than 500 professional services companies across Europe, found that the UK is the worst offender for habits such as printing documents and not reading them, failing to collect copy from the printer and unnecessary reprinting.

The majority of small businesses surveyed (56 percent) don’t bother printing double-sided, while an alarming 83 percent don’t monitor the cost of their consumables (ink, toner, paper etc).

It indicates that businesses aren’t managing their office expenditure in a way which keeps costs to a minimum. Ultimately, any office manager wants a printer that simply does the job consistently, fast, at a high level, and at the lowest possible cost. That’s why I’d encourage you to instigate conversations around the business case for, and potential savings of, inkjet printers as an effective alternative to the more common place laserjet options.

By way of example, one of the UK’s largest Burger King franchisees, Karali, employs 2,500 people across 61 restaurants. It has printers in each of its outlets which are used to print food costs, stock, sales and cash control documents. Recently Karali went looking to source a new print solution with the main goal of cutting costs. It hadn’t considered inkjet before but when it tested the technology against a laser competitor, Karali found the inkjet model to be faster with 70 percent lower total cost of ownership (TCO) each year than the laser option.

Customers will appreciate your advice

If your customer is using laser technology and admin costs like printing are causing them sleepless nights, you have a great opportunity to make a difference. A high-speed inkjet all-in-one can offer 50 percent lower cost per page[2] and bring a massive reduction in total cost of ownership. Beyond that, delivering both economic and environmental benefits, an inkjet can provide an 80 percent reduction in energy consumption when compared to an equivalent laser model. That’s important when you consider a recent report from the Carbon Trust which found office equipment to be the fastest growing energy user in the business world, representing 15 percent of total energy consumption in offices and this figure is expected to double by 2020[3].

Educating businesses on technology such as this, coupled with the reiterated need for more formal management of office expenses, can make a difference. With more than half of UK small professional services firms printing upwards of 150 pages a week, the cost and energy saving potential is significant.

Whether your customer is a one man band or a larger business, the burden of printing inefficiencies will be a pain point to address, and the chance to save will be appreciated by all.

John Kelly is business manager for Business Imaging at Epson UK

[1] The cost of printing wastage was calculated using: the number of pages printed per week on inkjet and laserjet printers, the average percentage of printed pages that are wasted, the average number of pages that have a life span of less than 10 minutes, the average number of inkjet and laserjet printers per company, the average cost per printed page, and the population of professional services companies per country based on a weighted average figure from Reuters, Experian, Hoovers, Government and other published sources

[2] Comparison made against the top 10 A4 colour laser printers and MFPs sold in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK in Q4 2010 as tracked by IDC. Cost per page is calculated from manufacturers' official list prices for toner cartridges and published yields in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK as of December 2010

[3] http://www.carbontrust.com/media/13151/ctv007_office_based_companies.pdf

The latest incarnation of Microsoft's Office 365 for Business offering is now on general release, and consists of several new product bundles aimed at SMBs, mid-market and enterprise users.

These product bundles all feature the 2013 versions of the software giant's Exchange, Sharepoint and Lync online products, while the look and feel of the new overall suite is in keeping with that of Windows 8.

Microsoft has also launched something called Office 365 ProPlus, which will allow users to supplement their existing cloud deployments with online versions of its Office 2013 applications.

The software giant also plans to expand the enterprise social capabilities of its online productivity suite, by rolling out voice, presence and instant messaging features that draw on the company's Lync and Skype products by June of this year.

IT Pro also understands that cloud-based versions of Microsoft's business task management software Project and its diagram creation tool Visio have also been added to the role-call of Office 365 offerings for the first time.

During a webcast announcing Office 365 for Business, Kurt DelBene, president of the Office division at Microsoft, said the product was designed to work best with Windows 8 and take advantage of touch-based devices.

"But none of this matter if IT can't manage it, so we've added new compliance, flexibility and management [capabilities]," he added.

The release marks the first time the Office desktop application has been offered up as a commercial cloud service, he added.

However, this does not mean Microsoft is planning to stop offering users the option to deploy it on-premise.

"With this announcement, [we've created] the most ambitious release of Office ever...We know cloud will be a journey, and we will continue to release on premise products."

Julia White, general manager for Office division technical marketing at Microsoft, went on to walk through the technical capabilities of the release, emphasising that users can pick up where they left off when switching devices to access the same documents.

"My content is always up to date because its saved to the cloud," she added.

Business talkMicrosoft claims one in five of its enterprise customers now use Office 365, while SMB and mid-market adoption has grown by 150 per cent over the past 12 months.

Mark Herbert, business development manager at Office 365 Syndication Partner Inty, said existing Office 365 users should be automatically upgraded to the latest edition within the next three months.

"Users can put off the upgrade by up to 60 days, but everyone will be upgraded whether they like it or not," he told IT Pro.

"It's a very well engineered process, so people shouldn't even know it is happening."

Meanwhile, Clive Longbottom, service director at market watcher Quocirca, said the new release has much to recommend it, and should push more business users to consider cloud.

"Microsoft seems to have got it right, overall. There will be issues, as the interface is not the same, so there may be a need to re-train users," he told IT Pro.

"Office 365 for the enterprise gives far more [in terms of functionality] and will remove the need for users to carry out patches and upgrades [like they would with on-premise]."

HP claims its new pay-per-use networking programme will allow enterprises to apply the principles of "cloud economics" to hardware procurement.

The hardware giant took the wraps off its HP FlexNetwork Utility Advantage Programme earlier today at an event in central London.

The scheme will see HP partner up with communications service providers to supply networking kit to customers on a pay-per-use basis.

This, the company claims, should put a stop to firms investing in network capacity that isn't used.

Network infrastructures do not fluctuate with the needs of the business.

Speaking at the event, Mike Banic, vice president of global marketing at HP, explained: "In some places of the network, the infrastructure is overutilised...and in other places it's underutilised. In other words, it doesn't fluctuate with the needs of the business.

"These are an important set of opportunities for us to address."

Traditionally, network investments have always been considered as a capital expense that's been "carried on the balance sheet," he said.

The programme aims to change that and free up funds that can be reinvested in "innovative" IT projects. It will also help firms meet the demands placed on networks by cloud, BYOD and unified communications.

"The programme we're announcing takes advantage of the entire product portfolio that makes up the Flex Network architecture," said Banic.

"[It is] designed to enable communications service providers to deliver pay-per-use managed LAN offerings that allow HP to address the needs of enterprise clients, in many case the global 1,000 clients we want to earn more business from."

Although, during a media Q&A session at the event, Nick Watson, vice president of HP Networking for EMEA, said the pay-as-you-go elements of the programme would make it a good fit for SMBs too.

"When we started looking at this, people kept telling us this really is a small-to-medium business [-focused] model...and will only appeal to smaller customers," explained Watson.

"If you think of a small business, it could be a branch of a [larger one], but the irony is that the interest we've had has been from hugely towards the biggest companies, which isn't necessarily [the way we thought this would pan out] when we first started."

The programme will only be offered to customers through HP's service providers, as the firm has no plans to offer it directly.

"For years, the issue has always been the communications service providers have never wanted to put this on their balance sheet in the first place. What they've wanted to do is find a partner who will partner with them," he said.

He also stressed the pay-per use programme will not affect HP's business model, which has traditionally been based on hardware sales.

"This [will create] an annuity stream [of revenue]...and we are expecting this offering will prove so strong [the recurring revenue business model] will really start to work [for HP]," added Watson.

Google has scrapped the free version of its business-focused online productivity suite, meaning SMBs will now be charged 33 per person, per year to use it.

Previously, firms with fewer than 10 employees were able to use Google Apps for Business for free.

The firm announced the move in a blog post yesterday, and stressed the charges will only apply to new Google Apps for Business users. The consumer version of the product will also remain free.

Time has shown that the free experience isn't quite right for either group.

"Google Apps started with the simple idea that Gmail could help businesses and schools work better together without the hassles of managing software and servers...[and] is [now] used by millions of businesses," wrote Clay Bavor, director of product management at Google Apps.

"When we launched the premium business version, we kept our free, basic version as well...but time has shown that the experience isn't quite right for either group."

As a result, the firm is ditching the free version, meaning all business users will now have to pay to access it.

In exchange, they will get access to a 25GB inbox, a 99.9 per cent uptime guarantee and 24 hour customer support.

"Please note this change has no impact on our existing customers...and, as before, Google Apps for Education will be available as a free service for schools and universities," added Bavor.

"With focus we'll be able to do even more for our business customers. We're excited about the opportunity to push Google Apps further so our customers can do what matters most to them," he added.

Skype has unveiled a new service designed to help small businesses make corporate connections both locally and acround the world.

The online collaboration platform, dubbed Skype in the Workspace (SITW), has been in private beta testing for around three months, but has now been launched as a public beta.

Head of SMB marketing at Skype, Ural Cebeci, told IT Pro while people may be familiar with Skype's VOIP service at a personal level, such as communicating with friends and family abroad, there are also millions of small businesses using it.

"[Businesses are increasingly shifting online] and as part of that shift, they are replacing the tools they already have with online tools or cloud-based tools. For example Skype is replacing landline phones and that delivers cost savings," he added.

SITW is modelled on a similar service, Skype in the Classroom [SITC], which was launched a year and a half ago.

"We got some really good [results from SITC], showing how schools are using it to share class plans and, in some cases, to actually attend each other's classes. From that idea we started thinking Could we do something similar for small businesses and provide that platform to make their Skype experience much richer?'," Cebeci said.

He explained that SITW allows SMBs not only to interconnect with their customers and their partners, but to form business networks as well.

After making an initial connection via SITW, SMBs are encouraged to take the discussion onto the main Skype client using its instant messaging, and conference and video calling capabilities.

"This is really an extension of what we already do, not a departure from it. The platform provides a means of finding other people who have a similar interest and making a connection [with them], but everything else, the core communication happens within the Skype client," added Cebeci.

Those wishing to access the service can sign up via the Skype in the Workspace website using their existing Skype or LinkedIn accounts, and it is also available to new users.

Around 11 million people in the UK lack basic online skills, which is costing the economy billions of pounds, it has been claimed.

In a report commissioned by charity Go On UK, it was found that most UK SMBs had no digital presence, with just a third having a website and 14 per cent selling their goods online.

This, the report claims, means these organisations are missing out on billions of pounds in revenue.

Digital clearly offers growth, particularly to the small and medium-sized enterprise sector.

Consultants Booz and Company, which wrote the report, found that 10.8 million people in the UK do not use the internet.

It is claimed getting more SMBs online could add as much as 18.8 billion to the UK economy, while improving their customer satisfaction and retention rates.

The report also calls for the introduction of a more affordable, accessible, fast, and robust digital broadband infrastructure.

"This needs to be populated with innovative, high-quality public- and private-sector digital services," the report said.

"Digital clearly offers growth, particularly to the small and medium-sized enterprise sector," said Go On UK chair and digital champion Martha Lane Fox.

"Far greater digital capability offers so much more: improvements in education, connecting the elderly and isolated to their communities more effectively, helping people back into work, and better health and social services."

She said the lack of basic digital skills for millions means "digitisation" is unbalanced. "We will increasingly fall short of the UK's potential if we do not start to address the problem," said Lane Fox.

She also urged individuals, families, charities, businesses, and the Government to work together to "unlock the powerful social and economic prize that awaits us."

Security vendor Symantec has warned SMBs about being used by hackers as a route into larger firms they may do business with.

To protect end users from this, the firm recently launched Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition 2013.

"One of the things that I have seen is that the threat landscape has changed," said Jay Epton, director of SMB and distribution sales of Symantec at an event in London yesterday.

"Not only are we seeing more attacks, but we actually see the type of attacks changing all the time."

Epton said that, in this day in age, it is the younger population that are creating and spreading viruses to bring down businesses.

He also warned that SMBS are increasingly being used as a small stepping stone to get to larger enterprises, and finding themselves at the mercy of malware authors.

"Think about a smaller financial institution that might work with Barclays, think about a small engineering firm that might work with Honda," said Epton.

"They may use that as a stepping stone to get into these larger organisations."

Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition 2013 provides SMBs with protection from malware, viruses and is also designed for use with soon-to-be launched Windows 8.

Scale-out storage vendor Scale Computing claims its new HC[sup]3[/sup] product bundle will offer SMBs and mid-market firms a lower cost route into virtualisation.

The converged product bundle combines Scale's shared storage product, with a server and Red Hat's virtualisation software and is available in the UK from today.

Speaking to IT Pro, Patrick Conte, executive vice president and general manager of worldwide field operations at Scale, said the product uses shared storage to ensure users' applications are available when they need them.

"The only way cost effective way for a mid-market company to do that is through virtualisation," said Conte.

We're offering the equivalent functionality, but with added simplicity and at a much lower cost.

He also claimed the cost of acquiring HC[sup]3[/sup] works out cheaper than buying all the required hardware from name brand vendors.

"We're offering the equivalent functionality, but with added simplicity and it also just happens to be a lot less expensive," he claimed.

"You could buy a server from HP, Dell or IBM, some shared storage, the switching technology and then the virtualisation software, probably from VMware, and it is probably going to cost twice as much as buying a [similar set up] from Scale."

The company cites local government, healthcare, education, and manufacturing as key industry verticals for its products, and over the past several years claims to have shipped up to 6,000 storage appliances.

Jason Collier, chief technology officer at Scale, told IT Pro that HC[sup]3[/sup] should also appeal to SMBs that had shied away from virtualisation because of complexity concerns.

"The fear and complexity is a big thing. If you're going to deploy a [multi-vendor] solution, you need to know a lot of stuff and [many smaller firms] do not have the resources needed to commit to that," he said.

"Giving them a solution that has all of the performance and functionality without needing to have any specific knowledge is a tremendous benefit to them."

Software giant Microsoft has released its Windows Server 2012 Essentials product to manufacturers, putting it on course to go on general release at the start of November.

The SMB-focused product is the latest version of the Windows Small Business Server Essentials offering and has been hailed by Microsoft as a "significant milestone" in its bid to help more small businesses embrace cloud.

It allows users to choose between running apps on-premise and in the cloud, and also features integration with Microsoft's online productivity software suite Office 365.

The product's new Storage Spaces feature lets customers pool capacity from underused hard drives to create new storage resources and can be used to perform system backups and restores.

It also has the ability to keep tabs on its own performance, as well as the status of any client computers running Windows 7, Windows 8 and Mac OS X versions of 10.5 and above.

The company claims the beta version of the product has been downloaded more than 23,000 in two months.

Sinead O'Donovan, director of program management on the Windows Server Essentials team, said: "It is designed to help you protect business data, [securely access] the information you need from virtually anywhere and to offer the flexibility to choose which applications and services you want to run on-premises and in the cloud."

The general release of Windows Server 2012 Essentials in November come just two months after the full, enterprise-ready edition of the product went on general release.

At the time, general manager of product marketing for Windows Server and Management, Mike Schutz, told IT Pro Windows Server 2012 is the "cornerstone" of Microsoft's "cloud OS" strategy.

Virtualisation giant VMware has laid claim to having the world's largest cloud ecosystem, with services available in more than 28 countries across the globe.

Several years ago, the vendor announced that it had no plans to become a cloud provider, opting instead to partner up with telcos and other IT suppliers who could offer end users access to VMware-based cloud services.

Speaking to IT Pro in Barcelona at the company's annual VMworld conference, VMware vice president of cloud services, Mathew Lodge, said the approach was paying off well for the firm.

"We now have more than 160 clouds up [and running] now...in over 28 countries and there is no way we could have got to that scope and scale [if we had gone it alone]," explained Lodge.

We have clouds in 28 countries, which gives us the biggest cloud ecosystem in the world.

"In terms of geographical reach, that is the biggest cloud ecosystem in the world."

He also claimed the strategy had resulted in 169 per cent year-on-year rise in revenue during the first six months of 2012, as a direct result of it partnering with more cloud service providers.

"We are adding new partners, but that is only really part of the story as each one is selling more [cloud services], becoming more successful and cloud adoption is really picking up."

Particularly in the SMB market, he added, whereas enterprise users need slightly more convincing when it comes to cloud.

"There is very high value for SMBs to get someone else to manage their infrastructure, because they typically only have one or two staff," he said.

"Enterprises already have someone to monitor their infrastructure, so the question for them is often, I'm already doing this. If I give it over to someone else, how much value will this add?'"

Lodge also flagged some of the reasons why end users typically favour VMware-based clouds over those offered by industry giant Amazon Web Services (AWS), but credited the firm for "popularising" the notion of public clouds.

"The real difference customers see is that it is a lot easier to bring your existing applications along to VMware, and part of the reason for that is the way we have built vCloud to support the needs of old and newer applications," he said.

"Amazon really focused on brand new applications from the outset and, in the early days, it was very difficult to take an existing application to AWS, but they have since made it easier."

Small businesses will have to stump up $12.50 per user per month to access the premium version of Microsoft's new cloud-focused Office productivity suite, the software giant has confirmed.

The vendor took the wraps off the latest incarnation of its Office software suite back in July, which for the first time will save documents users create to the cloud by default.

At the time, Microsoft chief executive, Steve Ballmer, hinted that the firm was finding it difficult to agree on a price point for the new release, which is being offered as a cloud service and a packaged product.

Users also have the flexibility to change their five devices at any time.

However, Microsoft has now confirmed the pricing for the consumer and SMB versions of Office, which are available on a per month or per year subscription service.

The Office 365 Small Business Premium subscription is designed for use by organisations with between one and 10 employees, and will cost them $149.99 per user per year.

In exchange for this, each user will get access to the full gamut of Office products including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Publisher and Lync and will have the option of using them on up to five PCs or Mac computers.

"Users also have the flexibility to change their five devices at any time, and full featured Office applications are available for temporary use on any PC," said Microsoft in a blog post.

SMBs will also be offered access to a 25GB Outlook mailbox, 10 GB of cloud storage, as well as an additional 500 MB of space for each user.

Home users can also purchase a single Premium subscription to cover five PCs and Macs. This will allow them to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access and Publisher for $8.33 per month or $99.99 a year.

People that sign up to this plan will also receive an extra 20GB of SkyDrive cloud storage a month, on top of the 7GB that Microsoft gives them for free, as well as 60 free minutes of Skype calls a month.

"Premium licenses are always up-to-date with latest new features and services released regularly," said the Microsoft blog.

"With the new Office, new capabilities will be added multiple times a year."

The Home Premium subscription plan will also be offered for free for a year to people who purchase Office 2010 from 19 October.

"Small business customers in applicable markets will also be eligible for a three-month trial of Office 365 Small Business Premium," the blog post added.

End users that only require access to Office on a single device can purchase "traditional Office suites" for at least $139.99.

This package will allow them to save created content to the cloud, but they will not benefit from extra SkyDrive capacity or free Skype calls.

Research suggests the SMB sector is coming under increasing pressure from hackers and cyber criminals.

A recent report by security vendor Symantec revealed that the number of businesses with fewer than 250 staff subjected to attacks doubled between during the six months to the end of June 2012.

Rival security firm AVG reported that 3.37 million of damage was inflicted on UK SMBs by cyber criminals last year, and predicts this figure will rise.

Meanwhile, the majority of the 855 data breaches analysed in the 2012 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) were perpetrated against smaller firms.

Casting an eye over the Verizon statistics, Kurt Hangerman, director of global compliance at FireHost, told IT Pro: "Seventy-nine per cent of breaches were against targets of opportunity, and 96 per cent were not difficult to conduct, meaning that cybercriminals are discerning when it comes to who they ultimately attack."

Shifting focus of cybercrime

Not everyone in the security business thinks the focus of cybercrime has shifted from large enterprise to small business, though.

Rik Ferguson, director of security research at Trend Micro, says the types of attacks inflicted on the enterprise and SMB market have "diverged and evolved", with firms at the larger end of the scale falling victim to "more sophisticated and finely targeted" onslaughts.

"[SMBs are] receiving the dubious attentions of the sophisticated, commoditised toolkits which have been years in development," he added.

The latter point is something Corey Nachreiner, director of security strategy at WatchGuard, agrees with.

"Attackers cast a wide net, using mass emails, automated SQL injection, or automated network attacks to opportunistically gain any victim," Nachreiner says. "Everyone is the target of this attack, whether they know it or not."

However, he also claims to have seen a marked rise in targeted spear-phishing attacks against SMBs. "One recent email appeared to come from ADP, a company that helps SMBs manage payroll (among other things)," Nachreiner recounts.

"This spear-phishing email seems to target accounting and HR folks at SMBs, in [the] hope of gaining access to their payroll systems."

There's no doubt smaller firms often make very attractive targets, not just because they tend to employ lower levels of security, but because of who they do business with.

Richard Wilding, cyber security director at BAE Systems Detica, explains: "Infiltrate [a] small company with a less secure network and a cyber criminal can use the information gathered to target [a] larger firm where the larger prize lies or to steal information the supplier has about the true target."

The attack surface

So just what kind of attacks and threats are SMBs most at risk from? Jacques Erasmus, Webroot's chief information security officer, claims smaller firms need to be on their guard against targeted, information stealing Trojans.

"They are proving to be very successful and result in significant losses in many cases," he adds.

Meanwhile, Check Point's UK managing director, Terry Greer-King, says "blended attacks" using social media profiling to trick employees are most likely to succeed, simply because SMBs tend to have fewer layers of security.

Or, as Nick Connor, managing director and co-founder of Assuria, puts it: the biggest security threat to a small business is its staff.

"I suspect social engineering will continue to grow and small businesses in particular will be key targets as they fail to recognise the value of the data in the business or how to properly protect it," he adds.

Mike Foreman, senior vice president at AVG Technologies, says phishing attacks against SMBs are still proving hugely popular.

For instance, his firm's research shows that 56.9 per cent of SMBs have received fraudulent emails asking for money, 36.8 per cent have received fake tax rebate emails and 12.3 per cent have been directed to a fake government web page.

SMB security timeline

Chris Wysopal, co-founder and chief technology officer of application testing company Veracode, sets out a timeline for preparing a small business security strategy.

In the first three months

*Identify the stakeholders needed to articulate & execute your application security strategy.

*Educate your teams on the threat landscape and build an application security training program.

*Identify the portfolio of applications that are critical to your business.

In the next six months

*Assess business risk across your app portfolio.

*Establish security policy to comply with regulatory or customer requirements, and ultimately cover the business critical apps.

*Independently verify the security of the software that you sell, build, purchase and procure.

Clickjacking, which involves tricking people into clicking links directing them to malware installations or fake websites, is another popular form of attack used against SMBs.

"The majority of SMBs are easily tricked into clicking on these links," Foreman adds, "with only 30.5 per cent exercising caution about clicking on links claiming to be HMRC."

SMB threat protection

The biggest problem for SMBs is their size, in terms of the amount they spend on security and the breadth of their in-house knowledge about protecting themselves against cyber attacks.

"The same rules apply for any business. They need to decide which assets are critical, then put policies and solutions in place to protect those assets," says CheckPoint's Greer-King.

"Users also need educating on potential risks and threat vectors, and how their behaviour can mitigate risks. The smaller business has one key advantage here: they have fewer employees to educate."

James Potter-Irwin, a senior consultant at Plan-Net, sums it up best. "If you don't make yourself the easy target, the criminal will most likely look elsewhere for their victim."

Industry watchers have savaged US cloud backup provider Doyenz for not giving users enough notice about closing down its UK service.

As revealed by IT Pro yesterday, the SMB-focused firm is switching off its rCloud disaster recovery service in the UK tomorrow and has given users until the end of the month to retrieve their data.

The firm, who launched in the UK around nine months ago, is understood to have broken the news to its customers and reseller partners earlier this week.

I suspect they have not done as well as they'd hoped as quickly as they wanted.

Last month, tech site Geek Wire reported that an unspecified number of the firm's US staff had been laid off.

At the time of writing, IT Pro had still not received an official statement from the firm to explain its actions, despite repeatedly requesting one.

However, industry sources have suggested to IT Pro the firm's decision to axe its UK service is because of investor pressure.

The company is backed by venture capitalists, and our source claim its backers have may have got impatient waiting for the firm to gain a foothold in the UK.

"Venture capitalists are notoriously impatient, so I suspect they have not reached the right size of customers in the UK and not done as well as they'd hoped as quickly as they wanted," said our source.

Post mortem

Doyenz operated a UK datacentre, but Clive Longbottom, service director at analyst firm Quocirca, said this may not have been enough to persuade firms to hand their data over to a US vendor.

"Even if the data is stored in the user's country, if the facility is owned and/or operated by a US company, the data may have to be opened up to US authorities, if they invoke the Patriot Act," Longbottom told IT Pro.

The SMB online backup market, where Doyenz was playing, is a highly competitive place, with many small firms opting to use Dropbox or Google Drive-type services, said Longbottom.

"Many SMBs have also had no formal approach to backup in the past, so why should they suddenly leap up and [adopt one] now," he added.

"They market needs educating [about why backup is important], and this requires more than just a US company putting a few banner ads around, hoping that having built the same mousetrap as everyone else the masses will beat a path to their door."

Andy Burton, chairman of trade body the Cloud Industry Forum, said if commercial pressures are to blame, the firm should still have given customers more time to move their data.

"I'm not sure why they've given customers such a short time window...announcing you're stopping support in a week and giving people less than a month to get their data back...at a commercial level is pretty poor practice," he said.

He said the case highlights the need for end users to have an exit strategy in place should their cloud provider go out of business, for example.

At a commercial level, this is pretty poor practice.

"Typically, most end users aren't negotiating things in their agreement, along the lines of [working out], at the point of termination, [how much time] they will have to formally move their data," said Burton.

"That should be a contracted position, and never something that's left to chance."

IT Pro understands Doyenz is offering UK customers the chance to move their data to its US datacentres, but Ian Moyse, sales director at cloud-based CRM provider Workbooks.com, said this may not be a suitable solution for all.

"UK businesses have responsibility under the Data Protection Act to...not transfer data to any other country without adequate protection in situ," he explained.

"The Safe Harbour [agreement] has been used by US vendors as an answer to this, but many are now calling [the validity of] that into question.

"Maybe the buy British' stance will get another airing in the cloud world," he concluded.

Meanwhile, earlier today, rival online backup provider Databarracks announced that it will be offering Doyenz customers the opportunity to move their data to its datacentre for free until September.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has published a guide for SMBs to help them make their IT systems more safe and secure.

The data protection watchdog, who fines companies who lose sensitive data, hopes the guide's advice will be easy and inexpensive for small businesses to implement.

The guide's aim is to help smaller firms avoid serious data breaches, as well as the fines associated with them.

The Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, explained: "While we recognise that the biggest organisations will have these strategies already in place, smaller enterprises often tell us that they would benefit from simple and clear advice specifically designed for them."

The 12-page guide suggests small businesses review the personal data they have and then assess the possible risks to their business.

Determining how sensitive or confidential that data is will allow them to choose the security measures that will work best for them, it is claimed.

The ICO also suggests SMBs use a "layered approach" to security by introducing a number of different techniques and tools. The idea being that, if one layer fails, others would be in place to catch the threat.

SMBs should also ensure that data is secure on devices being used away from the office, the guide advised. For instance, by encrypting these files, businesses can be assured that information will be accessed only by authorised users.

Since November 2010, the ICO has handed out penalties totalling 1.5 million to companies that failed to keep information secure.

The aim of the guide is to help smaller firms avoid serious data breaches, as well as the fines associated with them.

Mike Cherry, policy chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: "It's important that the ICO have published this guidance specifically for small businesses.

"Good IT and data security should be part and parcel of good business practice and businesses should think about the simple steps that they can put in place to achieve this," he added.

Microsoft has closed its Office Live Small Business (OLSB) cloud-based productivity service.

The move was announced 18 months ago with the company giving the end of April this year as a deadline for users to migrate to other cloud-based services, including Microsoft's Office 365 productivity suite.

Many OLSB customers won't see Office 365 as a good fit, especially since Office 365 isn't free.

Service and sites built on the OLSB service have been inaccessible since yesterday. Existing customers have been told to transition to Office 365 and Microsoft has softened the blow with a free six month subscription to the service.

However, users that created and ran websites on OLSB have to move to an external provider and update their DNS records to point to a new host.

The software giant has posted videos and online support to help users migrate.

But, even up to the deadline, it appeared that some users were unaware of the shutdown or were having problems moving off the platform.

Members of the product's discussion forum were still posting on the site asking questions about the move or pleading with the company to postpone the shutdown.

Some users of the service have complained that Office 365 is generally more expensive with features many users have said they are unlikely to use. Microsoft, on its webpage, admitted as much

"OLSB appealed to a lot of different people, especially because of the free website. Office 365 is targeted at meeting the needs of small business owners and professionals," read a statement on the official OLSB website. "Many OLSB customers won't see Office 365 as a good fit, especially since Office 365 isn't free."

Arbor Networks claims it's not just household names that are at risk from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, as hackers are turning their attention to smaller, lesser-known targets.

Despite news of DDoS attacks on government sites and big brands regularly hitting the headlines, the vendor warns that smaller firms are also finding themselves regularly under siege from hackers.

Speaking to IT Pro, Darren Anstee, solutions architect for EMEA at Arbor Networks, explained: "Historically, a lot of attacks were against major brands, governments and banks and that has continued with the rise of ideological hacktivism.

"What's really changed, though, is who is being targeted. That has really broadened. The scope has moved down from these big brands to the SMB space."

Companies are being attacked because of who they do business with or sell services to, and also for competitive reasons, he said.

"DDoS has become far more mainstream. People can download the tools, do it themselves or hire a botnet," said Anstee. "In many cases, you only pay on result. If you want a company taken offline, it is very easy to do."

As a result, he said firms are becoming increasingly savvy about what they have to do to protect themselves against hackers.

Companies are being attacked because of who they do business with and also for competitive reasons

"You hope that's because they've done risk analysis and seen articles in the press [about DDoS attacks], but the real reason is because they've been targeted," he said.

"Protecting their service availability is becoming more important, because so many businesses are reliant on their internet presence to make money or raise awareness of what they do."

Looking ahead, Anstee said attacks against IPv6 networks are likely to increase, as World IPv6 Dayapproaches and more carriers switch on their services.

"[Last year] was the first time we saw attacks against IPv6 networks [in Arbor's own research] and, while the attacks were not that big, we think they will increase," he warned.

"That will change once the carriers start pushing IPv6 to their subscribers. That is when we will see attacks against IPv6 take off," he concluded.

Intel has launched its Ivy Bridge chipset, which packs a number of enhancements including a built-in management capability for small businesses.

Small Business Advantage is a suite of apps for Windows-based PCs, which will be integrated into Ivy Bridge at the hardware level. It is designed to help firms manage and maintain their PCs, Scott Pendrey, desktop product manager at Intel, told IT Pro during a pre-brief.

"SMB Advantage is self-management tool that will be useful to small business that do not have a dedicated IT department, such as estate agents. The suite will automatically carry out updates and perform other maintenance tasks such as disk defragmentation," he said.

"Another feature includes the USB Blocker functionality that ensures machines are protected. USB ports can be set to block unauthorised devices from being connected to a work PC. Ports can also be configured to only allow certain peripherals to be connected, such as printers or USB sticks."

The suite also boasts an Energy Saver feature, which allows desktops to power on or off automatically when needed. Machines can be set up to switch on 10 minutes before employees get to work so they are up and running, Pendrey continued.

Business users can make use of the Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) functionality, which can be used to stream content - including presentations and larger displays - if they support WiDi.

In terms of raw performance, the biggest improvement Ivy Bridge boasts over the previous Sandy Bridge generation, is in its on-board graphics.

The Intel HD Graphics 4000 processor will provide up to twice the performance of Intel HD Graphics 3000 when performing tasks such as video conversion, Pendrey added.

Because the Intel Ivy Bridge chipset has been manufactured using a 22nm process, this performance gain will be delivered using less power.

Ultrabooks touting the Ivy Bridge chipset are set to go on sale from 5 June, although pricing is yet to be confirmed.

Sage has teamed up with Rackspace to launch customer relationship management (CRM) as a service to small businesses in the UK.

The business software company has introduced a cloud version of SageCRM to be hosted on Rackspace's new hybrid hosting technology, RackConnect

Announcing the relationship, Lorcan Malone, general manager for SageCRM said the product had been designed to help businesses grow by not over-committing resources at an early stage.

Sage CRM Cloud will initially be available in two versions: Essentials, which offers basic CRM functionality and is charged from 20 per month and a Professionals edition, which offers a complete set of functionality, including sales and marketing support. This version is priced from 40 per month.

Features of SageCRM include full contact management and business analytics, smartphone functionality, security over customer data and flexible payment options. The product is also offered on a 30-day free trial basis.

In addition, Malone said that one of the key benefits was that, as opposed to some software vendors, cost of support was included in the price.

With the CRM SaaS space dominated by Salesforce, Sage will obviously have its work cut out to take on its giant competitor but Malone said the company was confident that it could find its niche.

"Salesforce generally aims at companies just above our target market, but it's certainly true that it's looking at the SMB space more," he said. "Our strength, however, is that we're focused exclusively on SMBs and we benefit [them through] our partner support."

Google is set to invest more heavily in the cloud as its enterprise division predicts big rises in SMB adoption for next year.

Amit Singh, vice president of Google Enterprise, wrote on the firm's blog this week that take up of cloud computing by SMBs in 2012 would be "huge."

After claiming the move towards the cloud was "inevitable" and listing Fortune 500 companies who were already on-board, he added: "We also expect that 2012 will be a huge year in the cloud for small businesses, which represent 99.7 per cent of all US employers, yet only 10 per cent of SMBs have deployed cloud technologies."

As such, Google will continue building on its cloud applications over the next 12 months to offer what business, both big and small, need from their web applications, operating systems or devices.

"Our computing experience is designed for today's world and built with entirely modern technologies far more powerful than the PC to benefit businesses of all sizes," wrote Singh.

"Our 100 per cent web focus lets us innovate faster while delivering best-in-class reliability, security and support."

On top of cloud development, he also promised further advancements in mobile and social technologies from Google.

"Cloud, mobile, social," added Singh. "Fast, lightweight applications that make it easier to work with others from anywhere. Those are the areas driving our investments for 2012 and transforming the way we work."

COMMENT:Implementing a secure data strategy is not difficult when you are a larger enterprise. All it takes is money to buy the right advice from the right people (whether that's in-house staff or outsourced consultancy) and deploying the solutions best suited to your particular needs.

In fact, the bigger your business, the easier data security becomes. But what if you are at the very smaller end of the SME scale, with little in the way of budget to spare or knowledge to draw upon? Truth be told, data security gets harder the smaller you are and, believe you me, the bad guys have noticed.

No matter what size business you are, following well established best practice principles will cost you nothing and go a long way to making your enterprise more secure.

You might not have the volume of data that attracts both the Eastern European organised crime gangs and media headlines alike when said gangs successfully breach the network perimeter. But the opportunist cyber criminal, the bedroom script kiddies and small-time chancers, are quite happy to prod away at smaller, more insecure networks. In other words, they have the hard-pressed, hard-up, small business firmly in their sights.

So where do Meerkats and Avatars enter the data security equation? Simples (erm, sorry about that) that's the name of the annual event held at the St John's Innovation Centre in Cambridge which sees early-stage companies demonstrate their innovative technologies in front of invited members of the media and potential investors. David Gill, director of the St John's Innovation Centre, is quite right in pointing out that the introduction of the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI), which enables early-stage, high-technology SMEs to take part in a tendering process for government contracts, has "made a tangible difference to many Cambridge companies by introducing them to a real' client".

The Meerkats and Avatars event was held yesterday, and one of the companies that leapt out from the seventeen innovators being showcased this year was Smart Architects with a product called sCrib. This hardware device plugs into a USB port and stores twelve cryptographically secure passwords. Dr Dan Cvrcek, founder of Smart Architects, explains that each password can be up to 20 characters in length and automatically generated, which you then use to replace twelve of your existing passwords without the need for any software or, indeed, expertise. "sCrib's unique algorithm protects passwords against viruses and keylogging" Cvrcek says, continuing "if an sCrib is lost this doesn't allow anyone else access to the passwords because each password is not accompanied by information about what it is for. To increase security further it is possible to add a typed PIN to important passwords: a few digits or letters which users type before they press a button on the sCrib". So the device then becomes, in effect, an instant two-factor authentication hardware token.

It's not the first time that the company has found itself being accused of innovation in the data security world: Earlier this year it was a finalist in the Global Security Challenge. This competition searches for the world's most innovative security startups, and it looks like it may just have found one. Especially, returning to my point at the start of all this, when most current security systems are too complex and too expensive for the average small business.

Of course, no matter what size business you are, following well established best practice principles will cost you nothing and go a long way to making your enterprise more secure.