Given all the lip service being given to the small/medium business market, I was surprised there weren’t more products targeting those users. Nevertheless, there were three that caught my eye.
Digislide Holdings, Pty Ltd.’s Digismart – You couldn’t beat this technology for sheer ”Wow!” factor. It’s a tiny projector, about the size of a keychain fob, that plugs into a cell phone or PDA and projects an 11” X 17” image on a wall or screen. It runs off the power supply of the handheld device and basically lets you take your presentations on the road with you without the hassle of lugging a portable projector. This is still very early-stage technology; the Australian company hopes to ship it this year and doesn’t even have a projected price. It also isn’t yet effective beyond the 11” X 17” size. But if Digislide can make this technology work, everyone’s going to want it.
Interprise Solutions USA, LLC’s Interprise Suite – I didn’t think the world needed another ERP suite, but Interprise thinks it’s got a winner in a fully integrated and internationalized ERP/CRM suite for small business. And it has 1,300 beta sites to prove it. Pricing will be in the $5,000 range for five users.
Sprout Systems, Inc.’s Sproutit Mailroom – The first in a planned suite to SMB productivity tools from this El Cajon, CA-based startup is Sproutit Mailroom, a flexible e-mail management tool that allows users to automatically categorize, route and respond to e-mail messages based on a set of rules. Enterprise products are available with the same functionality but Sprout is focused on SMB organizations that are drowning in e-mail.
Another viable CRM option for SMB companies can be found at http://www.leadmaster.com They have thousands of users and have offices in the US, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong.
LeadMaster offers a very easy-to-use solution that can be private-labeled to the SMB client.
The product has an added call center feature, allowing inside teams to create and manage call guides as well as monitor productivity stats.
Jeff Kaplan has put together a list of more than 150 companies that offer hosted software.