Nine new SME apps

Telstra has released a raft of online software applications, available to Australian SMEs with the Telstra T-Suite software-as-a-service platform, says WebWire.

According to the company, the T-Suite applications will be available to lease online for a monthly fee without expensive upfront licensing fees, meaning businesses can preserve vital cash reserves during the current tough economic climate.

Telstra adds that Australian small businesses in all industry sectors will be able to generate employment agreements and manage everyday staff issues with easy-to-use HR processes and templates from Workforce Guardian that are updated online to reflect changes in employment law.

A comprehensive assessment of the value and disadvantages of cloud computing for any individual organisation should pay more attention to risk analysis, according to CXOtoday.

The analysis findings of the McKinsey cloud computing report agree that external cloud computing is today more suited to the needs of small and medium enterprises (SME) than large corporations.

McKinsey analysis reports seem to find that one should beware of hype and that cost savings from cloud computing may be smaller than hoped for and even illusory.

One of the problems confronting owner-managers of SMEs is that they must face the same pressures and challenges as their larger competitors without the same budget or expertise with which to tackle them, reports ChannelWeb.

Nowhere is this fact more apparent than in storage as data volumes are climbing sharply across all sectors, an issue often compounded in SMEs by rapid growth in the business itself.

Compliance and data protection rules apply as much to SMEs as to corporates, and security, integrity and accessibility are becoming vital issues to firms of all sizes.