Mid Market - RSS Feed

Wireless Broadband Spectrum May Double in Next Ten Years

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

A Presidential Memorandum signed by President Obama would nearly double the amount of wireless broadband spectrum, through an auction, for governmental and commercial use, the White House said. The actual amount will depend on effective implementation and additional design details, but based on past auctions, some analysts believe the revenue potential could reach in the tens of billions of dollars. - President Obama signed an initiative to nearly double the amount of available commercial and federal broadband spectrum for mobile devices, the White House reported. In a planned speech to the New America Foundation, a nonprofit, post-partisan think tank, White House economic adviser Lawrence Summer...

Social Sharing Options Increase E-Mail Click-Through Rates, Survey Finds

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Based on a survey by GetResponse, e-mail messages that included a social sharing option generated 30 percent higher click-through rates (CTRs) than e-mails without a social sharing option. - E-mail messages that include a social sharing option generate 30 percent higher click-through rates (CTRs) than e-mails without a social sharing option, and messages with three or more sharing options generate 55 percent higher CTRs, according to GetResponse's study, quot;Email Marketing and Social...

Intuit CEO Brad Smith Issues an Apology for Outage

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The president and CEO of small business finance software company Intuit, Brad Smith, apologized to Intuit's customers in the form of a company blog post, promising to earn back their trust following a widespread service failure earlier in the week. Smith said he hopes to earn back the trust of the businesses that employ his company's services. - Smith said while the company worked to restore sites and services as quickly as possible and bring services back in the safest, most reliable way, he said he understood client frustration and apologized again for the length of time it took to fix the problem. Following a routine maintenance procedu...

HighRoads Offers Solution to Ensure Health Care Compliance

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

With HighRoads Compliance, companies of any size can get assistance in navigating the complex regulations related to health care reform by leveraging technology to simplify and automate the creation and update of existing employer medical Summary Plan Descriptions (SPDs). The SPD is the main vehicle for communicating plan rights to participants. - As cost-conscious businesses get ready to delve into compliance regulations in the wake of the health care bill's passage, HighRoads offers midmarket companies a solution to ensure the necessary compliance. HighRoads, a provider of employer health care compliance and benefits management, announced t...

Could Net Neutrality Prove Too Costly?

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

A report on how FCC regulation of the Internet warns such measures could be a huge drain for the industry, one of the nation's healthiest. Could net neutrality prove too costly to the U.S. economy to implement? - As Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Julius Genachowski prepares to outline the agency's plan for greater authority over broadband service providers, a report from The Advanced Communications Law amp; Policy Institute at New York Law School and technology research firm Entropy Econom...

Asus, Acer, Toshiba and Lenovo Show Strong Market Growth

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Asus, Acer, Toshiba and Lenovo all experienced strong year-over-year growth, the report shows. A report from iSuppli shows Asian computer makers displaying impressive sales growth, while U.S. competitors such as Dell and HP underperforming slightly. - The rise of Asian-based original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) led the worldwide PC market to rise an impressive 22.7 percent in the first quarter of 2010, according to market research firm iSuppli. The company noted with shipments in the first quarter totaling 81.5 million units - up from 66.5 mil...

Tracking Transplant Patients

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:26:03 -0500

Integrating electronic systems that track organ transplants has been a challenge for most hospitals. But the Baltimoremedical center is refining a database that could serve as a model for the industry.

- Through advances in science and medicine, organ transplanting has increased in frequency and developed into an ever-growing business. At Johns Hopkins Hospitalin Baltimore, surgeons are now performing nearly 400 transplant operations a year and are braced to handle even more to meet the...

Capturing Concerete Savings

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 11:04:00 -0400

When FNF Construction made the move from oudated project-tracking software to a customized business intelligence system, it hit pay dirt. - Sean Saunders, CIO of FNF Construction, gets his hands dirty #8212;literally #8212;at least once a week, visiting project sites where workers are expanding highways, repairing bridges and leveling land. He dons his blue jeans and spends time with the people who use the technology he implements. ...

Virtualizations Time to Roll

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:11:00 -0400

Big companies, once hesitant about virtualization, are now embracing the technology. In some cases, though, they're still waiting to see the benefit. It won't be long. - In the fledgling history of virtualization, this summer may go down as a watershed. On the upside, two major events among leading vendors lent even more legitimacy to virtualization. First came the long-awaited initial public offering of market leader VMware on August 14. The next day, Citr...

SOA: Improving Ties to Business Partners

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Aeroplan's evolution from Air Canada's frequent-flier plan to a standalone loyalty marketing program hinged on integrating its systems with new business partners. - Born as the frequent-flier plan for Air Canada in 1984, Aeroplan has worked to redefine itself as a loyalty marketing program for hotels, merchants and product manufacturers as well as airlines. Aeroplan, spun off as a separate company in 2005, sells mileage credits to 60 partners, including c...

Web 2.0: Turning Browsers into Buyers

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Stormhoek Vineyards created the equivalent of a digital grapevine to promote its products and more. Did it work? - A year ago, Stormhoek Vineyards, a South African winery, launched a public relations campaign called "100 Geek Dinners in 100 Days." The goal was to get one person to host a wine-tasting party each night for 100 nights, in honor of Stormhoek's debut in the U.S. Stormhoek would supply the wine. To p...

Business Intelligence: Will It Improve Inventory?

Mon, 14 May 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Expanding its product lines helped Dick's Sporting Goods grow from a mid-market player to one of the country's premier athletic retailers. But first it had to become more nimble in the ways it managed and tracked its offerings. - Weekend warriors and fitness fanatics alike canfind all their gear at Dick's Sporting Goods. But until the retailer revamped how it analyzes its product lines, building and tracking reports for sales and inventory took a marathoner's effort. Until 2003, the company relied on merchandise management...

What Really Happened At JetBlue

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0400

A Valentine's day ice storm put a strain on JetBlue's systems and processes for handling reservations, rerouting traffic and tracking flight crews. How did they handle it? - As an airline industry veteran, Charles quot;Duffy quot; Mees has had to weather his share of storms over the years. Yet nothing, says the vice president and chief information officer of JetBlue Airways, could have prepared him for the series of events that culminated in a virtual shutdown of the a...

Mid-Market Case: J R Electronics Pumps Up the Volume

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Will a new e-commerce platform help the $400 million retailer, which gets 30% of its revenue from the Web, compete against the national big-box retailers? - Jason Friedman, vice president of e-commerce for J R Electronics, became a champion of Internet retailing not long after joining his parents' company in 1997 as database manager. At the time, the family-owned business was doing just fine selling an enormous array of consumer electronics from its lan...

Mid-Market Report: 5 Best Practices in Customer Strategies

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Midsize companies are replacing sticky notes and spreadsheets with software to analyze customer data. Here are five technology strategies for attracting and retaining customers. - Midsize companies are chucking their spreadsheets, standalone databases, and pens and sticky notes. They're investing in software applications that keep track of every bit of customer information they can get their hands on, from contact information and sales activity to marketing campaigns, prospec...