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For a number of years the price of technology to run our businesses has been dropping quite dramatically. Let me give you three general examples:

- Computer hardware — Computers far more powerful than the one with the Pentium I chip that cost me $2,500 a number of years ago, now sell for a little over $500. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices of personal computer equipment have dropped 10% to 28% each year since 2000.

- Telecommunications — The prices of making phone calls are much cheaper, too. VOIP providers now offer unlimited calling plans within the U.S. and Canada for affordable flat monthly rates. Competition from non-traditional providers, including cable companies and eBay’s almost-free Skype service, has pressured the established telecom companies like AT&T to come out with bundled services to give the VOIP and cable companies a serious run for the money, especially in big metropolitan markets. Small businesses are beneficiaries of all this competition, in the form of lower prices.

- Software – Prices for business software also have come down in price, dropping 3% to 9% each year since 2000. And that doesn’t even tell the full story. You now can find free alternatives on the market in many business productivity categories, thanks to the open source movement. Software-as-a-service options also make powerful software available at hard-to-believe low monthly prices. And as competition heats up in some segments, some vendors such as Intuit are giving away introductory versions of their feature-rich proprietary software for free, to snag you as a loyal customer with the hope of some day in the future “upselling” you to a higher level package as your needs increase.

So what’s all this talk about inflation rearing its ugly little head? Read entire article.

Posted in Money Management, Technology

First it was blogs. In the world of small business, people started going nuts over blogs a couple of years ago.

Business owners and entrepreneurs and those who work in small businesses found the benefits of blogs enticing. Who could resist the allure? We entrepreneurs discovered that blogs gave us self-publishing that was almost as easy as creating a Word document; a do-it-yourself way to improve your search engine position; and a way to connect with customers and prospects more authentically in a marketing-saturated world. Read entire article.

Posted in Technology

If ever a technology had a public relations problem, RFID is it. Saddled with the moniker “spychips” and attracting conspiracy theorists in droves, it is dogged by an image problem.

And that’s a shame, because RFID is a marvelous technology.

As consumers, millions of us use RFID every day whether we realize it or not.

RFID saves lives when used in hospitals to keep track of infants, life-saving equipment and medical instruments. It can help us recover our pets if they are lost. Farmers use it to keep track of livestock.  And it makes our lives more convenient in many daily uses — everything from allowing us to use the fast lane on toll roads, to electronic security badges to enter and protect buildings.

Read entire article.

Posted in Inventory & Supplies, Technology