Help for Small Business

It’s good to see that the government has noticed that small business are essential to the lifeblood of the British economy and are putting in measures to ensure that they are paid within 10 days of submitting a bill to any public body.  Even the Sun is getting behind small businesses, and encouraging us all to what we can to help them.

So what’s Microsoft doing then? Three things..

1. Delivering the tools a small business needs without constraining the business.  These tools can be hosted by Microsoft (e.g. Office Live) or a specialist hosting partner, so apart from a laptop, PC or two there is no infrastructure in the business at all.  Of course you might not be ready to trust all of your information to a third party so there are a range of small business solutions to suit businesses with 1 – 250 employees like small and essential business server.  

2.   Providing support to small business low cost and appropriate training and support.  This is not just Microsoft at work here it is also a large group of small businesses who are in business as Small Business Technology Specialists to help other businesses. In addition to that there are also loads of blogs, articles, videos, and free hands on labs as well as community events where like minded individuals can collaborate and network.

3. Making it affordable.  This is itself about helping you to choose the appropriate solution and then assisting in financing that option. 

So where do you get all of this from?  The Microsoft Small Business site.  Given that 68% of IT professionals work for small businesses (and like I said, many of Microsoft’s partners fall into this category) it’s something I wanted to mention here.

Finally Viral and I are doing our bit by running TechNet events to show how to get the most out of the aforementioned small and essential business servers, the next event is in our London Offices in Victoria on the afternoon of 29th October.

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