Networking for Fun and Profit

When asked how he thinks about computer networking, one small business owner replied: "As little as possible, right up there with data backups and virus protection." That's a fair answer for two reasons. First, you do have to think about networks at least a little, because companies run on information. If you don't agree, think how far your company would go without your accounts receivable or your customer list. Second, like data backups and virus protection, your company network should just work. You shouldn't have to think about it much. However, there is another way to think about your networking, and that's where the profit, hence fun, comes in.

Most companies start out with very basic networking. As soon as you attach a printer to your first desktop computer, you have a simple network. As companies add desktop computers, they graduate fairly quickly to a peer-to-peer local area network (LAN), wireless, wired or both, that allows the computers to share devices such as printers and scanners and allows users to access files on each other's desktops (assuming the other user's computer is up and running) or on a dedicated PC that's used as a print and file server. If the office has a shared Internet connection, they've invested the $50 to $100 to get a router with firewall software to protect against unauthorized access from outside the office network.

This is the point where a business owner has the network in place and just wants it to work. But this is precisely the point to start thinking of the network as a tool to transform your company, to make it more responsive, more competitive, and ultimately, more profitable. Think of it this way. Information is your most valuable asset, the lifeblood of your company. The better it flows, the more productive your people can be, the better you can make decisions, and the more responsive you can be to your customers and to the market. And if information is the lifeblood, your network is the circulatory system and your server is the heart that pumps information to where it's needed.

So, instead of thinking about the network as little as possible, think about where better information flow could make your business healthier, and how to use your network to get it there. Consider the possibilities.

Inside your office: If information is sitting on separate desktops around your company, it's time to get it moving and working for you. What if your staff never had to wait for information: how much more productive might they be? What if everyone on the service desk had access to all a customer's order history and current order, account information, and any trouble reports. What if your marketing people had current order information all the time, so they could see how a promotion on your web site is working and tune pricing or other terms for best results?

You already have a network. To take your business to the next level of information flow, you can centralize business information in a database on a more powerful server, so your whole staff has full-time access to the information they need. Applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) help bring information together so that it can be used by multiple users and across business processes. So, for example, a customer order can be viewed by staff in sales, production shipping, finance, and customer service, allowing everyone to coordinate their efforts and respond quickly to that customer's needs. Centralizing and integrating information in this way is a big step, but it's simpler and less costly than you might think. Your current IT advisor or system integrator can help you identify requirements, choose hardware and software, and set it up. And many companies find that the investment pays for itself in a matter of months.

To employees outside your office: Whether it's your sales force in the field, staff in remote offices, or just employees on the road, your staff can be more productive if they have access to information. Once your data is centralized on a server, you can set up remote access so that employees can log in to your network and get the information they need.

The biggest issue for remote access is security: how to give employees access to your systems through your firewall, while keeping unauthorized visitors out. You could have remote employees dial in to your network and just enter a password, but password protection alone is easy for computer hackers to break, and dial-up requires a dedicated line for each remote user who is logged in. Instead, many companies choose to set up a virtual private network (VPN) because it provides better security and is a more cost-effective way to support more than one remote user at a time. A VPN uses special security procedures to create a private network on top of a public phone network or over the public Internet, so the number of users is limited only by the capacity of your office's Internet connection. VPN solutions range from free downloadable software (with limited features, limited number of users, and no support) to hardware "appliances" that attach to your networks, or hosted VPN services. The right solution for your company depends on the amount of protection you need, the number of remote users, and your budget.

To customers, vendors and business partners: Why would you want to give outsiders access to your business information? Because it can save you money and help your bottom line. For instance, letting your customers look up order status for themselves can free customer support and sales staff for other work. Using supply chain management (SCM) software, you can automatically send your suppliers orders when your inventory of products or materials runs low, avoiding delays in production and sales so you can book revenue faster. Or you could let resellers access the latest product and pricing information any time, so they can sell your products more effectively.

You don't want or need to give these outside parties access to your internal networks, but you do want to share selected information without making it available to the general public. (Or to your competitors!) Supply chain management solutions are designed to provide some level of secure communication between you and your suppliers. The most common way to provide self-service information to customers, resellers, and business partners is through an "extranet." Besides creating private web sites (also sometimes called "portals"), extranets have features for web publishing so, for example, your marketing people could publish a new reseller promotion on the web site without web programming help. They also have features for "targeting" information to specific users, so that resellers or customers in one region or category could see a different promotion or pricing structure than those in another.

Like VPNs, extranet solutions come in different forms, from software on your internal network to hosted services. And, like VPNs, the best solution depends on your company's needs and budget.

Granted, it's not fun to think about the mechanics of setting up a network, internal or external. But for the most part, you don't have to. Once you've figured out your goals and requirements, your IT advisor or system integrator can make it happen. Your job is to consider the possibilities, to envision your company running better, competing more successfully, achieving more profit. Now, isn't that fun?

By: Anita Osterhaug, Technology Reporter

Look Ma, No Cables: Wireless Networking for Small and Medium Businesses

Some businesses view the adoption of wireless networks as the equivalent of riding a bicycle with no hands. If the point is to get from point A to point B, why risk adoption of a less secure, flashy method of travel? Indeed, local area networks (LANs) work well for many small and medium businesses, and wireless LANs (WLANs) are not right for everyone. However, it's important to set aside vague assumptions about wireless networks and properly evaluate whether they're right for your business.

A WLAN connects users to the Internet as well as to computers, servers, and other peripheral devices in the network, using high-frequency radio waves instead of copper and fiber optic cables. With wireless networks, users within range of an access point (a small radio communications device) gain continuous, high-speed access to the Internet, e-mail, server-based data, and more, using anything from a PDA to a laptop computer.

What are the advantages?

Wireless networks offer several general advantages over wired networks. The first is obvious: no cables. Wireless networks are easier to set up, largely because cables are not involved, and WLANs handle site moves, office rearrangements, and additional users more easily than their wired counterparts. Fortunately, the lack of cables does not translate to a lack of compatibility or security. WLANs can work in conjunction with your existing servers and other network devices, ensuring the same type of performance and security that exists on wired networks.

Wireless networks also support mobility in exciting, even revolutionary ways, that make office walls seem like old-world conventions. Employees, customers, consultants, visitors, and others can access the network from anywhere within the coverage area--conference rooms, warehouses, break areas, etc.--not just from isolated desktops. Users in these varied locations can be more productive, accessing updated information, sending or receiving files, and exchanging e-mails and instant messages quickly and easily over the network.

And that's just what happens in the office. At remote locations, like home offices, hotspots, and field offices, employees and others can use virtual private networks (VPNs) to tap securely into the office WLAN and the information stored on servers. By creating secure channels between the outside user and the main office's wireless network, VPNs enable users to access updated information such as price lists and delivery schedules, and transmit data from wherever they are. For many businesses, the result is improved customer service and increased productivity from mobile employees.

Who needs wireless networking?

Wireless networks spark the imagination. They encourage new ways to communicate and collaborate, and they inspire ideas about how to make the traditional office space more dynamic. The question is which small and medium businesses would benefit from these changes to conventional office practices.

To decide whether wireless networking is right for your business, it helps to think about how work gets done now and whether it could be done more efficiently with a WLAN. For instance, consider these questions:

* Would meetings be more productive if employees, clients, and others at the meetings could access and share networked information?
* Do mobile employees--or even employees down the hall or in a nearby warehouse--need immediate access to updated information, such as inventories and shipping status?
* Do you struggle to find places to connect new or temporary employees to your LAN?
* Do you have sales representatives or other mobile employees who sometimes need to come into the office and access the network?
* Would employees be more productive if they could access the network while they're away from their desk, such as when they're at home, visiting with clients, or giving presentations at other offices?

Who can help?

The most important thing to know about setting up and deploying a wireless network is that--although the process is not overly complex or costly--it is best to consult a trusted adviser or vendor. Such expert assistance can allay the fear many businesses have of installing a WLAN that is not secure. An adviser can ensure proper security protocols and monitoring methods are in place.

Additionally, an adviser can walk you through the many basic issues you should examine when determining the basic design of your WLAN. For instance, you'll want to consider:

* Number of users
* Coverage area
* Preferred network speed
* Types of devices that will be used (PDAs, VoIP phones, laptops, etc.) and the priority they have when connecting to your server
* Future needs

After carefully evaluating these and other concerns, you and your adviser can plan an effective deployment, which will include deciding which WLAN standard--from 802.11a to 802.11i--best meets your application requirements and usage patterns.
It's your call

In the end, deciding whether to invest in wireless technology should, like most business decisions, be based primarily on the anticipated return on your investment. Businesses should evaluate the cost of implementing WLANs and compare those costs with the long-term benefits, including increased productivity and decreased installation costs.

So, is it time for your company to go wireless? The answer depends on the unique characteristics of your business and your anticipated ROI. What can be said with certainty, though, is the time has arrived to weigh the pros and cons and make the call about whether wireless networking is a smart investment for your business.

By: LeeAnn Kriegh, Technology Reporter

I have Windows 98 (or NT) on my office PCs. Should I upgrade to Windows 2000?

Information Technology mentor Glenn Weadock responds:
This is the question on the minds of millions of Windows users since Windows 2000Professional debuted February 17. Windows 2000 is the "workstation" version ofMicrosoft's latest operating system family. It's an upgrade for Windows 95, 98, and NTWorkstation 4.0 users. The price (which varies depending on rebates but is at least $149) is pretty high for an operating system upgrade in this day of $500 PCs, so it's natural to askif the product is worth buying.

If you have Windows 95 or 98, I see no reason to rush out and upgrade right away as long as:

* All your programs are working reliably.
* You don't spend a ton of time on the Internet.
* You are not running Windows 2000 Server as your network operating system (if you have a network).

Upgrading to Windows 2000 probably makes more sense if you have annoying reliability problems, spend a lot of time on the Net, or run Windows 2000 Server on your network. Why? For one, Windows 2000 is demonstrably more reliable than Windows 95/98. Also, when Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Server run together, you get various benefits that you don't get otherwise. Finally, Windows 2000 shouldprovide you with a snappier Web surfing experience than you get with Windows 95/98.

If you decide to upgrade to Windows 2000, check Microsoft's Windows HCL (Hardware Compatibility List, which you can find at www.microsoft.com/hcl) to be sure your hardware is supported by Windows 2000. Try to check out all the specific components, not just the PC itself. A PC may appear on the HCL, but one or more internal or external devices -- such as a modem -- may not. Also, make sure your hardware is fast enough and big enough to run this bloated software product! You should have a Pentium II class processor and 96 to 128 megabytes of RAM to ensure a happy experience, despite the much lower published minimum requirements.

Finally, if you're buying one or more new PCs, look for machines that come with Windows 2000 preloaded. That's normally the cheapest way to obtain this operating system, and you also have the vendor's guarantee in this situation that all the hardware works with Windows 2000. Just make sure you get a Windows 2000 CD-ROM in the bargain; some computer resellers don't include the CD in the package. Thatleaves you high and dry if your hard drive heads south for the winter.

Bidding on Linux

It's cheap and it works. But can you run your company on Linux?

The Linux operating system is hot. It's cheap. And it works. But can you run your company on it?

Wearing a blue windbreaker with a James G. Murphy Co. logo on it, Julie Murphy stands in the company's muddy auction lot in Kenmore, Wash., just north of Seattle. As she looks on, men in flannel shirts and logging boots inspect the tires and climb into the cabs of the used backhoes and dump trucks that will be going on the block shortly. Each year Murphy's company auctions off some $30 million worth of this sort of heavy equipment, along with used police cars, tools, and even the contents of an entire restaurant or sawmill.

But today's auction is different. For one thing, nearly 1,500 bidders have registered, far more people than the monthly auctions usually attract. And there's more than the average air of expectation in the auction yard. That is largely because of just one item: a one-of-a-kind, baby blue 1971 convertible Plymouth Hemi Barracuda "muscle car." Seized by police in Everett, Wash., in connection with a drug arrest, the car is in mint condition. No one knows how much it will go for when the bidding starts at noon, but it won't be small change: the city of Everett has suggested that the minimum bid be set at $250,000. One fellow has flown up from Phoenix to try his luck. Other bidders are on the phone from places like Blue Springs, Mo., and St. Paul, Minn. "This is one of the most exciting things we've ever sold," says Murphy.

In a previous life, Murphy was a certified public accountant at Arthur Andersen. Now she is chief financial officer, controller, and office manager of James G. Murphy Co. The company was founded in 1970 by her father, James. Murphy's older brother, Tim, is CEO and head auctioneer. Along with her many other duties, Julie Murphy is responsible for the company's computers.

Not every small business will be able to (or should) jump on Linux immediately.

And this auction, like all the others her father and his fellow auctioneers have held for the past four years, will run on Linux. In the company's cramped mail room, Murphy proudly points to a metal rack sitting in a corner behind the copier. It holds two computers that run Linux, the software program that has taken the computing world by storm. Since 1996 -- long before most people had ever heard of it -- James G. Murphy Co. has been using Linux to run its auctions. Today the company uses the program to run almost its entire business.

Linux, a computer operating system, is essentially a version of Unix, the software that runs powerful workstations sold by companies like Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard. It has two big advantages over competing operating systems (like Microsoft Windows NT, for one), says Bill Campbell, the Seattle computer consultant who installed the Murphys' Linux system: It is dirt cheap. And it is incredibly reliable.

That reliability is important if you're in charge of a 30-employee family business running auctions that sometimes draw more than 1,000 bidders. This morning, while most of the crowd is jockeying for seats in the indoor auction hall to get the best view of the bidding on the Hemi 'Cuda, others are lining up in the office to pay for the heavy equipment and trucks they acquired during the morning's auctions. Using computer terminals and PCs hooked up to the Linux server, 10 cashiers are taking payments. All the information they need is already in the server: descriptions of the items to be sold were entered before the auctions began. Prospective buyers received bidder numbers when they arrived this morning. During the auction itself, workers frantically typed winning bids into the system, so when bidders come in to settle up, says Murphy, "you just punch in their number, and it tells you what lots they bought and how much they paid."

Just to be on the safe side, Murphy still uses every auctioneer's favorite manual backup system: slips of paper. That's how the business handled payments before buying its first computer in 1986. What would happen if the company's computer system were to fail during a huge auction like today's? It wouldn't be a pretty sight, says Murphy. "I would probably just jump out the window."

Fortunately, the system has never crashed. That sort of reliability is typical of Linux computers. "Some of our clients have Linux systems that have been running for a year solid," says Jim Capp, president of Keystone Programming Inc., a computer-consulting company in Harrisburg, Pa., that sells a lot of Linux systems.

Linux holds another attraction for small businesses: it is essentially free. That's because it was developed completely by volunteers, led by Linus Torvalds, arguably the world's best-known computer programmer after Bill Gates. Torvalds, who started work on Linux in 1991 while he was a student at the University of Helsinki, distributes the software free on the Internet. It takes patience and Web know-how to download it, however. So most people pay a modest price -- typically $30 to $59 -- to get Linux from companies like Red Hat Inc., Caldera Systems Inc., and Corel Corp., which provide it on a CD-ROM, along with manuals, tech support, and other applications.

Linux can also save small companies money because it runs well on older, less powerful machines. When Campbell installed E-mail and a firewall -- a security gateway between the company's computers and the Internet -- at James G. Murphy Co., two years ago, he used an old 486 computer that Murphy was preparing to jettison. "I could have sold them a new computer," Campbell says. "But Linux runs just fine on that computer, so why sell them hardware they don't really need?"

Linux also runs well on laptops, says Campbell. That's useful to Julie Murphy, because most of her company's auctions are run on location, sometimes at customer sites as far away as Texas or Virginia. Last November, for example, Tim Murphy and three employees headed off to the small logging town of Philomath, Oreg., where they auctioned off the saws, conveyor belts, and other equipment at two lumber mills. They took the auction software with them on an IBM ThinkPad 560 notebook computer running Linux. As with the computer system in the company's home office, the auction cashiers used computer terminals networked to the laptop to take payments.

Two years ago few people had heard of Linux. Then its impressive reliability and low cost started attracting attention. Now major computer companies like IBM, Dell, and Gateway sell it. It is widely used on the Internet -- 31% of Web sites are powered by Linux -- and Linux companies have pushed aside Web start-ups to become the hottest items on Wall Street. The initial public offering last December of VA Linux Systems Inc., a Sunnyvale, Calif., company that sells computers with Linux preinstalled, shot up 698% on the first day. That set a record for the highest gain made by a new stock offering.

As Linux has become more widely accepted, several large companies -- such as Burlington, N.J., retailer Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp. and New York City's Cendant Corp., which owns Ramada hotels and inns and Avis Rent A Car -- are starting to use it. Now small organizations as well are discovering that Linux may be a good choice for them. Sam Brown, a private investigator in San Francisco, uses three Linux computers to do research on the Internet and to pick up E-mailed reports from his six investigators. And the Paducah Sun -- a 135-employee newspaper in Paducah, Ky., with a circulation of about 30,000 -- bought a Linux system last fall to archive stories and photographs. The newspaper considered buying an archiving system running on a computer from Sun Microsystems but decided to go with Linux instead. "It was significantly cheaper," says publisher Jim Paxton.

Both Brown and Paxton were introduced to Linux in the same way that the Murphys were, through a computer consultant. That's now happening a lot, as folks like Campbell begin using Linux more and more. James G. Murphy Co. was the first of Campbell's customers to begin using the system. Now nearly all the computers he installs run Linux. "In the last year I've put in 3 systems on SCO Unix," Campbell says. "In the same time period I've installed at least 30 new systems running Linux."

Not every small business will be able to (or should) jump on Linux immediately. One problem: many software programs still don't run on the system, says George Weiss, a research director at the Gartner Group, in Stamford, Conn. Campbell's three customers who are not using Linux, for example, are running an accounting package from RealWorld Corp., in Manchester, N.H., which doesn't work on Linux. And Microsoft, which views Linux as a threat, has yet to issue such software mainstays as Word or Excel for Linux.

The lack of Microsoft Office apps isn't necessarily a showstopper, however. Julie Murphy, for example, is using an office suite for Linux called Applixware, from Applix Inc., in Westboro, Mass. "If someone E-mails me a Microsoft Word file, it converts it cleanly," she says. "You don't know you're not on a Windows system."

Weiss also suggests that support can be a crucial issue. "Linux is no simpler than any other version of Unix," a notoriously complicated system, he warns. Small organizations that don't have a trained programmer on staff should make sure they have a Linux-savvy computer consultant to install and support it, he says.

Murphy was confident that Campbell knew what he was doing when he suggested switching to Linux. She's been relying on Campbell's computer know-how since 1988. "I don't care what the computer is running," she says, "as long as it works."

The bidders packed into the auction hall this morning don't care either. Not with that one-of-a-kind Hemi on the block. At a few minutes past noon, the crowd falls silent as the bidding begins. The first bid is immediately doubled to $200,000. A man seated high up in the bleachers waves his hand -- he'll pay $225,000. That figure is immediately raised by a bidder on the phone from San Mateo, Calif. In less than five minutes, the price has jumped to $350,000. The man in the bleachers drops out. It's now down to two: the bidder on the phone and a guy on the floor, who's practically holding his breath as he stands next to the car he hopes to take home with him.

There is a pause while the bidder on the floor converses on his cell phone and considers what to do. At last he bids $380,000. All eyes are now on the auctioneer holding the phone. Almost immediately he stabs the air with his hand, signaling yes -- the bidder on the phone will go higher. The man on the floor shakes his head. He's done. The car has just been sold to the bidder from San Mateo for $400,000.

For that amount of money, you could buy a lot of Linux systems.

Dan Orzech is a freelance writer in Philadelphia.

For more about Linux, see "Good Stuff Cheap" in Book Value.


By: Dan Orzech

Working Smarter With Microsoft Office

Are you using Microsoft Office integration to put an end to busy work?

A decade ago, it was very difficult to complete a mail merge between applications from different vendors' software packages. Don't miss out on one of the most compelling benefits of Microsoft's stronghold over desktop office automation software. Be sure to take advantage of the tight integration across Microsoft products.
Don't Retype It. Merge It!

What are some easy ways you can begin putting this integration to use? Two examples immediately come to mind: mail merge and financial statement tables.

Do you need to create automatically, some customized mailing labels, envelopes or form letters, but often end up settling for some low-tech, tedious, scissors-and-glue approach?

The Mail Merge Helper wizard in Microsoft Word makes it very easy to pull in address lists, or similar data, from such programs as Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Access. Don't even think about having your clerical staff retype the information!
Preparing Tables: Just Say No to Spaces and Tabs

Another small-business redundancy has to do with preparing financial statements within documents. In most companies, a CFO, accounting manger or controller prepares various financial statements in Microsoft Excel, and then passes the information over to an executive assistant to incorporate into regulatory documents, lender and investor updates, and annual reports.

Make sure your company isn't falling into this huge productivity trap. Be sure your executive assistant, or whomever is charged with pulling together these documents in Microsoft Word, is aware of simple, enormous timesaving shortcuts such as the Paste Special command on the Edit menu and the Object command on the Insert menu. All too often, I see the executive assistant retyping these financial statements from scratch in Microsoft Word, either by using the Insert Table feature or, even worse, by aligning text by using spaces and tabs. Ouch!
Be Diplomatic and Tread Gently at First

Not all companies will suffer from these same redundancies. But someone needs to take the time to go on a fact-finding mission in your organization to spot and remedy at least some of these inefficiencies.

Because of the sensitive nature of this, you may be better off leaning on your accountants or auditors for this task. In other cases, there's no reason a PC savvy office manager, controller or CFO can't preclude or successfully manage this exploratory work.
Discussion Points

* Do you have a hunch that employees are retyping the same information over and over again?
* Do your administrative staff members know how to fully exploit the mail merge features in the Microsoft Office suite?
* Does your financial and publications staff understand how to easily take data prepared in Microsoft Excel and seamlessly place it into Microsoft Word documents?
* Is there anyone in your company who's in a natural position to spend some time with each department or job function and look for opportunities to streamline workloads through more efficient use of Microsoft Office applications?

Joshua Feinberg (joshua@smallbiztechtalk.com) helps small businesses save money on computer support costs. His latest book, What Your Computer Consultant Doesn't Want You to Know ($19.99, Small Biz Tech Talk Press), exposes 101 money-saving secrets of expensive techies. To order Joshua's new book, visit www.SmallBizTechTalk.com or call 866-TECH-EXPERT (866-832-4397).

© Copyright 2002, Joshua Feinberg Small Biz Tech Talk is a registered trademark of KISTech Communications


By: Joshua Feinberg

High Concept: The Pen and Automated Teller

A new network of ATM-like touch-screen kiosks automates routine probation interviews for convicted felons.

High Concept

Almost 4 million adults are on probation in the United States, according to the Justice Department's latest figures. Most of them have committed felonies like drug possession, drunk driving, and shoplifting. The courts order them to report regularly to probation officers, who number 50,000 nationwide. That's a ratio of about 80 probationers to one officer. As Law & Order types struggle to keep tabs on the growing probation population, they are turning to the private sector for help.

AutoMon, a 20-person company based in Scottsdale, Ariz., has developed an ATM-like touch-screen kiosk that automates probation officers' routine interviews. AutoMon's Michael Mel says that 75,000 people each month report to 150 kiosks located in probation offices, police stations, and courthouses in 16 states. In New York City, monthly probation compliance has improved to more than 80% since the city installed the system in all five boroughs.

The system uses a biometric -- a hand- or fingerprint -- to ensure the identity of the person logging on to make his or her monthly report. The user is asked questions about address, employment, and whatever specifics an officer might add to the script. AutoMon's software conducts the interview using simulated speech (in either English or Spanish) to accommodate users with low literacy levels. If all goes well, the process takes two minutes. But whenever there's an aberrant answer, the probationer is asked additional questions. If he or she admits to a fresh arrest, an instant message is sent to alert the case officer that intervention may be required.

Although probation kiosks are unquestionably convenient for both parties, they do reduce potentially valuable face time between probationers and their monitors. But Mel points out that those who are assigned to kiosks "are mostly people who made a mistake and got into trouble, and their main objective is to comply with the court." Dealing with their cases electronically enables officers to focus on more serious cases, he explains. As Jerrold Alpern, assistant commissioner of New York City's Department of Probation, puts it: "The kiosks don't replace POs. They just enable them to be more efficient."

The probation population is, sadly, a burgeoning market: it grew 65% from 1988 to 1998.

The system is also cost-effective. Alpern says that AutoMon helps his department cope with budget cuts, enabling 7% of the workforce to manage 25% of the caseload. While New York paid AutoMon a flat fee (price of a starter kit: $60,000), some cities have opted for what Mel dubs the "offender pay" model, in which probationers themselves shell out $5 to $10 each month to use the system -- a clever turnabout of the old adage that "crime doesn't pay."

Incubator

High Concept: The Pen and Automated Teller
Dossier: Man of Depth
Main Street: Fine Dinering
60-Second Business Plan: Circular Logic
Business for Sale: A Blue-Sky Deal

Please E-mail your comments to editors@inc.com.


By: Kate O'Sullivan

Can't Find that Missing Document? Try Your Very Own Search Engine

A weekly look at the latest products and services designed to help you run a better business.

IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) have partnered to provide a search engine for small businesses.

Using Yahoo's search interface, the engine works within in a business' internal network in order to give small and midsize businesses fast and easy access to their own information.

The engine can be used to search within the company's network, including databases and data-management systems, but also to search the regular Internet.

The service stands as a direct challenge to enterprise search software sold by Google and similar products offered by Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP.

Launched Dec. 13, the basic search engine is free, but IBM plans to charge for advanced-search tools.

Personalized Gift Cards

With holiday season in full swing, MasterCard Worldwide (NYSE:MA) has unveiled a new online service that allows small businesses to personalize gift cards with their company logos.

Introduced Dec. 12 at MasterCardGiftCard.com, the gift cards can also be customized to include the recipient's name and an embossed message, and are available in any denomination from $10 to $500.

"We know that small-business owners are always looking for creative ways to positively showcase their business," Bruno Perreault, the head of MasterCard's Global Small Business and Mid-Sized Enterprises group, said in a statement. The gift cards are a "direct and easy way" to do that, he said.

According to MasterCard's research, 75 percent of small businesses are interested in having their company logo on a card.

Save Energy -- The James Bond Way

BioMETRX, a Jericho, N.Y.-based research-and-development firm, has announced plans for a new finger-activated programmable thermostat, designed for smaller retailers and restaurants.

The smartSTAT Thermostat will prevent unauthorized access to temperature settings.

In a time of rising energy bills, the product is designed specifically to address the problem of tenants or restaurant and store employees turning the heat too high or the air-conditioner too low.

Fully programmable and Energy Star compliant, the product allows an owner or manager to authorize up to 20 users to change the temperature settings.

Available next Memorial Day, the suggested retail price will be $229. By contrast, converting a company's HVAC system into a centrally controlled computerized system can cost thousands of dollars.


By: Peter Hoy