LSQHA Blog Reviews

Sugar CRM is launching a new user interface as part of Sugar 6. It comes with a focus on what is becoming a prerequisite: an emphasis on speed, search and deeper integration with third party applications and mobile devices. The speed issue is one that SaaS providers always seek to mitigate as they want the service to seem as responsive as if it were worked on the desktop. Sponsor To do this, Sugar CRM is providing a revamped set up that when completed is supposed to be optimized for speed and designed for the experience that comes with using a social network. It includes a new, global search, another effort to optimize the experience for the end user. Search is becoming increasingly critical as more data is available for integration with third party apps. Sugar CRM will strengthen its search with an open-source engine such as Lucene . SugarCRM is paying close attention to the user experience, knowing it is a key to acceptance among users of CRM environments. SugarCRM also includes native application support for the iPhone Android and the Blackberry. The company has also introduced a native app for the iPad. Application integration is the hallmark of the emerging social CRM application. SugarCRM fits with LinkedIn, Hoovers and Jigsaw through its Cloud Connectors service, which connects third-party data service. SugarCRM also works with Sugar Plug-Ins for Microsoft Outlook, Word and Excel. But can't this all become a bit overwhelming? All this data flowing into one CRM environment means that the customer needs to think carefully how to organize, discover and share what comes into the network. That's why it makes sense that a search and potentially analytics component will become standards for services like SugarCRM. It's also why SugarCRM has a certain advantage. Open-source platforms will thrive in the data deluge to come. Third-party services become critical as components that make sense of internal and external information. It's just a matter of how those applications are applied so customers can get relevant information that they need for the opportunity at hand. Discuss

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SugarCRM: Speed, Search and the Data Deluge

Although the median age of CEOs is 54, one of the fasted growing demographics of entrepreneurs is young people. According to a survey by JA Worldwide almost three-quarters of high school students indicate an interest in becoming entrepreneurs. Although there are a few college programs dedicated to entrepreneurship, even with the preparation from a college degree program many young entrepreneurs can flounder . To help remedy this, Under30CEO.com has collected advice from its users and offers "Young Entrepreneur Advice: 100 Things You Must Know!" Sponsor Many of the tips echo the idea that it's a cold, hard world out there, and that young entrepreneurs would do well to hire great people, to delegate administrative tasks to others, and to develop strong professional and personal networks, not just of potential customers but of others more established in their field. Some of the notable themes: Know Your Market : "I wish I'd know how much easier it is to build a business around an established market that's already looking for a solution to its problems rather than trying to build the market around the business I wanted to start." - John Crickett Money Matters : "Finding the right Accounting / Financial Manager right up front was our biggest learning and biggest mistake. Completely changed our financial performance and caused us to hit a wall we should have avoided." - Mike Cleary Don't Worry too Much about Education : "It is OK to trust your instincts - even when they are not necessarily backed up by years of finance/accounting or business school credentials" - Jenn Benz Learn to Manage People : "I wish I would have known that the hardest part of owning and operating my own business would NOT have been how to create revenue on a monthly basis. I wish I would have hired a full time IT guy and a shrink to manage with my sales force!" - Bradley W. Smith Have a Business Plan that Includes an Exit Strategy : "Have a serious exit strategy & plan prior to opening doors. As an entrepreneur I was ready and willing to take the plunge to open my own company, but didn't realize I had to structure my company around the exit strategy (i.e. make it sellable and transferable, and self sustaining without my everyday presence)." - Christopher N. Okada Cultivate Strong Support Networks : "I wish that early on I had sought out more business leaders in my field. It wasn't until I was a bit older that I realized the value of the knowledge to be learned from veteran industry players and how it could help me grow my business." - Jim Janosik Take Care of Yourself : "You can't put your life on hold while waiting for your venture to hit. I have tremendous regret around all of the family events, vacations, and time with friends that I missed because I was working on getting my film/company off the ground." - Pamela Peacock You can read the full post here . What advice would you add to this list? Discuss

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Entrepreneurs Under 30: Advice From Your Peers

Last night, Opera announced that its mobile browser, Opera Mini, had been accepted into the iTunes AppStore after being submitted just under three weeks ago . So, now that the iPhone finally has a browser alternative, how does it fare in comparison? Is it worth running out and getting or should we just stick with the safe old Safari and move on with our day? If you've used Opera Mini for other mobile platforms, such as Blackberry or Android, then its pretty much the same. But, for those of you like myself that haven't, here's what we have to say about it. Sponsor Opera Mini is a full-featured browser that brings some things to the table but falls short on others. While we enjoy the tabbed browsing in comparison to Safari, the zoom feature is not our favorite. We're not quite sure if you actually have to do the pinch gesture to zoom or if a double finger tab does it - the mechanics of it are a bit off. And if, like myself, you have some stubby nubs for fingers then the inability to zoom in as much as you want can be a problem for tightly packed UIs. A main hitch in using Opera on the iPhone, however, is the inability to set it as your default browser. Opening up links in your Twitter client will still bring you back to Safari, as will opening up PDF files in Opera. You're constantly reminded that Opera is number two in line and, even if you place it in the dock at the bottom of your screen, Safari is never far behind. We asked Opera if the iPhone version would be able to take advantage of HTML5 and Javascript and were told that, while Javascript works "surprisingly well", a spokesperson could not say that Opera Mini "takes full advantage of HTML5". Opera also told us that the iPhone version will generally work with bookmarklets for services like InstaPaper and ReadItLater. In all, Opera seems like a viable alternative to Safari on the iPhone, but we're not sure that it can take over the number one spot. It has some bells and whistles, like the frequently-visited page startup page, but without being able to set it as the default browser, it will likely remain a second class citizen. What do you think? Will you be switching over to Opera for the iPhone, to whatever extent that you can? Discuss

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Opera Takes a Back Seat to Safari on the iPhone

Why do people care how Twitter will make money? "We won't know where we, the users, fit in -- until they tell us how they're going to make money," Dave Winer wrote a year ago this week , "And when they tell us, we may not like it." That's one reason why people care how Twitter makes money. Whether you're a person concerned that the popular social network you're investing your time and energy in might monetize in an anti-social way, or you're a skeptic who refuses to believe that the world-changing potential of Twitter is real until it proves itself economically viable - you probably heard that Twitter announced tonight it's got a plan for advertisements . You can breathe a sigh of relief; the plan is downright boring, just as it should be. Sponsor Advertisements will begin in search, with keywords being bid on and a single advertisement appearing with frequency dependent on its performance. Then the ads will be extended to 3rd party applications like TweetDeck and others. It's unclear who will use it, Tweetie got bought by Twitter last week and Twitterific has its own ads, but other apps will come and go, hopefully given the option (not the requirement) to show Twitter ads to their users. Finally, ads will begin to appear on Twitter.com, tailored to the interests of users, as easily observed by their messages published and received. This is great: it's relatively non-invasive, nothing too crazy, nothing terribly exploitive. Some people who insist on reading every Tweet in their stream will probably be annoyed once they find ads in it, but there are already lots of unofficial ads being published on Twitter and maybe this will break those people of the habit of obsessing over every little message. This is surely not the intention behind the plan, Twitter HQ itself is full of people who spend time carefully pruning their streams. Twitter's new head of PR Sean Garrett, for example, quit following NBC's @newmediajim and media analyst Shelly Palmer last week, something it's hard to imagine him doing for any reason other than concern about signal-to-noise ratio and an unhealthy concern with reading every one of the Tweets in his stream. But the point is this: it appears that no baby animals will be hurt in the making of the Twitter. Along with the big search deals with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and the forthcoming availability of power Commercial Accounts, Twitter appears to have found relatively non-violent ways to monetize. As long as the firehose of user activity data is in fact made more widely available and not kept from small innovators, and as long as regular accounts aren't handicapped in order to make commercial accounts more appealing - then these three plans together look pretty good. It's not banner ads, it's not sales of data to direct marketers, it's not licensing accessing to Direct Messages to the CIA. Twitter is at its best when it keeps things simple, when it stays out of the way and acts like a dumb, if textured, pipe. Put a contextual ad up to keep the lights on, what do I care? It's entirely predictable, shouldn't hurt too much and might even work. As Liz Gannes said so well in her headline at Gigaom tonight: "The Twitter Ad Model Revealed (What Were You Expecting, a Pony?)" Discuss

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Twitter's Advertising Scheme is Wonderfully Anti-Climactic

Google Docs now includes co-editing features, similar to Google Wave. The feature is one of several new updates to Google Docs that includes faster online access to documents and better formatting. The new features provide capabilities that enhance Google Docs on platforms such as the desktop or laptop. But the stark difference between apps and traditionally crafted web pages is evident as Google seeks the best way to present Google Docs on mobile devices. Sponsor The challenge is particularly vexing for the iPad. Google Docs does not run on the iPad due to the customized Safari browser that Apple created for the new device. Google Docs runs on a browser designed for the desktop, not the iPhone. Google focuses on using a single platform for its applications. To dive into the murky water of mobile apps becomes an investment decision that Google is still weighing. Instead, Google Docs will continue to be available solely through the mobile web browser on Android, BlackBerry and the iPhone with the capability to view Google documents and presentations. Spreadsheets may be edited on the available mobile platforms. The new features for Google Docs have a lot to do with speed and rendering, which allows for the co-editing capabilities. People may see what each other type as they work within documents, spread sheets or using the drawing feature. Up to 50 people may work simultaneously on a document with integrated instant messaging. The goal, in many respects, is to bridge people to the cloud by providing a high performance platform that is as responsive as a desktop environment. Commenting in the margin, real-time spell-check and the ability to float images anywhere in the document are new features that come from faster capabilities within the application. Spreadsheet features include drag-and-drop columns, auto-completion and formula editing bar. Drawing is one of the coolest new features. Drawings may be co-edited, downloaded into standard formats and copy and pasted into Google Docs. But the new features mean there has to be tradeoffs. Google Docs will drop offline capabilities, no longer available starting May 3. Offline access to GMail and Google Calendar will continue to be available. Google is at a cross roads. They will have to decide about how to move their applications deeper into a mobile environment. HTML 5 offers a similar experience to mobile apps. But native apps are so well-suited to a mobile environment. Just look at scheduling apps. The progression to find the route, schedule, stops and times can all be presented in simple, logical order. HTML 5 can offer a rich user experience, too, but apps are native and have a future as bright as traditional HTMl has had over these past several years. Discuss

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New Google Docs Features: Added Co-Editing Capabilities, Similar To Google Wave