Category Archives: small business

Facts About Small Business

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Everyone agrees on a broad level that small businesses are vital to the American economy. However, most people would be surprised to know just how important. The United States Small Business Administration keeps records and statistics on small business in the United States and some of their findings are surprising.

First, the typical perception of a small business as a mom and pop operation with just a few, if any, employees is not the entire picture. The Small Business Administration defines a small business as an independently business with less than 500 employees. There are an estimated 23 million businesses in the United States that meet that classification. In some smaller towns in the United States, these businesses represent a major source of employment.

In fact, small businesses as defined by the Small Business Administration represent 99.7 percent of all the employers in the country and employ half of all private sector employees. More than 45% of the private sector payroll is generated by small business. Over the last decade small businesses have accounted for 60 to 80% of all new jobs created on an annual basis.

Small Business IT – Why Thin Clients Fit in Small Business

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Introduction

Many small businesses are on a tight budget and scrambling to find ways to reduce costs. With IT often at the head of the line of budget cuts, what can the smart small business do to reduce IT overhead while keeping vital IT services available? One answer is using thin clients.

Using thin client architecture can do all of the following:

- Reduces your overall IT TCO

- Reduces your energy consumption by 30-50% (or more)

- Reduces equipment investment costs

- Reduces end-user training costs

- Reduces IT support costs

- Reduces network bandwidth usage

- Reduces data loss by centralizing storage

- Reduce data theft opportunities

- Reduces viruses and malware

- Eliminates the need for remote office servers

- Eliminates rogue software installations

- Increases network reliability

- Increases network performance

- Increases network scalability

- Simplifies network management

- Centralizing storage makes for easy backup and archiving

- Increases network security

- Increases network availability using fault tolerance and load balancing

- Increased hardware lifespan (7-10 years for a TC compared to 3-4 years for a PC)

- Adds desktop standardization

- Adds software license management controls

This whitepaper will look at how thin client architectures can be a perfect fit in today’s small business environment.

Thin Clients Defined

A thin client is essentially a stripped down computer in a client-server network which depends on centralized servers for processing and data storage activities. Often, the only software that is on the thin client is a thin OS like Windows CE or just a web browser used for generating the user interface. A remote desktop application is used for accessing the server across the network. The majority of the processing and storage functions are no longer on the client. The servers will be doing almost all of the heavy lifting.

Thin client technology originally started out as text based “dumb terminals.” From there the evolution of the client server architecture advanced to “graphical terminals,” then the popular X-Terminals of the 1990′s. Soon after that, Microsoft and Citrix came out with WinFrame which used Microsoft Windows NT v3.51 to allow multiple users to run applications from the same server. Later, Microsoft released a special version of NT 4.0, the Terminal Server Edition, or TSE.

Client server architecture never quite caught on though. Much of the hesitation to adopt the technology was related to falling cost of PC hardware and the markets greater familiarity with tried and true PCs. Still the technology continues to advance and mature.

There are three main components to thin client architecture:

1) A multi-user server Operating System which allows many users to log onto and work concurrently using applications accessible in protected sessions or “sandboxes.”

2) A thin client which may or may not have an onboard thin OS is used to connect to the server over the network. Some thin clients may only have a flash-memory based web browser installed. A thin client may not have any software installed and these are called “zero clients.”

3) A network protocol such as ICA or RDP creates the communication efficiency of thin clients by compressing the data and only using the minimum network resources needed. For the most part only keystrokes and screen refreshes pass over the network drastically reducing the amount of bandwidth necessary.

Small Business Organizations To Join

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For the small business owner, keeping up with all of the available benefits can be difficult. In addition, how does one meet the requirements for a minimum number of employees in order to find good rates on insurance? Unlike the larger companies, it’s not as simple as calling someone and knowing you qualify to participate. Many insurance plans require a minimum number of participants in order to offer group rates, so oftentimes the small business owner is left in the cold.

This is the point where a small busine4ss can take advantage of some of the various organizations that exist just for them. Various organizations offer different benefits for the small business organization, including those who come together as an association so that small business can take advantage of benefits previously only offered to large businesses. For examples, some credit unions offer insurance benefits to their members at group rates, while labor unions quite frequently have plans already in place for their members, no matter the size of the individual organization.

Each existing small business organization has its own function and plan for helping the small business owner. Some offer training in order for the business to grow in its knowledge of the product it produces, while others offer working capital to allow the business to develop and flourish. The government operates some of these organizations, while others are privately owned or non-profit organizations that are funded by major corporations. Whatever the needs may be for a small business, there is an organization there to meet those needs. The difficulty is not in an organization being in operation to assist with those needs, but for the small business owner to have the capability of locating these organizations when he needs the information. Thanks to the Internet, this process has become easier, but for a start up business, access to online sources may not always be an option. Fortunately for those who do not have online access, or choose not to utilize it, various books and publications are available to assist a small business in locating organizations that are specifically geared toward helping small businesses succeed.

When you re just starting out, it is very difficult to know all of the places to search for information, so another good source of information is your local university. Quite often the business development centers of the universities offer many different services to small businesses in the private sector. This includes information about start up funding, different types of financing based upon the scope of the business and its ownership, and training in essential areas of business ownership. In some areas, these classes are even sponsored in cooperation with the Small Business Administration and other small business development organizations.