SMB Tech Roll-up: Access Free Cloud Storage via iPhone, An ECM for Small Biz

There have been a number of new releases that should appeal to SMBs this week including a new version of SpringCM’s cloud-based enterprise content management system. There’s even some free cloud space too.

SpringCM Upgrades ECM

News that is bound to go down well with SMBs is that SpringCM (news, site) has just upgraded its enterprise content management cloud platform to v5.6 with features that are designed to improve its document management and workflow abilities.

With this release SpringCM is really pushing it as an option for the SMB market, particularly companies that don’t have developed IT departments and who can’t afford to spend money on trying to understand how to deploy and use applications that they need to carry out business.

While there are dozens of new features the principal ones include new Attribute Sets and Repeating Attributes that enable granular indexing and search, and new document rules that make workflow and collaboration processes configurable out-of-the-box.

The company said that in this release, like in previous releases, they have focused on making it easier to implement applications such as contract management, bids and proposals, and invoice processing, without expensive hardware and software.

And this has been the pattern with SpringCM since it set up — upgrade platforms to provide only the applications businesses need at prices that are within the range of even small companies.

Why Did CA Buy Nimsoft Anyway?

You might recall during the week that IT management software company CA (news, site) announced that it has just closed a cash deal worth US$ 350 million to buy monitoring solutions provider Nimsoft.

The Islandia, NY-based giant said at the time that the acquisition will open up a whole new customer base of midmarket/emerging enterprises and management service providers (MSPs).

To understand what this acquisition will actually mean, Trac Research, a business-to-business market research and analyst company that specializes in IT performance management, has just published a short report that analyzes the deal and looks to where CA might be going with it. Entitled CA Acquires Nimsoft: More Than Cloud And Mid-Market Play? it says:

The acquisition immediately strengthens CA’s position in the mid-market, while allowing them to grow their managed service provider business … Over the last two years, CA did a good job of gradually changing its reputation from a company that is making acquisitions just to improve its revenue stream … to a vendor that has a very clear vision, and it is buying only the missing pieces to a large puzzle they had envisioned.”

From the technology point of view, Trac says, CA acquired one of the most advanced solutions in the market for monitoring the cloud and from the market point of view it strengthens their position in mid-market allowing them grow their managed service provider business in this sector.

However, integrating Nimsoft (news, site) into their business plan might not be as easy as CA thinks. Trac suggests that Nimsoft has had double-digit growth for the past five years because they had developed a very hands-on sales and marketing approach to their customers that CA might find difficult to swallow. The paper is free to download if you’re interested in reading more.

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Tags: ca, cloud computing, cloud storage, enterprise cms, erp, nimsoft, sayabit, search, smb, smb tech roll-up, springcm, trac research, workflow

There have been a number of new releases that should appeal to SMBs this week including a new version of SpringCM’s cloud-based enterprise content management system. There’s even some free cloud space too.