WARREN - It seems as though everyone has a personal Facebook page and a corporate fan page and hundreds, if not thousands of Twitter followers. Except restaurants. According to the National Restaurant Association (NRA), repeat customers represent more than 70 percent of the business done by all but ?fine dining? establishments ? and there it?s
WARREN - Michigan offers several business tax incentives that can help local companies by driving development and creating jobs. Specifically, the Michigan Research and Development (R&D) tax credit has been effective in lightening the load of tax liability and providing companies with additional dollars for new machinery and employees. We?ve all read in the papers
ANN ARBOR - Merit Network is pleased to congratulate Mike Richardson of REMC No. 1 (Regional Education Media Center No. 1) for being recognized as an Internet2 K20 Initiative Innovator. Internet2's Anchor Innovators Program highlights individuals from within the Internet2 K20 Initiative community who have exhibited excellence in technology support of community anchor institutions such
ANN ARBOR - Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that as Groupon prepares to go public, the success of its business model is in some question. I took a look at some data from our Top 100 study this year (data gathered in February/March timeframe), and I don't think anyone should be signing
BIRMINGHAM - I remember the first time the executive team of one of the Big Three Anti-Virus vendors explained to me their mobile strategy. It was the new consumer gold mine they were going to tap. "There are over 100 million smart phones and some day mobile devices will outpace all other platforms!" they would
GRAND RAPIDS - Have you ever played with clay before? I am sure you have, we all have. What was it like for you? For most people, playing with clay is at first a disaster. Clay is flying all over the place, nothing is taking shape, and your patience?s are running out. Suddenly, as your
WARREN - Social learning has become the latest application of social media functionality in the business world - the Next Big Thing. What exactly is social learning, whom is it appropriate for and how does it benefit organizations? When the phrase ?social learning? gets thrown around, what people are referring to is a learning environment
WARREN - Cloud computing services offer numerous potential advantages. Customers pay for such services on a subscription or on-demand volume basis, thereby eliminating the fixed costs associated with purchasing, implementing and maintaining IT capabilities in-house. The scalability of those services offers considerable appeal, too. At the Software as a Service (SaaS) level of cloud computing,
WARREN - Today, most independent software vendors (ISVs) are pondering their plan down the future software path called Software as a Service (SaaS). Some of these ISVs have embarked on the journey of re-architecting their software for SaaS and some are testing the waters with a few customers using hardware virtualization (such as VMware) that
WARREN - As consumers continue to move both their conversations and business transactions online, companies must select the customer service and support tools appropriate for the customer experience. With so much Web-based opportunity, there is tremendous value for businesses to improve customer service and increase sales within the online environment. To enhance the online customer