B2B Connection

Information and resources for technology buyers

2023 B2B Buying Disconnect: The Self-Serve Economy Is Prove It or Lose It by Megan Headley
Top eCommerce Strategies for 2023 by Neil Chandavarkar Sales

Organizations in many sectors use cloud management to optimize data, infrastructure, and services on the cloud. Cloud management techniques also help leverage cloud resources to develop and deploy software applications through APIs. The ultimate goal is to enable growth at scale and provide more flexible data storage, all while reducing cloud costs. Let’s take a look at the main elements of cloud management, and how your organization should approach it.          Elements of Cloud Management  Optimizing data use and app deployments on the cloud requires a combination of special management skills. This includes making important decisions about user responsibilities, team building, software tools, as well as data governance and security. Here are the 5 most important elements of cloud management that any organization should consider when working on the cloud.     Choosing a cloud environment Businesses need to consider three types of cloud environments: public, private, and hybrid clouds. Most private companies operate in the public cloud, through cloud service providers like Google Cloud, AWS, or Azure. Enterprises can choose to set up their private cloud architecture, with an exclusive data center and on-premises hardware. Banks typically go the private route, to provide extra protection for sensitive financial information.     The hybrid cloud […]

The right project management tool can turn your work from a cruel reminder of a middle-school group project into an efficient, effective experience. While we all recognize the value of project management software, the follow-up question is simple: What is it going to cost? By understanding the different pricing levels open to you, you can make the smartest decision for your organization. This includes pricing for tools for everyone from small businesses to enterprise-level corporations and everyone in between.  What is Project Management Software? Broadly speaking, project management tools are designed to support every step of the task process, from conception to evaluation. This is done by offering a series of tools, features, and organizational methods to help your teamwork perform at its best. For those looking for a charming, animated explanation of project management software, check out the video below by Zoho. How Do You Choose Project Management Software? If you are still in the process of deciding which project management software is right for you, we have you covered. Check out the link below for a comprehensive guide on how to pick the right tool for you. Pricing of The 5 Top Rated Project Management Software Here you […]

Computer-aided design software is unique in many ways. It allows you to transform concepts and imagination into reality with a precision previously impossible. CAD integrates with real-world machines to aid in the fabrication process. Pricing is an area where people may not anticipate this unique nature to continue, but it does. While most software is priced entirely dependent on features and scales in predictable ways, CAD can be strange. Students can get professional quality software entirely free, while companies will have to pay thousands. Free tools exist, as do open-source options. Armed with the quirks, costs, and benefits of these incredible software products, you can make the best decision for you. You might even save some money… What is CAD software? Ask users in different industries what CAD software is and you may get extremely different answers. Engineers use 3D design software. Animators and game designers use tools with a modeling focus. Fabricators need strict, detailed dimensioning.  Thankfully, none of them are wrong, and there is a CAD tool for everyone. Broadly, they fall into 2D and 3D categories, with the latter further divided into parametric and direct modeling. 2D tools are best for simple, component-based design with a focus […]

Software organizations and IT staff are some of the most skilled and avid users of cloud technology. This doesn’t mean they don’t need an upgrade. Powerful automation and monitoring tools can revolutionize their workflow. There are cloud management solutions for all kinds of cloud computing services: private clouds, public clouds, hybrid clouds, and multi-clouds. There’s software that’s separate from your cloud services, but there are also many solutions within Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure that you can use to manage your cloud as well.  We go over the different benefits of cloud management platforms. If you’re new to cloud management software we have a section that gives a brief overview.  What is Cloud Management Software? Cloud management software is designed to manage your resources on cloud computing platforms. The complicated part is the functionality of cloud management tools. The software used to be about cost and flexibility, but many new cloud services are offering more features to streamline the workflow of IT teams. Many groups use complex cloud applications, and need management for the costs, real-time metrics, the run time, and much more. Cloud management covers diverse needs and the capabilities will be different for each software. Below […]

If you need to investigate or research something, you need great software. Law firms primarily use eDiscovery software to organize electronically stored information (ESI) so they can sort through the evidence.  These tools are not limited to law firms. Government agencies and corporations have motivators for needing software to conduct internal investigations. eDiscovery software doesn’t need to be reserved for an investigation per se, but multimedia research and storage of important documents.  This article provides a list of some of the most popular eDiscovery service providers and offers recommendations on which ones might be right for you. Choosing the best eDiscovery software could be the difference between winning a case, properly investigating embezzlement, or keeping a special research secret.  What is eDiscovery Software eDiscovery software is a document review software. The software allows you to upload documents and then search for important dates, names, subjects, and other metadata classification fields.  The software is extremely search-dependent. The ability to search for specific information fast and accurately is crucial. Organizing the information in the database is very important for when you need to go back to something you already searched and classified. Functions that allow those search capabilities include filtering, tagging, culling, […]

eDiscovery software revolutionizes the functionality of law firms. In eDiscovery platforms evidence becomes electronically stored information, referred to as ESI. Today common evidence can be texts or social media posts.  This makes discovery software incredibly important because you will need to store and process ESI. eDiscovery tools are also brimming with features like metadata extraction and real-time data processing to streamline any paralegal’s workload. These tools allow for a level of efficiency and thoroughness that is both essential and impossible without them.  Utilizing software like this is a life saver, but it can kill small budgets. Does free eDiscovery software really exist? The answer is not really.  There are some affordable choices and some alternatives you can use while searching for eDiscovery software. You can jump to the section for more information, but if you are new to the concept of eDiscovery we offer a brief explanation. What is eDiscovery? eDiscovery means electronic discovery. eDiscovery software is a type of document review software. Discovery in the legal process is the evidence that is processed and shared by legal professionals. This evidence will also be shared with legal teams and the opposing side.  eDiscovery is meant to make your workflow easier. […]

Project management software is essential for helping your team collaborate. Before committing to a project management tool, however, you need to ensure that it has the right features and capabilities to suit your team’s needs. A startup working on several projects simultaneously will need software that can keep up with its rapid pace. A client-facing small business may prefer an all-in-one project management and CRM solution. Larger enterprises will likely need many different permissions settings and workspaces for all their users. We will explore some of the factors everyone should consider when choosing project management software. We’ll also look at some specialized features offered by some tools that might benefit your team. If you’re new to project management, you can watch this video first for a quick primer on what it is, and how it can help your business: Key Considerations for Choosing the Best Project Management Software Let’s look at several key factors to keep in mind when comparing options. Ease of Use The goal of using project management software should be to streamline your workflow. Options with an intuitive interface will make task tracking significantly less tedious for your team. Ease of use will mean different things depending […]

How you manage your data affects your company’s entire workflow. If you use a file system, there can be several rooms for error. The ideal system to store your data is one where you can customize, organize, and protect your data with. There are integrity constraints with a simple file management system. Your data quality will also be at risk without protection.  We will go over the advantages of database management systems. This includes the kinds of database man, the database structures, the different data structure needs, and the overall benefits of these systems.  What is Database Management? Database management, in the simplest terms, is organizing your data. This can be the lists of patients and their personal information. It can be your contacts, their information, templates you set aside for their correspondence. You can structure cloud applications in a database, as well as storage.  Your database needs will help you decide the type of database system you want and the type of software you may want to manage it. A database management system (DBMS) is what organizes and structures your imputed information. A service for managing a DBMS is not a DBMS. The DBMS is the actual database with […]

Marketing is the lifeblood of any sales-based organization. As a result, many strive to continue to innovate in this area. Experiential marketing, live marketing, engaging marketing, and many other titles are all labels for the same concept: immerse your customers in the product or service on a far deeper level than normal. In a sea of advertising noise, experiential marketing can cut through the competition and fatigue. It can also be harder in a global pandemic. With all these factors accounted for, we have assembled the hottest statistics, trends, and funding news in experiential marketing.  10 Hottest Experiential Marketing Statistics 75% of marketing convention participants felt more connected to a brand as consumers after an in-person B2C brand experience. (Agency EA 2021)  Only 50% of marketing convention participants said they felt connected to a brand after a virtual experience. (Agency EA 2021) 71% of B2B marketers and 63% of B2C marketers have planned a hybrid event in the last 6 months. (Agency EA 2021) Consumer Experiential Marketing’s 10-Year Growth Streak ended in 2020. (Cision 2020) Experiential marketing was projected to rebound in 2021 with 6.1% growth rate.  (Cision 2020) 32% of organizations report using in-person events or trade shows as […]

Customers today have high expectations for application performance and availability. Imagine the frustration you have likely felt when your banking application wouldn’t work or your navigation app took forever to load. Troubleshooting applications is challenging, especially given today’s trend towards distributed systems. It can be almost impossible to sift through countless logs of raw data to trace errors and identify their cause.  Application Performance Management (APM) software can ensure your customers’ expectations are met by helping identify errors and optimizing load and processing times. Enterprises have had a strong arsenal in APM to help optimize their applications, but it has remained out of reach for many small and mid-sized businesses due to its high cost. New open-source APM solutions are changing that. Large-scale frameworks are still likely limited for enterprise-level organizations, as well as those looking for advanced automation features. What is APM? Application Performance Management software is a set of tools that help monitor and optimize the performance of your software or web applications. There are generally three main features an APM solution might provide. Many open-source options will label themselves as application performance monitoring tools, while they offer slightly less comprehensive features. The software collects different kinds of app-based data, […]

The modern innovations in online technology allow you to work from anywhere because you can access your projects from the cloud. Most organizations today use cloud resources to some degree. In 2019, Flexera found 91% of companies were using public cloud options, 72% used private clouds. 28% of the cloud users also noted hybrid cloud options as a priority.  The increased use of cloud applications makes cloud management platforms (CMP) a priority for large data entries or teams that work with incredible amounts of data. Some aspects of cloud management platforms may be of use to smaller organizations as well, like protection or cost management.  In the next section, we’ll go into more detail on what cloud management software is, and why they’re useful.  What Is Cloud Management Software? Cloud management software seems simple–-it’s software created to manage your cloud-based resources. The complicated part is the functionality of cloud management tools. Cloud management software has many different use cases, and it’s evolved quite a bit to meet changing needs.  Cloud management used to be more about just cost and flexibility, but many new platforms also promise analysis, and powerful AI’s. This video goes into the evolution of cloud management based […]

eDiscovery software is a type of document review software. It’s used for uploading documents and then searching for important dates, names, subjects, and other metadata classification fields.  The software often comes with functions like filtering, tagging, and culling to streamline the process of sifting through documents. This type of tool accelerates research for court cases, projects, investigations, and more.  Imagine fast and accurate research all in the same place you store documents. It’s designed for organizing based on your needs, and answering the questions your projects ask. eDiscovery can be very niche to organizations or persons that provide legal services, but that’s not a rule. Below we cover more about eDiscovery and how software is used.  What is eDiscovery Software? eDiscovery essentially means electronic discovery or discovery that is virtual. Electronic discovery means the discovery is in the form of electronically stored information or ESI. In the legal process, discovery means the exchange of evidence that will be presented in court. This way the prosecution, defense, and legal teams will not be blindsided by unknown information.  eDiscovery platforms market their services as discovery solutions. The creation of discovery software comes from the need for faster data processing, better data management, […]

Computer-Aided Design, or CAD, software are fantastically powerful tools that can help turn your creative, engineering, and design concepts into reality. They are also often extremely expensive. As a result, many turn to the wonderful world of open-source software. For CAD tools, it is possible to get incredible functionality with none of the cost of premium software. Since CAD is an extremely diverse field of tools, we have highlighted some of the best options for a whole range of use cases.  Types of Open-Source CAD The following is a list of the niches we will cover, and the tool was chosen to represent them 3D modeling for Engineering- FreeCAD 2D modeling – LibreCAD 3D modeling for Games and Animation – Blender 3D Modeling for Engineering – FreeCAD There are a ton of options for 3D modeling CAD tools that are open source. FreeCAD is the best option for the highest number of use cases. The description they use on their website is the best way to describe this open-source tool; “FreeCAD really is a Swiss Army knife of general-purpose engineering toolkits.” FreeCAD allows for the creation of extremely detailed 3D models that can be exported in a huge array of […]

Cloud computing has been growing in popularity among companies of all sizes for years. The global cloud storage market is projected to increase from $50.1 billion in 2020 to $137.3 billion in 2025.  Compared to on-premise storage, this solution promises cost savings, better resource allocation, and improved security from data loss due to on-site server malfunctions or cyberattacks. However, according to a 2021 Flexera report on cloud cost in 2020, up to 30% of corporate cloud spending goes to waste. Cloud Management Software can help you optimize your use of data with customized features and storage that fit both your budget and your business needs.   Picking the right computing model Cloud Management Software is designed to improve the functionality of cloud usage. Buyers of cloud resources can choose from three different computing models: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). The model you choose will depend on business needs, your self-service capacity, how cost-effective it is, and how well it works with your cloud providers.  Smaller businesses will have more modest cloud management needs and fewer IT specialists to customize software features. In this case, finding a full SaaS solution with […]

Whether you store data with PostgreSQL, MySQL, or NoSQL, there’s a good chance that a database management system (DMBS) can save you time and headaches. Several factors can help you select the right DBMS for your organization. Consider your current database type, business needs, and scalability requirements. If you’re unfamiliar with databases, this video offers a great introduction to some of the fundamentals! We’ll guide you through evaluating DBMS products based on four factors: Pricing Existing Database Migration Functionality and Business Needs Scalability DBMS Pricing The perfect DBMS for you might as well not exist if it’s outside your price range. The range of pricing options is as large as the range of DBMS options itself. Free open-source DBMS products are common, like many other products in the database world. Vendors may also offer paid support plans or proprietary licenses built upon the open-source component. Generally, though, “free” is the starting point for open-source options. Yearly licensing fees and tiered systems are another common pricing model. Depending on your selection, yearly fees can range anywhere from under $100 to over $2,000 per user per year. Cloud-based vendors may charge a per-hour or per-resource fee in addition to licensing fees. These […]

Project management software is a valuable tool that can help you organize and collaborate on projects of any type or scale. You may need a customizable tool with plenty of automation. You may prefer a simple and intuitive interface, or software that is well suited to your development team’s agile workflow. You can take advantage of these useful features at no cost with free project management software. No matter what features you’re looking for, we’ve found the best project management software you can get for free for you and your team members. What Makes the Best Free Project Management Software? All the tools on this list were selected for their feature-rich free versions and suitability for different use cases. Below is a quick overview, before we cover each tool in detail.  Software Tr Score Free Version Limitations Biggest Pro Biggest Con Jira 8.2 10 Users, Unlimited Projects, 2 GB Storage, No Customer Support Integration with DevOps Tools and Support for Agile Workflows Can be Complicated to Learn, Only Designed for DevOps Trello 8.4 Unlimited Users, Unlimited Workspaces (Teams), 10 Boards per Workspace Efficient, Intuitive Interface Free Version Only Includes Board View ClickUp 8.8 Unlimited Users, Unlimited Tasks, 100 MB Storage, […]

TrustRadius announces 413 awards for software that has Best Feature Set, Best Value for Price, and Best Relationship

Fleet management software can revolutionize the way your organization does business, but not everyone has the budget to pay for it. Others may simply want to explore cost-saving alternatives to paid options. The best free fleet management software balances limitations and features in a way that is well-suited to your use case. Here are the best free fleet management tools, where they shine, and who they are right for. What is Fleet Management Software? Business software can often be named in vague or confusing terms; this is not the case for fleet management software.  Broadly speaking, this type of tool is designed to help you manage your entire collection of vehicles, drivers, and any incidents that may occur on the road. More basic options are simple logistical tools to help you stay organized. Advanced systems can track real-time location, fuel usage, efficiency, and much more.  If you are looking for a quick recap of how these tools work, check out the video below. How do you choose the right Fleet Management Software? With the host of options available, it’s possible to feel drowned in choices and to not know what you should be looking for. If you are unsure what […]

Computer-aided design (CAD) software allows you to create models, designs and simulations in ways that would be time-consuming, more difficult, or even impossible to do without it. CAD in its simple forms can be simple tools that turn the design process digital. More expansive versions are vastly complicated rendering and modeling features using material simulation.  This piece is great for those who know what they are looking for in a CAD tool and need a little guidance, or complete novices. Here you will learn the huge array of what CAD can do, and how to make it work for you.  What is CAD software? CAD software has a broad series of tools created to help you turn your concepts from mental image to some sort of design or representation. CAD tools were some of the first complex tools to come out of computers once they were capable of doing so. In the 60’s, IBM developed some of the earliest CAD tools, and they have only exploded in capability and popularity since.  Different types of CAD software CAD software can fall into two categories, and be further subdivided from there. The two major types of CAD tools are 2D and 3D.  […]