SMB Tech News Today; 4/19

analysis
Apr 19, 20071 min

* New legislation to revamp patent system. FINALLY! The Patent Reform Act was introduced yesterday. Grants patents to those first to file rather than first to invent, limits damages and has a new procedure for challenging patents. (Source: ComputerWorld) * Salesforce.com goes political. The Salesforce.com guys just introduced Campaignforce--a version of their CRM software designed specifically for politicians. T

* New legislation to revamp patent system. FINALLY! The Patent Reform Act was introduced yesterday. Grants patents to those first to file rather than first to invent, limits damages and has a new procedure for challenging patents. (Source: ComputerWorld)

* Salesforce.com goes political. The Salesforce.com guys just introduced Campaignforce–a version of their CRM software designed specifically for politicians. They’ve got an optional PromiseTracker to keep your candidate up-to-date on lies and even an interface to QuickBooks to track bribes. KIDDING! (Source: CNET)

* More useful to SMBs: Symantec offers disaster recovery. Symantec just announced its first software-as-a-service product, called the Symantec Protection Network-Online Backup Service (marketing-challenged). Disaster recovery is all over the description, but it boils down to online backup. (Source: Network Computing)

* Numara updates Track-It. Long-time favorite help desk and asset tracking app for my SMB customers, Track-It just went to version 8. Now has a redesigned and supposedly much more intuitive interface and also updated reporting so Track-It can better…track. (Source: Numara Software)