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“April 19, 2010 – Mike Vetter of DataSync in Sioux Falls has been named the South Dakota Young Entrepreneur of the Year for 2010 by the South Dakota Small Business Administration District Office. DataSync delivers hosted and integrated business applications through its DataSync Suite and has been a client of the South Dakota Technology Business Center since 2007.

“We are very excited that Mike has received this honor,” said Rich Naser, the SDTBC’s executive director. “Mike has always demonstrated the tenancity and passion required to grow a successful busienss.”

Read more!

“In his 25 years, Mike Vetter has been a busy man.

He’s already founded a local technology company, DataSync, and serves as its chief executive.

Now, Vetter has been named the Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the South Dakota Small Business Administration District Office.”
Read more at ArgusLeader.com!

“Leading up to the SugarCon event, I will be highlighting some of our partners speaking at the event. SugarCRM has created an amazing ecosystem of technology, ISV and VARs in only a few short years. These companies are doing a lot of cool things that either tie-in to SugarCRM, or simply better enable your CRM deployment.

DataSync is one of those companies that helps you bring your CRM system to a new level – all in the cloud. The company provides an integrated platform…”

Read more at CRM Outsiders!

Businesses everywhere are feeling the budget crunch as our economy continues to struggle for recovery. Many organizations are moving to across the board cuts, requiring IT spending reduction. This reality is causing IT managers to ask the tough questions on how to deliver the same or better services at a lower cost.

The good news is that as technology has evolved, it has become less expensive. There are new business IT alternatives that can your organization substantially without reducing service or feature quality. I’ve outlined some specific options you can consider to add value to your business IT system while reducing your budget.

Spend less on equipment

• Instead of purchasing expensive business laptop or desktop computers, get your employees ‘netbooks’. Netbooks are small portable laptops that will run most standard office software and cost less than $300.
• If you have to buy classic computer equipment, focus on matching the need for performance with the computer you buy. Most users don’t need a fast processor and lots of RAM, and won’t need this for the foreseeable future.
• Don’t buy servers, use online software instead. Some specific examples are included below.

Consider replacing desktop/server software with online (web based) software.

• Replace your file server with a online storage product like box.net, which is a fraction of the cost of an onsite server.Instead of running an onsite Microsoft Exchange server, consider a hosted email service such as Gmail, Zimbra or HyperOffice. The average firm saves 70%.
• Use Quickbooks Online instead of the desktop edition. Pricing starts at free, and doesn’t require any servers, backups or complicated remote access tools.
• Replace Microsoft Office (which retails for $270 per PC) with OpenOffice, Google Docs, or Zoho. Most options are free or cost little.
• Replace expensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software (such as Seibel or SalesForce.com) with less expensive solutions such as SugarCRM.

Upgrades are an option, not a requirement

Most businesses have a 3 year replacement requirement on all hardware and software. The reality is that this often isn’t necessary or prudent for many businesses:

• Windows XP has worked fine for many businesses, and requires less resources than the newer versions.
• Hardware is now built better and lasts longer (a 5 year replacement cycle is now standard for many businesses).
• Applications that serve basic business needs can be used for a long time on a current version, or they can be moved to an online alternative.

Smart IT managers consider each service, the requirement of that service, then determine the required upgrade cycle. Across the board upgrades on a rigid timeframe cost more.

The bottom line is that by evaluating your requirements against new technology, you can save significant amounts. The traditional client/server computer setup of many businesses is being replaced by flexible online systems that cost less, are much more reliable, and can be scaled up and down as your business changes. Before spending, ask the tough questions and do some research, and you’ll fine that a better alternative awaits you.

“I liked the idea of making life more efficient.”- Mike Vetter

With a knack for business early in life, it’s not surprising that Mike Vetter is the founder and CEO of DataSync in Sioux Falls at only 25 years old. When asked if this was something he’s always wanted to do, he replied, “I didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘I’m going to be an entrepreneur.’ But it ended up that way.”

Over the years Vetter has started multiple businesses. “My first business,” he said, “was fixing rollerblades and ice skates in middle school. I started a home PC service business with a friend in late high school, early college. And then when I was in college, my first real venture was called Vetter Solutions and we did IT consulting and services and security.”

A native of Madison, SD, Vetter spent two years attending a Bible College in Canada before returning to his home town to enroll at Dakota State University. He graduated in 2008 with degrees in e-commerce and computer security.

It was during college when he was working at Vetter Solutions when he first saw a need for consolidated software that was delivered. “I just saw this opportunity that there was a better way to deliver software to these people. Small businesses needed this,” he said.

So what does DataSync offer? Vetter explains: “We consolidate business applications into a single package, and deliver them as a service to any web browser. There’s nothing to install or configure, you just sign up for the service and access the software on any internet-connected computer with a web browser” he said, adding, “Our customers have done some very useful things with our software.” Among the customers DataSync works with are Monster.com and LifeLight.

Though starting his own business was worthwhile, Vetter explained that the road to success was rocky. “Focus is key when you’re running a startup. When you’re getting pulled in a gazillion directions, you’ve got to figure out what it is you want to do.”

Though Vetter’s interests have changed since he was in middle school, one thing remains clear: Vetter knows business. He knows that to do well in business, he needs to work with people who are smart, hardworking and share his passion. “I work with the greatest people ever,” he said. “I have so much respect for them. The people on the team here are smarter than I am in their respective areas. I intuitionally try to be the dumbest guy in the room.”

While the DataSync team is very specialized, Vetter focuses on team building to ensure that his team is both cohesive and heading toward the same goal. “We talk about it a lot. These people are really good, and their ages range from their mid-twenties all the way up to their 50s. They’re very diverse, but very cool people. I’m just blessed to have an incredible team.”

So where did he get the idea for DataSync? “I was a nerd in high school,” he explained. “I just played with a ton of technology. I was just one of those guys that liked to tinker with stuff, so I built computers, set up networks and built a backup system just because I thought it was interesting,” he said, adding, “I liked the idea of making life more efficient. I think that’s why we’re talking about simplifying stuff for our customers, because I just thought everything was too complicated. There’s too much gobbleygook that goes along with computers and I wanted to simplify it. So that’s how I came up with the idea for DataSync. It made sense to simplify this stuff.”

With so much technology in the world, it’s easy to get frustrated, and that’s where the DataSync team steps in. “[Technology exists] so people can do people things and computers can do the boring stuff,” said Vetter, asking, “Why else would you have a computer?”

“Make it work for you,” he said. “If you put data in, it should just be available to you. You shouldn’t have to move it from here to there manually. That’s why our software exists. It’s so people spend less time keying in information multiple times and hooking this computer to that computer. It’s just simple.”

South Dakota is seeing growth in technology, and fueling that growth are entrepreneurs like Vetter who believe keeping talented people in South Dakota is key. “If there was a large talent pool here, [South Dakota] would be the silver bullet,” he said. “If we can figure out a way to train people to be rock stars in technology, everyone will start businesses here.” Why? Vetter believes that South Dakota offers many reasons to start a business in the state.

“There are huge, huge benefits,” he said, noting in particular the low cost of living that allows companies to stay competitive. And while working in South Dakota has advantages, he said that there are reasons to consider living in the state as well.

“There are good people here. We’re in the Midwest. People work hard, and they have an ethical, moral underpinning.” he said, adding, “You don’t see that everywhere, and I think that’s awesome. I think our quality of living is higher because of access to great hunting and outdoor recreation, while still providing excellent career opportunities. Because of this, Sioux Falls was rated one of the best places to live in the country. Personally, I think Sioux Falls is just a great place to be.”

Vetter understands that opportunities in other states sometimes carry people away from South Dakota, saying, “Opportunity can’t be pinned down to just one place.” But instead of flocking to another state to find opportunity, why not follow in Vetter’s footsteps and create your own?

“It’s a fast-growth market,” he said, “It grows at 21% a year, so there’s room [for growth.]”

The election results are officially in, and Barack Obama will soon be at the helm of our great nation. He’s built “change” into his mantra, a theme that’s also closely tied to technology. Indeed, Obama built the largest internet-driven grassroots campaign movement in history, has 2.5 million Facebook friends, and is frequently seen typing on his Blackberry. However Obama faces a daunting challenge to  modernize our government’s IT systems.

It disturbs me how many manual “paper pushing” processes still confront me when I deal with our government; processes that have long been fully automated in the business world. For instance, when I voted yesterday, my name was crossed off a paper list and I filled out a paper ballot. Databases and computer terminals have been around for 30+ years, why aren’t we using them for voting? The savings of a fully automated system would be in the tens of millions!

Technology has the potential to help our government become drastically more flexible and responsive. Leveraging technology can also help our government become much more efficient, saving taxpayers money and cutting deficit spending.

What are Obama’s tech claims? According to Obama’s campaign website, he intends to appoint our nation’s first CTO (Chief Technology Officer). The federal government is currently plagued with a highly proprietary and legacy technology system that isn’t connected. In the past, each government agency has chosen their own tech infrastructure, making many systems incompatible and isolated. Creating a centralized decision making body for IT in the US makes sense.

The challenges facing Obama and his administration are immense. In our experience working with government entities, the problems inherit in integrating highly customized and proprietary systems are daunting. Convincing highly opinionated technical people to work together on a national information system will be a frustrating to leaders as well. Technical people like myself are known to society as inflexible and focused on pushing our opinions on implementation, not on moving forward. Technical leaders throughout government must shed this attitude and work together closely to implement a stable, integrated, secure, and flexible government IT architecture. Obama must also deal with “old school” government officials that do not understand or embrace technology. The United States is now competing in a global economy, and to compete taking advantage of efficient systems is a must.

If successful, these changes will eliminate paper forms, standing in lines to register vehicles, voting registration and many other manual tasks. This could all be done online from a single secure interface. Disasters could be quickly assessed and responded to with unified communication, asset allocation, and satellite driven systems. Vast information pools that are stored today in isolated data centers could be connected, organized, and accessible by all areas of government. Intelligence could be gained on-demand through properly networked law enforcement and submitted by qualified individuals.

Although our government today is at the dawn of these capabilities, a properly designed and managed system could give America the edge to win in the long-term global economy. I hope Obama and his new administration will follow through with promises to use tech to improve our economy and government. The benefits to America both financially and to the lives of its citizens are immense. Achieving success will be daunting. Good luck, President-elect Obama!

Yes, the title means exactly what you read. Less technology is better for small business. Buying and maintaining servers, complicated networks, and worrying about security is expensive and can put a drag on your business. If you’ve had a bad experience with technology in your business, you’re not alone. A typical small business doesn’t have the necessary time and money to build a robust technology infrastructure. The result is a ill-maintained, often crash-prone software system that doesn’t work well and angers its users.

So what’s the solution? Getting rid of internal technology and subscribing to SaaS – or Software as a Service. It’s business software that’s delivered securely over a web browser. All you need is a simple laptop or desktop with an internet connection and a web browser. Tools like financial software, communication tools, project management apps, document management and retrieval are delivered seamlessly through the internet from a secure hosting facility. The tools that power most businesses can now be accessed securely from anywhere you have an internet connection. Because it’s delivered as a service, upgrades are free and included with the package. No more painful upgrades to the newest version that don’t load properly.

This trend is sweeping the industry. The model is built on monthly subscription fee for various tools, and these tools are stored securely in massive redundant data centers. This setup makes software extremely reliable and easy to access from anywhere. The Software as a Service (SaaS) market is forecast to grow to $19.1 billion in the next 3 years – at an annual growth rate of over 30%.

Right now the biggest concern for many businesses is that their information is stored with someone else. The reality is that the data centers used to deliver SaaS are compliant with stringent security standards, and information is vastly more secured than in your closet at work. Multi-site backup systems ensure that data is never lost. It allows even the smallest businesses to feel like a fortune 500 company with bullet proof software systems.

The best part about Software as a Service is price point. Because it’s delivered as a service IT becomes a fixed cost – no big surprises of having to buy a new server when the old one crashes. And for that matter you don’t have to invest $3000 in a server, just pay the monthly fee and have the whole thing taken care of. Most businesses start saving money the first month, and stack up savings as maintenance costs drop and productivity isn’t hindered by outages, backup loss, and configuration problems.

If you haven’t looked at SaaS, I’d recommend checking it out. Quickbooks now has an “online” edition, Exchange alternatives are delivered on the web. Many marketing, sales, and communication tools have web versions that are extremely robust. Overall the need for better tools that are more reliable will drive growth in SaaS in many small business, and maybe even yours.

Technology exists in business today for a single main purpose; to increase efficiency. Unfortunately many software packages today seem to become increasingly convoluted and inflexible. Sometimes information must be entered twice into two or more systems, and the tools themselves are complicated and expensive.

Then there’s web software – a new software delivery model allows businesses to take advantage of productivity tools that can be customized, integrated and are accessible from anywhere. The days of “shrink wrapped” software are numbered, and delivering flexible, customizable web software is finding a lot of traction. Rather than freezing what features are available, web software can grow and change with a business. It is also very secure. It’s stored in a secure data center and accessed with a web browser by taking advantage of the same encryption used for online banking. If your firm uses web software and your laptop is stolen, you don’t lose any confidential information.

So what type of tools are we looking at? One of the most popular new web productivity tools is mobile collaboration. It allows the user to synchronize their calendar, contacts, and email automatically between a mobile device, Outlook, and any web browser. It also allows users to view other workers calendars, schedule meetings, and share contacts. Another popular tool is “CRM”, or Customer Relationship Management. This tool allows sales professionals to track leads, project sales pipelines, and manage communication. These tools are just a few examples of what can be done with web software. Almost any business application today will be accessible from the web in the future, and many already are available.

This software is viewed through a web browser, allowing it to be accessed from anywhere. These applications can also be accessed on mobile devices such as Treo, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile devices. This is a great benefit for individuals who need to work from home or on the road. Studies have shown that mobile information access can add another hour of productivity to the workday of the average professional.

Another advantage of web software is integration. These tools can be connected to each other so information doesn’t have to entered multiple times. Although this is also possible in traditional software, it is generally much easier and more flexible in web software. For instance, a professional might enter contact information into his or her Treo device. This information is automatically sent to Outlook and entered into CRM software (Customer Relationship Management) software. Another example is tracking client information for quoting, billing, and inventory management from a single location.

Web software can also be purchased as a service. Rather than purchasing a server, buying the software, and deploying the solution, smaller companies can simply purchase access to the software. This decreases their overall cost, for example, from an upfront cost of $10,000 to a mere $100 a month subscription. This model helps small businesses take advantage of tools they previously couldn’t afford.

These tools help busy people do more in less time. Flexible software helps keep businesses organized, knowledgeable, and gives them a distinct competitive advantage. Web software is starting to gain major traction in the business world, and it’s worth taking time to learn how web tools fit your business.

Do you ever wish you could view a specific document when you were out of the office? Or wish that you could find more information about a client while out on the road? The days of working exclusively in the office are coming to an end, and the result is exciting! Enabling professionals to work from anywhere allows to these high-production people to stay “in the know” all day, no matter where their schedule takes them.

Mobile devices (often referred to as “smart phones”) are gaining widespread acceptance in Sioux Falls. It’s not uncommon to see Treo’s, Blackberry devices, and Motorola Q’s in the hands of professionals from a variety of businesses in the area. Most of these devices are used primarily to view contacts, schedules, and email. If you haven’t looked at purchasing one of these devices yet, it’s worth the time to review current product offerings (major advances have been made in the past 3-6 months). The average business professional can now add between a half hour and 1 hour of productivity each 8-hour workday.

What is most exciting about mobile devices is the capabilities they now posses. Mobile devices now allow users to schedule meetings over the air, collaborate on documents, view sales reports, help the busiest professionals remember tasks and appointments, and access a host of other productivity tools.

The most exciting development in mobile technology is the ability to access and manage CRM, or Customer Relationship Management software, from a mobile device. This allows sales professionals who are out of the office most of the day to write notes about prospective clients, add sales opportunities, trigger internal orders and workflow, and log customer service notes. It builds a much more clean, less fault-prone sales process. I anticipate widespread adaptation of this technology in business-to-business oriented sales teams over the next few years.

What does mobile technology mean to you? It will allow you and your workforce to become more productive, no matter where you are. It also helps professionals “fill in the cracks” between meetings, calls, and other disruptions. For many business people in Sioux Falls, time spent outside of the office is surprisingly high. Mobile solutions allow this time to be used efficiently and helps keep communication flowing.

For those of us in technology, our goal is to help you accomplish more in a day’s work, without working more. Or, for those of us who are involved with high-demand careers, this technology helps us burn out less often. Although mobile technology has the danger of creating habits of working all the time (work is no longer only at work), but if used properly these tools can help you work smarter instead of harder.

Mike is the CEO of DataSync, a Sioux Falls based firm that focuses on delivering productivity tools to businesses cost effectively. Mike has worked in technology for over 10 years and is passionate about bringing practical technology to the business world.

There’s a big movement out in the technology sector, and it’s taking the world by storm. It’s called the “open source” movement, and it’s gaining major traction worldwide. So what is open source? It’s a method for creating software centered around the idea of collaborative development. Instead of only allowing a small group of software programmers to build software, open source software is given away for free on the internet, giving millions of developers around the globe access to the code used to build software. This allows software developers access to improve and extend what the original developers started on. The result is software that is flexible, powerful, and very secure.

Opensource.org, the worldwide open source initiative, states that:

“Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.”

As the above quote states, the best feature of open source is that vendors can’t hold their clients hostage to their software (Microsoft anyone?). This allows businesses to choose software, modify it, and use it without major upfront costs.

How big is open source? Gartner recently published market research on this very topic. It states that by 2012, more than 90 percent of enterprises will use open source. Furthermore, by 2011, open source will become the primary software for cloud-based providers (massive data centers connected to the Internet).

Now you’re wondering, how can software companies afford to just give software away for free? It’s all in the model. Instead of charging large fees for access to their software, open source companies charge for the service, support, and enterprise features of the system. Red Hat has a market cap of $4.3 billion, and they give away Red Hat Linux away for free. However they charge for the services, support, and enterprise features of their package. Another company, Zimbra, was purchased by Yahoo for $350 million, and their software can be downloaded any day of the week at zimbra.com. Their revenue comes from the support and “add-ons” for their open source package. The model is superb in that these companies can make money offering corporate support, while still offering the tremendous advantages of the open source software model.

So what does it mean for you? In the future you won’t be required to pay insane license fees to big software providers to get software that locks you in. Software development companies aren’t going anywhere, but instead of holding us all hostage to their products, they will give software away, and make money by offering value added services and enterprise features. In order for computers and technology to really permeate our lives, we’ve got to be able to trust the technology that we depend on. Open source software is the development method for the next generation that gives developers the freedom to build the right software without the restrictions that current software is inhibited by.