Check it out - small business owner-designed products - Product Announcement

Home Office Computing, April, 1997 by Philip Albinus

Congratulations! As a small-business owner you've become the most important person in the computer industry--the technology producer's dream client. The age of manufacturers catering solely to large corporations is over because today your dollars are just as attractive. That's why we're drowning in new products that scream for your attention. Here's a rundown of what's caught our attention.

If you're like us, you need help making business decisions. We took a look and decided we liked the new SureFire Decisions program designed for Windows 95. The package ships with Quick Decisions and Precise Decisions wizards for tackling such tough choices as "Should I buy Microsoft today?" Beacon Rock, 972-562-5878, www.beaconrock.com; $79 --> Whenever we suffer from insomnia, we turn on our notebook, launch our Windows database, and promptly fall fast asleep. But thanks to the new EasyBase, our napping days are over. Instead of resembling a spreadsheet on steroids, this incredibly easy database uses a desk metaphor to store and manage documents and records. EasyBase Software, 714-262-2992, www.easybase.com; $149.95 --> AS die-hard Ecco Pro users, we were expecting the first Windows version of the venerable contact manager to blow us away. Instead, we're, well, a little underwhelmed. Although it remains an outstanding method for managing addresses and appointments, Ecco Pro 4.0 has added only a few new features, such as file synchronization, workgroup sharing, and mail-configuration wizards. NetManage, 408-973-7171; $139 (list), upgrade for $49 --> NOW there's no excuse for Mac users not to get organized. U.S. Robotics's Pilot MacPak lets you synchronize data between its Pilot handheld organizer and your Mac desktop. This makes the $250 Pilot one of the few handheld organizers that's both Windows and Mac compatible. U.S. Robotics, 415237-6000; $14.95 --> Tierra Highlights lets you grab updates to Web pages that change regularly. We loved this product because most entrepreneurs lack full-time Internet connectivity--the key to using the much-hyped "push technology" (bringing Web information to you instead of you having to find it). You schedule when the program should capture the information (say, during the night, while you're sleeping), and the product downloads the pages to your hard disk in time for your first cup of coffee. Tierra Communications, 613-591-8000; Win 95, Win NT; $49.95, via download from www.tierra.com --> Finally! Next time we're on a plane with a lousy in-flight movie, we're taking along one of the latest Versa notebooks from NEC. We were bowled over by the sound and display quality as well as the lightweight design of the new Versa 2600 series all-in-one notebook computer. These Pentium MMX-based notebooks start at $2,399. (NEC, 415-528-6000, 800-NEC-VERSA, www.nec.com).

---Compiled by Philip Albinus

Show me the money! You can't run a business without understanding your cash flow. The new Financial Tune-Up 97 for Windows 95 charts your business finances with break-even analysis, financial statement analysis, ratio analysis, and cash flow forecasting. With a click of a button, you can view different chart styles for each set of figures. Odyssey Computing, 619-675-3660; $99 (free demo at www.odysseyinc.com)

IBM has revamped its SOHO Assistant voice/fax-mail products (see "Lights Off,, Voice Mail On," June 1996, page 44) that store incoming faxes and messages when your PC is off. ComCentral ($309) adds voice mail to FaxCentral's ($199) fax features. ComCentral 33.6 ($399, shown here) further adds a 33.6Kbps data modem. The feature improvement we like the most? Memory upgrades to boost the still-measly basic 50-page fax limit. IBM, 800-426-2968, www.pc.ibm.com/options

So Hewlett-Packard thinks that its $499 Network Kit is a good deal? Ha! Linksys's Network Starter Kit includes a five-port hub, two PCI Ethernet LAN cards, and cabling. OK, so it only comes with two 15-foot-long cables (HP's is 52 feet--talk about cable envy!) and the kit is short one card compared to HP's. But we love the $135 price. Linksys, 800-546-5797, 714-261-1288, www.linksys.com