Top 5 Small Business Events By ChooseWhat

(PRWEB) October 10, 2012

While most of the United States have been focusing pretty heavily on the 2012 presidential debates, small businesses have experienced drastic changes over the past month. ChooseWhat.com, the small business start-up guide, has identified the top five most important events affecting small businesses and how they are impacting them directly. Is Congress trying to over tax the self-employed? Details on Apple’s new administrative features that could save small businesses thousands in operating costs, a new tech start-up works to eradicate computer viruses forever, and much more on these and other major tech events.

1) Contact Your Congressman -- Health Insurance Tax Issues for the Self Employed:
Did you know that there is a tax law that exempts all Americans who work for someone else from taxes on health insurance premiums, but not one exempting the self-employed? Since Congress failed to renew the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010, which permitted such deductions by the self-employed, there is now an additional tax on those self-employed professionals’ health insurance premiums. (via NASE.org)

How this applies to you:
There is now a bi-partisan bill introduced in Congress named “America’s Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2012 (H.R. 6102),” that would make the deduction of self-employed health insurance premiums from payroll taxes permanent. This bill also includes a provision that increases tax deductions for business start-up expenditures. However, there is only an estimated 3% chance the bill will be enacted. But, over the coming month every single U.S. Representative will be campaigning to retain their seat in the House, many touting a strong stance behind small business. Make them put their money where their mouth is by letting them know where you stand on this bill.

2) New iPhone 5 features that corporations and small businesses will LOVE:
The biggest tech news this past month was the iPhone5. While Apple hasn’t focused much on enterprise-related features in the past, with their newest iPhone release as well as iOS 6 update, it seems to be an avenue they are now pursuing. Many of the new features focus on expanding administrator-type settings to allow for greater control of the iPhones and iPads.

How this applies to you:
One new feature called the ‘App Lock’ is designed for businesses that use a single app, such as one for credit card payment processing, to lock the iPhone or iPad on the app to stop employees from using the device for non-business purposes. Also, admins can now disable many non-productivity apps to make the iPhone business-only. One of the most interesting features of the new iOS 6 is that it gives devices the ability to define a HTTP global proxy. Although this may not be a big deal for some, the ability for companies with Internet restrictions to keep all phones running through their servers can help businesses reinforce their access policies. (via BusinessInsider)

3) Can You Imagine a World without Computer Viruses?:
New tech startup, Bromium, has created software that could mean the end of computer malware as we know it. According to their website the software, dubbed vSentry, this software “uses hardware isolation to securely allow untrustworthy desktop tasks to safely coexist with trusted enterprise applications and data.” This means there is a kind of digital shield between each window on your desktop and the rest of your computer so that once you close a window that contains a virus, it is destroyed. In addition, Bromium claims that you won’t even notice vSentry running on your computer since most modern PCs are built with the capacity to handle the program’s workload. (via Bromium)

How this applies to you:
This software will allow for a whole new freedom from viruses. With this type of program, there will no longer be a need for administrator passwords to download programs or to access unsecured websites since everything that runs on your computer is automatically protected by this virtual shield.

4) Small Banks More Apt to Loan to Small Biz:
Now it may not seem that profound of an idea that small banks rather than big banks would be more prone to loan to small businesses. The real intriguing element in the statistics is how over the past month approvals from small banks increased by 0.4% while those from big banks decreased at the exact same rate. A reason for these countervailing trends is “a combination of global credit issues and regulatory pressure” that’s keeping big banks from lending. (via SmallBizTrends)

How this applies to you:
Not only is the trend of lending in favor of small businesses seeking small banks, but overall, small banks lend to small businesses at nearly a 5:1 ratio compared to large banks. A main reason for this disparity is that large banks primarily use financial formulas to determine the repayment possibility of loans. While this may be profitable for the big banks on a macro scale, local market conditions that small businesses face are extremely complex and not easily defined by numbers and statistics. This is where small banks have the advantage; looking at every entrepreneur or small business on a case-by-case basis, not just as some number on a computer screen.

5) Google Merges Insights into Trends:
Google’s trending topics tool “Trends” and their tool for looking at search data over time “Insights” have now been integrated into now ultra-powerful new Google Trends software. Neither of these programs performed very well with any of Google’s Android-powered devices which seems to be a key factor in the software merge. Google Trends now uses HTML5-based Google Chart Tools allowing “users to load the charts on their mobile devices and view the results without scrolling,” says Miranda Miller of Search Engine Watch.

How this applies to you:
Now businesses will be able to identify popular trends based on geographic locations, time ranges or industries, then be able to see news stories related to these trends, rising searches surrounding the trends or the forecast for these trends. Amber Hauptman of FaxCompare.com explains that “as an interactive marketer and former small business owner, I found both of these tools very useful and often never used one without the other[…] This is one step closer to greater usability, especially on Android (and Apple) mobile devices.”

About ChooseWhat.com:
The purpose of ChooseWhat.com is to guide entrepreneurs through the start-up process. ChooseWhat offers entrepreneurs 3 main resources to help them focus on the big idea so they do not get bogged down with the basics. These resources include reviews and cost comparisons of business infrastructure tools, a start-up checklist that provides a step by step guide for setting up a business, and small business forum where entrepreneurs can get answers to their most pressing business questions.
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