Zards on 2007 in CRM

Popping in with a forecast for 2007 over at the Chicago, Ill.-based The Business Ledger is Arthur Zards, president/co-founder of XNet Information Systems. Zards takes it upon himself in a fairly extensive piece to answer he imagines “you might be wondering” (“you” meaning the owners of small- and mid-sized businesses) as we wait for Baby New Year to arrive: “How do the changes just around the corner in 2007 impact me directly?”

Zards figures e-commerce will “continue to grow” (no kidding), but forecasts that we won’t be seeing the likes of Amazon.com popping up in 2007, but “smaller niche market sites will grow even more, realizing the power of niche marketing.” This seems to be a good call, as niche marketing is capable of greater and greater sophistication with the proliferation of various real-time and CRM technology.

While Zards’ take on e-commerce isn’t exactly unique, his proclamation that “this could very well be the year of the Mac” is a bit of an eye-opener. Zards figures that the lukewarm early reviews of Microsoft Vista combined with “the ability for Apple users to be able to run Windows XP fairly easily” could well see many SMBs make the switch to good ol’ Mac. An interesting supposition, this, but at CRMchump, we’re guessing that Mac will have to introduce some suddenly new essentials, like a truly Mac-happy VoIP cell phone. Perhaps at the MacWorld expo in January…

Open Source software, too, should see its heyday in 2007, according to Zards. “Open Source integrators,” he predicts, “will make large gains in market share.” Specifically predicted for success in the new year are Sugar CRM and Salesforce.com. (Bad news for Oracle, eh?)

“Hey, YouTubers!” runs the introduction on many a blog-like entry on the popular video site YouTube and Zards, like many others, figures corporations should begin to effectively market on the ‘site next year and sees real potential for SMBs and that niche marketing using YouTube as a source of free advertising.

Finally, Zards notes that even small-sized businesses are starting to bump up against the limits of DSL and T1 internet connections, figuring the necessity to use speedier options will create nasty extra expenditures for the small business owner.

Arthur Zards’ contribution to The Business Ledger’s “Outlook on Technology 2007” can be read in the newspaper’s online edition.

XNet is a privately-held internet solutions provider that offers fully managed web hosting and server co-location at its own critical computing facility. Founded in 1992, XNet specializes in growing internet technologies in the Chicago area, and is today said to be the largest independently owned internet service provider in the Windy City area.