Soho OS – Your Small Business Ecosystem
Small business management just might get a little easier with the help of the Soho OS. I can see why the creators decided to add the “Operating System” suffix to the name because that’s its main purpose – to act as your one-stop shop for all your small business management needs. The site is specifically designed with the little guy in mind, and that is what Soho wants its claim to fame to be.
Instead of playing ‘ring around the rosy’ with multiple platforms, Soho OS aims to consolidate all of your small business functions into one location. That means no jumping from Quicken or Outright, to Salesforce or ACT!, to Harvest or FreshBooks just to handle ONE transaction. Soho OS also integrates with Facebook and Twitter to offer the Social Media Marketing/Networking arm that today’s businesses are starting to heavily rely on.
Too good be true so? Well let me add in this extra tidbit — the service is free (you know how I love free) with some paid premium services sprinkled in if you choose to sign up.
Let’s see how Soho OS handles this all-in-one small business implementation. Your operation is broken down into three categories (Business, Networking, and Services) where you will find your associated utilities.
Under the Business category are the essential to any business utilities such as:
Accounts
Sales
Marketing
Finance
Inventory
I would assume this is where most businesses live and die. In order for businesses to survive, there MUST be some sort of organization. With Soho OS, the ability to turn to one application to handle these business basics is very appealing to say the least.
Under Networking is where your Social Media tools (Twitter and Facebook are the only ones thus far) are to help you spread the word:
Chat
Inbox
Contacts
It may not be as flashy as Facebook, or have tons of plug-ins like Twitter, but to organize all your conversations and contacts in one place just makes sense that small business owner who is more than likely wearing all the hats of the business.
The third category is where some of the premium Services are located:
Text & Voice Messaging
Fax
VoIP
Conference Calls
Credit Card Processing
In one way or another, you probably already pay for these services (with separate bills for each). So why not consider the possibility that you can use one system (and one bill) to handle services you would otherwise integrate into your operation separately anyway?
If you run a website (as the business or to support the marketing aspect), the thing noticed saw missing was analytics. It would be nice to integrate a tool like Google Analytics or GetClicky to watch site traffic. But this could be in works, which leads me to my only other hitch with Soho OS – It’s currently in beta.
TechCrunch gave its readers 1000 special invites, but it seems all of those are used up (yeah, I tried to sign up. They said they’d get back to me). So we will have to wait for this service to go live in order to find out if Soho can actually live up its claim of providing a small business tools eco-system to empower its clients.
To find out more information, visit Soho OS’s site or follow @SohoOS
Category: web 2.0 | Tags: accounts, Business, CRM, Finance, managment, marketing, organization, sales
About the Author Terrance Gaines is a husband, father and self-proclaimed Technology Evangelist who shares tech news, reviews, tips and tricks on his blog BrothaTech.com as well as other sites and in print media. You can also find him talking "all things tech" on Twitter @BrothaTech.
See all posts by BrothaTech.
Good points everyone.
I can only speak for myself when I say that I am a small (very, very, small) minority business owner, and to be able to come to a sight like BlackWeb2.0 and learn from people who look like me about the many products that are availble that will enable me to enhance my daily operations is a plus.
I'm pretty sure it would be GREAT if this site could promote products for us, by us in this particular area (business development products). I think you guys have definately hit on yet another area where we are not in the forefront. But, the ability for us to get together (via sites like these) and share/collaborate on ALL the available products that will aid us should be an important tool as well.
Hi Roderick;
We created Soho OS to enable diversity!. As Globalization attends to create very strong corporates and many consumers, we wanted to create a platform whom will enable EVERYONE to succeed!
(-:
We hope Soho OS will also enable cultural diversity in the sense of helping multicultural business owners utilizing their business for free.
My philosophy is that if we want multicultural world we should be focus on using the tools which enable us creating one.
I hope meeting you at Soho OS.
Good night.
Ron
Point well taken brother….
a) For me cultural diversity is not necessary, but the cultural diversity I was referring to was the lack of ethnic representation in the video… I am a small business owner and I personally like to identify with all ethnic groups (especially my own)… And I like to patronize businesses that reflect that… I just did not see it in the brief video for SOHO OS (not saying that there isn't any)
No, there is not much, if any cultural diversity that power our homes and offices.. And you are absolutely correct.. There is not much diversity in a lot of the technology we use… I feel that is one of the reasons we have a Black Web 2.0 is to promote diversity and read about black peoples accomplishments in technology… And to start to be technology creators instead of technology consumers.. Just a thought
b) I am a software developer and I develop software for a living, so I would not consider developing an eco-system around an existing product.. I would consider building one from scratch… Yes it is necessary to invest valuable time in creating a product that works for you and your business needs…And technology is so incredibly advanced these days, it actually does not cost one that much to create incredible applications (I know I do it every day)…
I don't know much about SOHO OS.. It might be a wonderful product, actually I am sure it is.. I was just asking for a dialogue among small minority business owners to create some type of business technology that looks, feels and performs like we do.. And you never know, SOHO OS might just be that product
Frizzelle:
a) what type of 'cultural diversity' would you deem as 'necessary', in business production and management tools. Is there diversity in our utilities, that power our home and offices? Is there diversity in the Microsoft, Adobe, Google or mobile apps; that fill many of our arsenals of critical resources.
b) instead of starting from scratch, why not consider developing a Cultural Diversity eco-system around SOHO OS. Is it necessary to invest valuable time and money, in building from scratch; when we could be building further up or further out, from an already existing foundation.
I watched the video… Did not see much cultural diversity… Hmmm? I think we as a small minority business community can create something just as exciting and empowering for all of the New Media Entrepreneurs….
I invite all to start a discussion with me on this topic…