Online Services Help Business Owners Vacation

September 28, 2004

They run small businesses. Maybe it's a service business like a graphic
design shop. Maybe the company sells antique kitchen items from a website. Or maybe they are a small publisher. No matter what the business, one thing all small business owners have in common is that they don't think then can leave it. Vacations terrify them.

It is this group of business owners that web-service software firms are
targeting. As more and more companies convert their desktop software to the web, business owners are now never from from the action.

A recent study by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (www.ahla.com) shows that high-speed in-room Internet has doubled since 2001. With over half of the hotel rooms in the US now offering Internet service, the traveler whose company uses an online application is never far from work.

Service providers like Adams-Blake Company, Inc. of Fair Oaks, CA which offers the JAYA123 (www.jaya123.com) order-entry and accounting system to small businesses, as well as Oracle, Inc. which sells subscriptions to its OnDemand system (www.oracle.com/ondemand/) to large corporations have seen
a surge of demand.

Web-based business applications, often called 'webware' are the usual
back-office functions like accounting, order-entry, and reporting but they are accessible over the web. A company subscribes to a web service for a low monthly fee. Because of the web, access can be made anywhere in the world and any computer or software platform can be used, as long as it has a browser.

While not the main reason for the attraction of users, Alan Canton,
president of Adams-Blake Company says that being able to login from
anywhere in the world and see what orders have come in is a strong
motivating force for small business owners to sign up. "When business
owner knows that he or she can access all of their back-office functions while in a hotel room, it removes 'vacation phobia'," says Canton.

Because many hotels have a keyboard that can connect to the TV, the
business traveler does not have to lug a heavy laptop, open it at airport security, or risk having it stolen. Canton adds, "You can check into your room, plug in the keyboard to the TV, log into your web-based business application and be at your office desk!"

However there is one downside. While business travelers love being able to do their business chores on the web, spouses of vacation-bound executives hate it. "My husband always suggests we go camping so I'll get off the computer," says Mayapriya Long, owner of Bookwrights
(www.bookwrights.com), a book design company in Charlottesville, VA that subscribes to the JAYA123 service.

The source of this news release is PRWeb.