E-Commerce Blog

Recently, Amazon announced that it was offering 70 percent royalty rates to authors interested in self-publishing for the Kindle platform. That rate is considerably higher than the 10-ish percent standard in the publishing industry today for print and 25 percent for digital. So where are all the new authors with books flying off the e-shelves and onto the iPads? And if publication is so cheap today, why can’t authors demand higher royalty rates?

Excerpted from:
Publishers: The New Filter-Tips

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer extolled the benefits of cloud computing and spoke about the software giant’s increasing commitment to it in a speech at the University of Washington on Thursday. Microsoft has clearly been moving toward the cloud over recent years. All of its products, including Windows, Office and Xbox, are in some way connected to it. However, reading between the lines of Ballmer’s speech suggests the company may be ramping up for a major new cloud-based initiative.

Read the original:
Microsoft Puts All Its Eggs in Cloud Basket

Videoconferencing systems have existed since the 1960s and since then, these systems have slowly been integrated into the enterprise. The vision of videoconferencing has always been clear in theory, as depictions from “The Jetsons,” “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” and other science-fiction titles have shown. As companies realized the value of synchronizing real-time, interactive, immersive nonverbal communicative cues with the verbal conversations already available through the telephone, they sought similar solutions.

Read the original:
I See You: Video Collaboration in the Enterprise

Once a small business finds the perfect CRM solution for its needs, the owner or manager must then negotiate the appropriate legal agreements with the vendor. This can be a daunting task for anyone who is not familiar with the many types of contracts that may come into play with an IT purchase. The types of contracts vary depending on the nature of the business and how the vendor and customer are set up rather than on the size of the company.

Read more here:
CRM for the Small Business, Part 3: What to Expect During Contract Negotiations

Credit card issuers must follow new rules of the road as of Monday, but consumers should not view the new protections as a cure-all for their frustrations with plastic. Instead, they should be ever more vigilant as credit issuers roll out new card agreements. They could result in new financial pain if card users aren’t careful. For instance, some credit card issuers have said they will aggressively market expensive over-limit protection as an invaluable feature of credit card accounts, said Josh Frank of the Center for Responsible Lending.

More:
Despite New Rules, Credit Card Users Cautioned to Be Wary