SAP and Microsoft are two of the most trusted names in business software. In this blog post and video, we'll take a look at the business software offering from both companies for the small and midsize market (SME or SMB). We'll discuss the difference in price, functionality, and benefits.

For SAP, we'll be looking at SAP Business One, and from Microsoft we'll see Dynamics GP. Both of these solutions are targeted to small and midsize companies, although there are some major differences between the two solutions.

Demo SAP Business One Today

If you are interested in taking an in-depth look at SAP Business One, give Orchestra a call.  We can setup a live demo, viewable over the internet, or if you are near one of our offices, we're happy to come out to meet you and show you the software in person.

You won't get a canned demo from Orchestra, but rather a flexible discussion and demonstration about what you want and need to see in the software to help you in your search for new business management software.

Our first Client Appreciation Month is Here!

November is "Client Appreciation Month," at Orchestra. To show our appreciation to our clients we are offering some great promotions this month on products and services, such as SEO, Websites & Ecommerce, and SAP Business Add-Ons.

Click the Read More button to find out more about this great opportunity.

Get that project started you've had in waiting, while saving big on the services necessary to get it done right.

Drupal is a CMS, or Content Management System, that enables businesses to build a website, easily create and manage content for the website, and optimize it all to be found easily on the web.

Watch the Drupal CMS Introduction Video by clicking here it is the first in our What is...and Why Series of videos.

For a deeper level of features, continue reading by clicking the Read More button below.

Orchestra is pleased to announce the official launch of OrchestratedBeer.

OrchestratedBeer is business management and accounting software for the Brewery Market. Orchestra has developed and marketed OrchestratedBeer with small and midsize breweries in mind, to enable them to run their business using the same tools as the world's largest breweries. Over the next month, we will be having online webinars to view the software, holding discovery sessions with Brewers in Portland, and we'll probably even spend some time hanging out at the local pubs...answering questions about the software, of course.

Orchestrated Beer has officially launched October 7th, 2009. As part of Orchestra's "Message in a Bottle" marketing strategy; beer bottles, filled with promotional materials and packaged inside mailing tubes, were mailed out to Oregon Breweries.

Orchestra's initial campaign waslaunched in Oregon, which is the leading craft brewery state in the US. Orchestra plans to use the same marketing strategy for all of the other, nearly 1000 breweries located across the US as well.

To Contact Orchesta about this great new software for Breweries, click here

To check out the rest of the post, click the Read More button below.

As part of our Orchestrated Stimulus program, Orchestra is offering a $20,000 discount, on SAP Business One implementations, with a 3 year service contract to our "Live!" hosting and Teir II support package. This discount is intended to allow small and midsize companies reduce the upfront cost of purchasing business management software. Click on the "Live!" logo to learn more.

This statement may come as no surprise to anyone -- Banks are not lending money.  Banks have been slowly cutting down riskier lending divisions such as software leasing.  A lot of the financing options that were attainable in the past for Business Management Software are simply not available anymore.  It appears that the only way to purchase Business Management Software or ERP systems in today's market is to purchase it with cash.  However, making a large cash purchase negatively affects the cash flow position of a company. 

Only six percent of American's can afford a $300,000 Mortgage?

During the past few decades we have seen the world develop and grow at a rate which is unprecedented.  Although we have seen the industrial revolution play a large role in this growth, more recently it has been the abundance of loans that has acted as a catalyst for economic growth.

A couple years ago, I was conversing with a manager of mine named Mo.  Mo was managing my first business, Munchy'z.  Munchy'z is a sandwich shop located on the WSU college campus that I owned and managed throughout college.  Mo was complaining about how he could not get one of the other employees to play a leadership role even though he had spent an excessive amount of time training him.  I replied to him and said, "You can't train a donkey to be a horse."  I meant no offense to the employee we were talking about.  This person was a great employee whom handled his responsibilities perfectly.  However, he could not be trained to be a supervisor due to his lack of leadership skills. This phrase stuck in my head and made me look at things differently.

During my time managing a wholesale and distribution business, we decided to use Quickbooks as our ERP solution.  My partner at the time had invested in Quickbooks as the primary purchase and sales software.  Since he had invested money and time into the software we decided to make it work as our ERP solution.  We had one hell of a time doing this.  In my opinion, the project was a failure.

A donkey is a great animal which is used for many things such as carrying goods, a source of transportation, and maybe even a pet.  The donkey can carry 20-30% of its body weight and can be used as a farming or dairy animal.  The fact is that it may look like a horse, but it can not do the things a horse can do or at least not nearly as well -- if it walks like a horse and sounds like a horse; it still may be a donkey.  If you ever find yourself in need of a racehorse, you need to train a horse, not a donkey.  In hindsight, I wish we had gone with a "horse" like SAP Business One.

Read more to hear the whole story.