The Intel® Business Exchange Software Store in Europe has just been launched, bringing a new sales channel for selling software to European countries – with localized sites for the UK, Germany,  and France (official launch to follow by the end of the month). Good news.

We are, of course, proud to boast that Avangate provides the hosting, billing and process execution of the new market place… that the Avangate eCommerce platform is the core engine of the European Intel® Business Exchange… More good news.

Focused on SMBs
Yes, indeed, Intel ® BX is focused on SMBs – providing an advantage for this market. Why was there a need for this? Because SMBs often struggle to find technology products, services and support that fit their particular budgets and needs. The Intel ® BX Software Store helps them quickly and efficiently find the software solution they need to help implement business solutions. That’s why the store features extensive product details and facilitates customer ratings and reviews.

As I mentioned in my last post on how to recruit software affiliates, an important part of the recruiting process is the reason you give them to join your program. It may very well be a successful program with high commission rates, but sometimes this isn’t enough.

When trying to convince an affiliate to join your program (especially if it’s an important affiliate), nothing works better than something to welcome him with.

It’s not mandatory in any way, but like Geno Prussakov noted in his “Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing” and from what I’ve experienced so far, an affiliate is easier to convince in joining a certain affiliate program if you offer her an incentive.

Recently I’ve been working on my next book – working title The Software Startup Success Guide – and I noticed that easily one of the most important decisions you can make as a startup gets practically no attention: What platform are you going to build on?

Back in the age of Bill and Steve, startups could pick any platform they wanted so long as it was either Microsoft’s or Apple’s. Nowadays, you as a developer who’s going to go down the Startup Road have a huge and sometimes confusing range of platforms to build on.

Just going with the default – whatever platform you happen to know best – makes about as much sense as walking up to the next girl (or guy) you see and saying let’s jump in bed. Maybe it will work out, maybe some magic chemistry will occur, maybe you’ll be scarred for life.

Picking a platform is the startup equivalent of marriage: some sense it’s the right match is more that a good thing, it’s a must-have. In this post, I’d like to enumerate quickly what as of 2009 those platform options are and offer a few ideas about how to evaluate your platform options. Two caveats:

• This is not from a programming point of view, but more along the lines of the opportunities and tradeoffs in my opinion each platform provides.
• Secondly, I’m totally ignoring gamer platforms, mostly out of abject ignorance. I’d welcome any comments as to what the prospects are for game startups of the various game console platforms.

A week and a bit ago I attended an Online chat about Twitter and micro-blogging with Bob Walsh. I was actually @ home with my two young children and had joined in late (there were transcripts provided after – very useful. Thanks, Neil).

While I was trying to catch up with what had been said and make sense of the conversation, I realized that no matter what the announced theme was, people taking part could find something interesting to say, share, comment, digress to other topics and overall enjoy the experience. 25 folks joining in an online conversation on a work-related issue and having a good time – this would be my summary of the whole thing.

Recently I was doing a market research on eCommerce trends in 2009. One of the things we should expect is that customers are more cost-aware and every minor thing they get for free or with a discount is often worth more than a brand they’ve used for a certain time or even a popular and reliable brand worldwide (we’re talking, of course, about similar features of the products being compared).

Of course, discount coupons are not a new technique for affiliate marketers, but in the near future we could easily foresee an abundance of promotions, discounts – let’s call them “deals”.

Picture taken during the "Casual Drinks with Avangate" Business Networking Event

I am sure that many of you participated to a wide range of events and noticed some good or bad practices.  I have recently been involved in organizing a business networking event for Avangate US office, so I put a lot of thought in it and also gained access to all stages of business event organizing, including feedback from participants.

In this post I will share some ideas from my experience as a business developer – ideas that work for a great networking event; in fact I think that these are the most important steps that must be completed to achieve the success and reputation you are targeting by organizing the event.

1. Have a self-explanatory name

Here in Silicon Valley there are tens of events daily. For the audience is quite difficult or time consuming to identify the right events if they are called like “Technology tools” or “International roundtable”; technology for what? Roundtable of whom? That’s why some events have audience and others have not.