Not-so-lost ArkYou know at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark where the anonymous government employees nail the Ark of the Covenant into a crate and hide it deep in a cavernous warehouse? Well, in the fourth installment of the series, now filming, Indiana Jones gets a warehouse management system and locates the Ark in about 10 seconds. Maybe less.
Among the contenders for the system he uses could be Radio Beacon WMS, a version of which was recently announced that integrates with SAP Business One 2005. The new release lets users keep real-time inventory by bin location, streamline warehouse operations and process back orders without ever leaving the SAP Business One desktop. Of course, Indy will still need to face the dreaded Temple of the Procurement Officers.
Price: Modules - $6,000.
Bundle discounts available.
Radio Beacon Inc.
www.radiobeacon.com
Accept credit cards
A credit card has be accepted twice - once when the customers asks, "Do you take plastic?" and a second time when the issuer OKs the transaction. For small businesses, the first part is often the big hurdle, which is why Intuit has introduced its new QuickBooks Credit Card Processing Kit, an inexpensive, simple solution for businesses that handle less than $5,000 in credit card transactions every month.
The easy-to-use, easy-to-set-up kit turns a business' PC into a credit card terminal, with everything they need to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and Diner's Club cards, and can be picked up at retail stores like Office Depot, OfficeMax, CompUSA and Staples, and on Amazon.com. Just make sure your credit card will be accepted the second time.
Price: $39.95.
Intuit Inc.
www.creditcardprocessingkit.com
Safer e-mail
We don't send a lot of important client information via e-mail - we don't send a lot of important information, period - but if we did, we'd want something like Verizon Secure Mail. With the click of a button, the service encrypts e-mail with valuable contents (like, say, a client's financial data), digitally signs them, and sends them along to the recipient. If the recipient is a Secure Mail user, they can receive the e-mail normally; if not, they can go and view it at the Verizon Message pick-up center after answering an established personalized security question.
The service verifies and authenticates that a message has not been altered, allows the message to be opened only by the designated recipient, and lets them lock the message so no one else can view it. Now if only we had an important message to send ... .
Price: $6.95 per month per mailbox.
Verizon Online
www.business.verizon.net/securemail
Take Control
KCI Computing's corporate performance management software, Control, is now available as a 64-bit application. Control dives into corporate data at the deepest levels, allowing analysis and forecasting for financial and operational decision-making, even in large, enterprise-scale businesses. The new architecture offers improvements in speed, efficiency, scalability and performance.
Price: Starts at $35,995.
KCI Computing Inc.
www.kcicorp.com
New and improved
CCH has added its classic Guidebook to California Taxes to its Tax Research Network, so users can search the content and link to underlying laws and regulations.
