In this edition of The I.T. Factor hosted by Jonas Tichenor, ZDNet editor-in-chief Larry Dignan and TechRepublic editor-in-chief Jason Hiner not only explain the up-and-coming technologies but also what it will likely mean to your business in the not-so-distant future.

Join me and ZDNet Small Business Matters editor Heather Clancy for The Top 5 Mobile Trends for SMBs, a live and interactive video webcast specifically intended to give you a better understanding of the case uses for this increasingly important technology.

Registration is free at TechRepublic and includes live questions and answers with me and Heather as well as group chat so you can share your questions, comments, and experiences with other small business owners.

Please join us:Tuesday, March 27, 2012,2:00 pm ET / 11:00 am PT / 18:00 GMT

Join me and ZDNet's Dennis Howlett for a live video webcast on what's been going on at Oracle as well as what it may mean to the company, the industry, and consumers. We'll also answer as many of your questions throughout the program and there will be a group chat for those who'd like to share their thoughts with one another.

Recorded from a live webcast on Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The poll was posted over a period of four weeks ending on March 4, 2012 and asked,"Which web browser do you prefer for your small business?"

44% say they prefer Chrome and 26% identified Firefox as their top browser.

Microsoft Internet Explorer was third at 18% with Safari and Opera rounding out the field at 8% and 5% respectively.

According to StatCounter, a free online statistics service, Microsoft's Internet Explorer still leads the overall browser battle with nearly 36% of the market worldwide followed by Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera in that order.

One other interesting point to note, Internet Explorer has been losing worldwide market share for at least the past twelve months while Chrome has been gaining.

What do you think? Is the browser battle now between Microsoft and Google?

Follow all of ZDNet's Apple iPad coverage here.

After the announcement, join me and ZDNet's David Gewirtz for a live and interactive webcast on what you need to know about the new Apple iPad.

Got a burning question or comment? Interested in chatting live with other people about the announcement?

Join us LIVE on:Wednesday, March 7, 2012 at2:00 pm ET / 11:00 am PT

In one corner stand those who believe it's an essential upgrade that will empower businesses to do even more in an age of increased collaboration and hyper-mobility.

In the other corner, those who believe that Windows 8 is a waste of time and money that hasn't shown any promise as a must-have upgrade, especially for business.

Until now, however, many of those opinions have been mostly based on limited knowledge of the OS, which is still in the later stages of development.

On February 29, with the release of the so-called Consumer Preview, we're finally able to see what Windows 8 has to offer and who better to provide the highlights then ZDNet Microsoft tracker Mary-Jo Foley?

Check out this on-demand recording of the video webcast about what we know (and what we don't know) about Windows 8. Registration is free!

You have probably heard some of the noise lately about Pinterest , a new social media service that is supposed to help keep track of all the other social media services.

One week my seventy year old mother is telling me to “check out this new thing called Pinterest” and the next week it’s the darling of the blogosphere.

To its credit, the two year old company has obviously captured everyone’s attention and the concept is definitely pretty compelling.

Basically, Pinterest is a free service that allows its members to organize the things they find on the Internet by “pinning” them to their own personal online “pinboard” where the items can then be repinned, liked, and commented upon by other users.

I have to say, it really is pretty unique compared to anything else I’ve seen before and, just like other social media, I’m sure there are all kinds of ways that small businesses can take advantage. Certainly too many to try and do it any sort of justice here.

In most cases, small businesses will get out of it whatever they decide to put into it. Mistakes will be made, time will be lost, and not everyone will find the secret sauce, but the same could be said for any other sort of marketing.

Of course, like so many of the other social media services, small businesses must now decide if it’s worth a try and, if so, how to actually make it work for their particular size and type of enterprise.

Just creating a page and hoping people will find it probably isn’t going to cut it so take some time to develop a goals-based strategy that addresses the same tried and true questions: what’s your market, who’re your customers, and how can you excite their interest?

As always, the best place to start is at the beginning so do yourself a favor and at least take a little time to check out the Pinterest site and see how other small businesses are using the service.

Once you understand how it works – and it really isn’t that complicated – then you will probably see right away if it has any real value or not for your particular situation.

Just don’t ignore it because with millions of users and growing, Pinterest may indeed be yet another way to help you grow your business.

The poll was posted over a period of approximately three weeks from January 17 to February 7, 2012 and asked,"How do you manage information technology (IT) for your small or medium business?"

55% said they rely on self-service for IT management while only 5% indicated that they rely exclusively on third-party service providers.

That's interesting because the SMB market for managed service providers is about $40 billion according to one recent estimate and could certainly rise along with the growing need for increasingly advanced IT services.

Maybe that's why a retail services giant like Best Buy is boldly leaping into managed IT services for small business as previously reported by ZDNet.

What do you think? Are small and medium businesses moving more and more toward managed service providers or will economic and other realities increase the market for DIY-IT?

The topic is Cloud Computing: SMB's only IT department?

Chris, of course, thinks small and medium businesses can practically -- well, totally actually -- move all of their IT services to the cloud and leave the rest to cloud providers.

Heather urges caution and advises decision makers to at least have enough qualified expertise in-house to advise on cloud strategy and manage IT vendors.

Check out both sides of the debate right now and cast your vote before we announce the winner.

Cloud computing is an increasingly important reality for small and medium business but will it ever be able to totally replace traditional on-premise applications?

That's the subject of ZDNet's Great Debate this week with Christopher Dawson and Heather Clancy taking opposite sides on a topic that many SMBs have probably already considered.

Dawson claims that SMB decision-markers are too busy to pay as close attention as they should to their business technology. He says the cloud takes away the worry so owners and managers can spend more time actually thinking about their business.

On the other side is Clancy who says IT actually becomes more important to small and medium businesses in a cloud environment. She feels that cloud computing requires strong supervision to provide both business and technical oversight.

What do you think?

Be sure to check out this week's Great Debate on ZDNet.

Constant Contact today announced the acquisition of Boston-based CardStar Inc., a loyalty-based technology platform that is designed to help merchants and customers keep connected.

CardStar claims more than two million users of its mobile applications that are supposed to extend the use of loyalty cards and mobile coupons among consumers by consolidating membership and reward cards on smartphones including iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.

Customers can then use a single application on their devices as opposed to using several physical cards and also allows merchants to track purchase behavior for additional rewards and programs.

In a statement from Constant Contact, CEO Gail Goodman says, “Today’s consumers don’t just want – but expect – to access information and make decisions on the go, and they want to be rewarded for their support and loyalty.”

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

According to the report, key overall metrics for mobile device traffic and purchases over the holiday were impressive.

During the month of December, 14.6% of all online sessions on retailer sites were initiated from mobile devices, which is more than double the 5.6% reported for the same period in 2010.

Perhaps more importantly, sales from mobile devices also doubled from 5.5% in 2010 to about 11% during the busy December 2011 holiday shopping season.

The study also claims the Apple iPhone is tops in terms of retail traffic from mobile devices with the iPad coming in at number two and giving Apple a more than 2-to-1 advantage over Android.

In terms of actual retail purchases from a mobile device, iPad gets the edge with a conversion rate of 6.3% or more than double the 3.1% for other mobile devices.

In a statement released this morning, IBM Smarter Commerce Chief Strategy Office John Squire says, "This past December consumers remained committed to finding the best online deals whether through their PC or mobile device.”

Squire goes on to say that "By employing a smarter approach to commerce, many retailers were successful in helping to connect their customers with the best deals from anywhere and at any time, even on Christmas Day where online shopping grew by 16.4 percent over 2010.”

The results of this study are based on a combination of metrics and analysis including real-time sales data from more than 500 leading U.S. retail web sites.

Lenovo announced today that the company is updating what is arguably itsbest known line of laptop computers and possibly expanding its appeal beyond its traditional enterprise market.

According to the company, the newly refreshed portfolio will include three individual lines based on the need for "essential, mainstream and premium" laptops computers:

• ThinkPad Edge S Series (premium)
• ThinkPad Edge E Series (mainstream)
• Lenovo B Series (essential)

Although ThinkPad laptops enjoy good penetration and recognition in the enterprise market, the expanded line is clearly an effort to win-over more small business and individual users as well.

In the company statement released today, ThinkPad vice president Luis Hernandez acknowledged that "Small businesses are demanding a laptop that can do it all" and goes on to say that small businesses "want great performance for work tasks and an excellent experience for their own personal computing.”

And Hernandez says, “the new ThinkPad Edge laptops exceed these expectations with extras like a new progressive design, speedy boot up and easy management features.”

All three lines include various sizes, configurations and options but Lenovo promotes the ThinkPad Edge E Series specifically for small business.

Both the "mainstream" ThinkPad Edge E Series and the "essential" Lenovo B Series laptops should be widely available by April with the "premium" ThinkPad Edge S Series becoming available some time after June.

Other top trends highlighted by the firm include geolocation -- or location-based -- apps like those from companies such asFacebook,Foursquare andGoogle as well as the fast-growing segment for tablet computers like theApple iPad andSamsung Galaxy.

Cloud-based productivity applications and online video for the enterprise round out the top five followed by online Q&A (community information sharing), crowdfunding, and mobile photo sharing.

In terms of what’s most likely to gain momentum in 2012, G+ sees a continued big data boom as well as more Internet TV and the rapid rise of mobile commerce.

Check out the infographic from G+ and leave a comment below.

[caption id="attachment_228" align="alignnone" width="620" caption="G+ Tech Trends and Forecast"]

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As so many look back at where we’ve been in 2011, IBM is looking forward at where we’ll likely be in the not-so-distant future.

Today, the company releases the sixth annual “IBM 5 in 5” list of the five innovations “that have the potential to change the way people work, live, and interact during the next five years.”

According to IBM’s own research, “people power will come to life” as kinetic energy created by everything from human activity to heat from your computer is harnessed as renewable energy for homes, businesses, and even entire cities.

12345 may soon be out as the most popular password of all time because “you will never need a password again” but will instead rely on biometrics, or unique biological features such as eyes and fingerprints, to unlock doors, access computers, and even withdraw money.

Jokes about mainlining information or computer mind-melds may also become a thing of the past as IBM scientists in the field of bioinformatics look for new ways to link your brain to your devices so that “mind reading is no longer science fiction.”

Also, advances in mobile technology will lead to much more than an increase photo and status updates as better, faster, and cheaper mobile technologies lead to a brighter future where “the digital divide will cease to exist” for the planet’s 7 billion people.

And finally, turns out that “junk mail will become priority mail” when advertisements become so personalized and spam filters so effective that every offer is relevant to the individual user and no offer will ever really be unwanted.

True life will soon be at least as interesting as science fiction according to IBM which claims that some parts of each of these innovations already exist in its labs in some form of reality or another.

Losing information is one of the biggest concerns most often cited by organizations reluctant to trust their businesses in the cloud.

However, what started out as a consumer-focused backup option for Yahoo’s Flickr photo-sharing service has quickly evolved into what may be the most popular backup and recovery solution for Google Apps and even some types of social media.

Massachusetts-based Backupify now boasts more than two thousand business customers and CEO Rob May says his company “is betting on the cloud” for future growth and opportunity with the long tail of small business.

According to May, the strategy is paying off as the company has seen a dramatic rise in the amount of data under management as well as an increase in revenue and a decrease in customer turnover.

Although Backupify is firmly focused on the backup of Google Apps, the service is also effective for social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter.

According to an email from another Backupify representative, two recent product upgrades, Account Search and Full Account Restore, allow customers who lose the contents of their email to “literally watch their screen as Backupify fully restores every individual email into their Google account.”

May says his vision is clear and he intends to grow the company into a leading “data management tool for IT in the cloud” and will “continue to improve its product and add new services in 2012 and beyond."