Small Business (SMB) stories

Atomgate's Renee Lovell says education, testing and partnerships are helping the South African MSSP turn SonicWall upgrades into measurable business gains.

Apple rolls out unified business hub in 200 markets as signs mount that local ads in Maps will debut across North America this summer.

Emergent unveils Wingman, an always-on AI agent for email, scheduling and sales support as Australian firms seek to ease admin pressure.

Emergent's Wingman puts autonomous AI agents to work across email, calendars and chats, with human approval for higher-risk actions.

SMBs already own the tools, but cyber breaches keep breaking through because patchwork security, weak access controls and over-trust still leave gaps.

Rockwell's Plex wins Major Player status in six IDC MarketScape reports as AI-enabled ERP and finance tools gain ground among manufacturers.

Splashtop bets on AI-assisted patching and security alerts in a single console as it targets lean IT teams and MSPs with a new endpoint platform.

8x8 unveils AI Studio to let customer experience teams build agents with natural language, aiming to cut integration delays and costs.

Intuit appoints Xero veteran Matthew Miles as Head of Product for APAC as it steps up investment in Australia and wider Asia Pacific.

Xero's Anthropic tie-up deepens finance software AI split as groups weigh integrated platforms against agent tools that work across multiple systems.

PayPal brings payment links into Canva for 265 million users, letting creators, entrepreneurs and small firms sell from designs with QR codes and checkouts.

Cloudflare and GoDaddy team up to give site owners more control over AI crawlers while backing open standards to verify agent identity.

Synology extends BeeStation Plus with local camera monitoring for homes and micro-businesses, offering AI alerts and no subscription fees.

AI agents prompt accounting firms to redesign bookkeeping and tax workflows as junior staff tasks are automated and human oversight stays central.

Apograph's £60-a-month firewall plan helps clients dodge emergency refresh costs, cut downtime and strengthen security across 1,500 endpoints.

Ripple Treasury adds Digital Asset Accounts as finance teams get a single view of cash and crypto balances across banks, custody providers and onchain wallets.

Tech Data gains Microsoft Frontier Distributor status as Asia Pacific partners seek stronger cloud, security and training support.

SonicWall says small firms are being hit hardest by basic security lapses as ransomware, bot traffic and identity theft keep climbing.

Geneva Association says cyber insurance can help firms tackle rising threats, but warns take-up remains low and SMEs are underusing cover's prevention services.

Dext adds time-tracking insight to help accountants and bookkeepers spot workload bottlenecks and client-heavy periods on its Advanced plan.