· A new online backup service has launched in the UK, joining services including Netstore in offering copies of people's data that will survive if their building burns down. Called Backup360, from Attix5, it is specifically aimed at the small office/home office market and the smaller business in general, and the system has been designed so that computing beginners should find it easy: go to www.backup360.co.uk and follow the instructions. The good news is that prices start at £4.95 a month, so if you just have a business plan and some accounts to protect, it won't break the bank.

· Electronic catalogue specialist Actinic has released its Audio Store product, enabling bands, DJs, producers and record labels to sell music over the internet. Available through Electra Distribution, it should be out by the time this issue sees print. It comes in two versions: one that lets you sell 25 products and which costs £199, and another which costs £499 but which allows you to put 10,000 products online if you wish. The software lets you build your entire site out of the box if you wish, and you can take payments through PayPal as well as through a credit card, so the system is useful to the beginner and hobbyist as well as to the professional musician.

· Customer relationship management software, often seen as the province of the larger company, has become more available to the small business channel with the launch of Benchmark Software's Cream. This costs £100, plus a monthly support fee of £10 for a single user, and a five-user version is available for £250 plus £25 a month support. The product allows for reminders and diary, customisable fields for individual businesses and everything that would be expected from a full-blown CRM system; some will balk at the continuing support charge when competing products such as ACT! and Goldmine are available for one-off payments.

· So, how's your website's return on investment? A surprising number of small businesses don't actually track this, and this is why WSPS (WebSite Promotion Services) has released ROIstats, a product that allows users to look at where buyers came from, how they found the site, and how much it cost to attract them - so you get a much better picture of how much they're worth. Price depends on what is being tracked and is arranged after a consultation interview. Check www.wsps.co.uk for details of how to get in touch.

· Printer specialist Lexmark has weighed into the small business market once more with its X6190Pro All In One - a colour scanner, colour fax and colour printer. The software that comes with it allows for extensive photo editing, and as an all-in-one gadget it's aimed at people who want to save on space, power points or both. It prints up to 15 pages a minute in colour, which increases to 19 in black and white. It costs £299. Go to www.smb.lexmark.co.uk for a list of local stockists.

· Kingston Communications and the Institute of Directors have produced research confounding the popular belief that broadband technology has been slow to take off. According to the 500 businesses they spoke to, 58% have installed broadband and are using it regularly; 48% of those without broadband planned to introduce it shortly; 78% thought it a business essential whether they had it or not; and 73% considered a faster internet connection and the consequent increase in productivity it brought was the most important thing about it. Sadly for content companies, only 14% thought rich content on a site was an important element of broadband use.

· The Training Camp (TTC) is stepping up its campaign to get VAT on training scrapped, which will be of interest to businesses who are exempt and therefore can't claim VAT back on it. As part of the effort to put the issue on the map, TTC is offering VAT-free tuition for courses that take place or begin in August. Co-founder Robert Chapman believes the government's efforts, which have included an Investors In People fund for small business and a pilot project to offer free access to training, are inadequate.

· Yet another trade show is now sitting up and taking notice of the small business community. This time LinuxWorld (Sept 3-4 at the Birmingham NEC) is setting aside a space for the smaller trader. Sponsored by Oracle, the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Business Link, "The Linux SME Experience" will be dedicated to people wanting to know about what open source computing can do for their organisation that mainstream alternatives can't. A lot of the emphasis is likely to be on cost, both of the software and of the amount of memory required to run heavier applications. Registration is currently free and available at www.linuxworld2003.co.uk.