I’ve heard of hosted ERP and CRM solutions. What does 'hosted' mean, and how can hosted...

A hosted solution typically refers to one where the application — customer resource management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP), in this case — and the hardware that it runs on are provided

to you as a turnkey solution by a third-party application service provider. These solutions are helpful for small business owners who don't have the time or the in-house expertise to set up the software or infrastructure themselves.

Two popular hosted products are Netsuite Small Business and Salesforce.com. NetSuite offers both ERP and CRM products as part of its suite. Salesforce.com serves up a popular CRM solution and partners with companies to extend its product to include ERP functions, among other things.

Larger companies such as Siebel and SAP also offer hosted solutions. Make sure they are geared toward a business your size, however, before entering into relationships with the major players. Sometimes companies will offer a scaled-down version of its product that hasn't been optimized for small businesses.