Veetro

I like the new web-based small business tools suite Veetro. We've seen a ton of web-based small business productivity tools come out (lots of calendars), but Veetro seems like one of the better offerings for small business. I've played around with the free version and some aspects of the product stand out:

--It has a nice "Work" area with features for a shared document repository, project management, task management, a dashboard view of task, timesheets, calendar, and address book.

--Along with those basics Veetro includes it's own CRM application. While this may be not be a value-add for users already on something like Salesforce, this is a good idea. I think we're going to see a lot more CRM apps that are boutique, perhaps scaled down or just tailored to a specific type of business. Rather than get an enterprise capable clydesdale with Salesforce, you can get lighter CRM app better addresses the needs of your small business. I think 37signals is set to release a CRM piece to complement their highly successful line of small business project management tools.

--The Dashboard is pretty cool. You can drag and drop "widget" items onto the desktop like support tasks, sales leads, to-do list, and my favorite....RSS feeds!! Having RSS on a dashboard is really smart, allowing the user to stay plugged in to whatever feed (business telemetry) that's important.

Anyway, I haven't played around with everything because the free version is limited but it's worth a look. For a small biz (with a distributed team) looking to make a minimal investment in software, something like Veetro or 37signals' Backpack could be a great solution.

When you do try it, make sure that the data backup feature works well --backing up data to a common format.