If you administer cloud servers or services, such as those from Amazon Web Services or Rackspace, you might be relieved to learn that you don't need access to a notebook or desktop PC to perform routine administrative tasks.

Merchants who sign up for VeriFone's SAIL service will get a free credit card reader. Startups like Square and PhoneSwipe spotted a lucrative opportunity to empower the smallest of merchants to accept credit card payments, and they've made the most of it. If you have a product or service to sell, all you need to get paid by credit card is a smartphone or tablet, a tiny card swiper, and an account with one of these vendors.

Tomorrow, those companies will gain a significant competitor when VeriFone launches SAIL, a mobile payment-processing platform for small and medium-size businesses.

When it comes to adopting new operating systems and applications, common practice among system administrators is to delay adoption until the release of the first service pack. Admins found plenty of reasons to put off moving from Windows XP to Windows Vista, and then to Windows 7: The new operating systems demanded more capable hardware, the user interface changes required user training, and there were compatibility issues with legacy hardware and applications.

These days, it’s becoming difficult to find device drivers and applications compatible with Windows XP. More importantly, Microsoft has ended mainstream support for Windows XP, and extended support ends in 2014. New PCs come with Windows 7 by default, so admins must support both operating systems anyway. And with Microsoft widely expected to ship Windows 8 in October, can your business afford to be two or three OS generations behind? Unless you intend to set aside the first-service-pack rule, it’s time to bite the bullet and move forward.

Many organizations continue to run Windows XP on many or all of their desktop PCs, either because migration typically requires costly hardware upgrades, time-consuming transfers of settings, and user retraining, or because there’s simply no compelling reason to move users to a new OS and the new application software that goes along with it. In some cases, both justifications apply.

But when you consider that Microsoft has already stopped issuing non-security hotfixes for Windows XP and will end all support for the OS in 2014, that strategy won’t be tenable for much longer.

Solid-state drives (SSDs) are an increasingly popular choice for businesses looking for faster performance and lower power consumption than magnetic hard-disk drives can provide. As SSDs continue to slowly fall in price and improve in performance, businesses are implementing SSDs across server farms, laptops, and desktops.

There are a variety of new technologies advancing in 2012 that you should investigate, if you aren’t already doing so, to give your small business a leg up on the competition. These recent technologies are beginning to be widely adopted and will continue to drive business forward.

1. Tablets

When it comes to ethernet switches, what do you get for the extra money, besides more ports? You can buy a basic eight-port ethernet switch for connecting PCs together for well under $100, but data center versions with 24 ports or more can often cost well over $1000. Speed, network segmentation, power over Ethernet (PoE), quality of service (QoS) and management features are some of the more common extras. Here's what each of those features can do--and why you should spend extra for them.

1. More Speed

Recent flooding in Thailand has affected many hard drive manufacturers, resulting in price hikes for hard drives of as much as 50 to 100 percent. How long this will last is unclear, but in the meantime, you can postpone new purchases of storage gear by implementing these methods to help reduce unnecessary files, reduce the space used on the system, and allow for expansion with existing systems.

1. Use Storage Management

As tablets and smartphones are entering the workplace en masse, we polled business managers and IT managers on how they’re handling the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend.

A majority of respondents report at least some progress towards controlling the proliferation of mobile devices, or at least ensuring some security on devices allowed to connect to company networks. Yet, a large minority--33 percent--either have no policies yet or don’t control which devices are allowed on their networks.

First there were sewing-machine sized portable PCs, then laptops, the Newton, the Palm Pilot, and phones with built-in PDA functions. The iPhone led the way to the ubiquitous smartphone, and the iPad ushered in an era of tablets. Now wireless hotspots, printers, storage, and a variety of other devices are making their way onto your office network, possibly without the knowledge of managers.

These devices have the potential to compromise security, whether by introducing malware onto other devices on your network, or transporting company data outside the network. Fortunately, antivirus and encryption apps are available for all the major smartphone and tablet platforms, and most allow remote management.

First there were laptops, and then came PDAs, smartphones, tablets, netbooks, e-readers, and a host of other portable devices. Many gadgets first used in the home migrate to work, where users expect to connect them to the company network.

Unfortunately, while PCs or Macs are relatively simple to manage and secure, mobile devices can create a nightmare for the IT administrator. Each type of device requires a different antivirus client, and management options vary from one operating system to another, as well as from carrier to carrier.

On Monday, we asked readers how they manage guest Internet access at their companies. The results showed that very few business and IT managers appear to

Only 5 percent of respondents identifying as IT managers said they have an open Wi-Fi network without password protection. Thirty-nine percent put users and guests on separate networks, ensuring that visitors can’t access corporate assets, and another 12 percent use network access control to prevent insecure systems from connecting to the network. One-quarter password-protect the network before sharing it with visitors. Surprisingly, however, 17 percent said they don’t allow guest access at all.