During the pandemic, Aria Benefits not only held its own, but business growth more than doubled to almost 20% during the last year. An important ingredient was a customer relationship management and productivity app called Daylite.

“We used to think high single-digit growth was great,” said founder Robin Bailey. “But the pandemic challenged us to doing business differently and Daylite’s been a key part of that.

“Any small business that runs on Macs and other Apple devices should take a good look at Daylite.”

In the midst of a global pandemic that challenged the wits of many entrepreneurs, Victor Medina celebrated revenue growth of 75% in 2021.

Medina is a Pennington, New Jersey-based lawyer specializing in estate planning who is a certified elder law attorney and financial planner, and a registered investment adviser who leads two thriving firms in those areas, as well as a national technology conference. The managing partner of Medina Law Group, president of Palante Wealth Advisors and founder of the MacTrack Legal technology conference says his approach to growth has always been to master the art of business.

As a third-generation entrepreneur and mom to three kids, Michigan Realtor Breanne Martin Gaudard instinctively knows that to thrive, businesses have to be able to scale. With the experience she gained from watching her mother do the bookkeeping, she took on technology management priorities that include Daylite, an Apple-focused Customer Relationship Management (CRM) app that promises it can power teams to “handle more clients, close more deals and execute more projects than ever before.”

Prior to using the Daylite CRM, Martin family businesses mostly ran off of paper file folders, a Rolodex contact-card system, and another CRM called Realty Juggler that wasn’t Mac compatible and didn’t fit with how the team actually worked together using email as primary communication.

Michael D.J. Eisenberg is a Washington, D.C., lawyer who frequently deals with the dreaded federal bureaucracy, which has never been quick or easy to deal with.

Sometimes cases can take a decade or more, and he wouldn’t be able to manage it without the help of Daylite, a comprehensive, Mac-based customer relationship management app.

“Specifically, because it’s a Mac-native program, it integrates incredibly well with Apple Mail,” said Eisenberg. “The Daylite Mail Assistant is fantastic. I don’t have to be worried about having access to my email as long as I have access to my Daylite database whether it’s on my iPhone, iPad, iMac or the MacBook Pro I use when I travel. I can very easily look up a case history or see what Tasks I have in relation to it as well as all past communications.”

As urbanites across the U.S. relocate to smaller cities seeking more housing space, lower taxes and more accessible amenities, the City of Portland, population 650,000, beckons as an arts and foodie (and amazing craft beer) paradise nestled an hour east of the Pacific Ocean and an hour west of the Cascade mountain range.

Since 2004, Sean Becker and his three-person team have been selling homes in Portland. Sean Z Becker Real Estate specialized in condos and new developments at first, but the team soon broadened out to single family dwellings. These days the homes are often sold to incoming newcomers from Seattle, San Francisco and New York who can still find a nice detached house for USD$700,000 or $800,000 – a third or less of what they would pay in what have become less affordable US mega-cities.

BlackBerry Messenger is close to becoming a cross-platform messaging service for the first time, but when will you be able to download the app on your Android and iOS devices? BlackBerry has been pretty quiet about launch dates up until now, but a new rumor claims BBM will hit Google Play this Friday, September 20, before landing on the App Store a day later.

Mac and iOS business app developer Marketcircle announced the latest of version of Daylite, the company’s business and productivity management app. The new version, released today, is a major upgrade from previous versions. Daylite is an excellent business management tool for OS X and iOS. It focuses on aggregating all manner of company data, monitoring processes, and helping ensure that business users follow up on leads and opportunities. The new release focuses on increasing performance, workflow, and integration with iOS devices.

One of the immediate associations that most people have when they think about the iPad in business is the iPad as a sales tool. Not surprising given its form factor and the ease with which it can display presentations, offer up a portfolio, and generate quotes on the fly.

Do those abilities really add up to increased sales over binders of information, colorful brochures, and canned presentations on DVD? For home security giant ADT, the answer is an emphatic yes.

Microsoft has been pretty noncommittal when it comes to creating business tools for the iPhone and iPad.  The company has dipped its toes in the iOS pool with consumer-oriented release of My Xbox Live and an iOS port of its Kinectimals virtual pet game.  That’s in addition to an app that lets users access files stored in Microsoft’s cloud-based SkyDrive storage and a version of OneNote.

Although we still haven’t seen any firms signs of Office coming to the iPad beyond the handful of reports last fall, Microsoft is taking the iPad and iPhone seriously enough to include mobile apps for the devices for its Dynamics CRM 2012 suite as noted by ZDNet and 9 to 5 Mac.