Cookie-cutter Solutions Won't Cut It with the Mid-Market
Part One: Historical Relationships
P.J. Jakovljevic - April 19, 2004

Historical Relationships

The fact that the lower-end of the enterprise applications market (also referred to as SMB--small-to-medium businesses or SME--small-to-medium enterprises) is the next frontier and a promised land for all enterprise vendors--small (tier n), medium (tier 2), and large (tier 1) alike--has long not been news. During economic slowdowns, the larger corporations will likely curb their IT spending to a degree, whereas their smaller counterparts will all but completely recoil from any spending during rainy days. However, with a recovery, one should expect a built-up need for enterprise systems from companies that have weathered the storm and now need to bolster their competitiveness and agility in the market. Still, the vendor is not guaranteed an easy ride even if smaller enterprises (which as a rule lag behind their larger brethren in terms of technology innovation) are willing to go for a more sophisticated technology replacement that is, in the best case scenario, beyond the rapidly outmoded two-tier client/server architectures, or, and more likely, in the worse case scenario, beyond the all-too-common dispersed islands of information on Microsoft Excel or similar spreadsheets, Access-based reports and queries, or even the pads of paper and the "post-it" notes of managers...