Watershed decade of the 21st century...

... So many questions and so few (and disparate) answers.

The theme for small business software landscape has been - DIVERSITY. Desktop applications , homegrown software applications, excel and such dot the small business landscape. What this means is that the small business software landscape is NOT as organized or well defined as that for large corporations. For large corporations the theme has (typically) been ERP.

Rarely do small businesses have a "strategy" or even a well thought out plan for their software needs. This is understandable becasue they are busy running their day to day operations and making sure that things run smoothly. They do not have the manpower & other resources to dedicate to such analysis & planning. Forget the classic implementation for the moment. In contrast large organizations have scores of people examining every aspect of its software needs including the CIO and (implicitly) the CFO.

What are the small business people missing that large corporation are gaining upon? What can a small business do? Is this a case of missed opportunities for a small business? You bet it is...and we will show how things are changing to the advantage of a small business...and also what the software vendors must do to help the small business in this first decade of the 21st century...

-amit