Small Doesn't Have To Mean Low-Tech

mall business is a hot, hot category in technology circles these days. Almost every week, there is a new piece of research that implies that the opportunity for growth in technology spending will come from small business.

And almost as often, there is another technology vendor that pledges to serve the small-business market with a flurry of products and programs.

Most of these vendors jumping into this hot, “new” market are enterprise vendors looking for growth. And most of their products and programs are targeted at SMBs--that ridiculously broad category that encompasses all but very large companies.

Most often, vendors’ definition of SMB tops out at about 1,000 employees. But is it really right to lump a company with 50 employees into the same group as a company with as many as 1,000? Can you target the same product at both of these companies?

For many, the answer is, obviously not. Smaller companies are less tech-savvy. They don’t need such complicated technology to run their businesses. They don’t have the resources to manage that technology.

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All of that is true, to some extent. But I constantly come across exceptions to the low-tech small business. And those tech-savvy small companies rely on their solution providers to keep them up and running.

As an example, in our Case In Point (page 10A), CRN Industry Editor Barbara Darrow takes a look at what Bryan Cafaro and Tri-Bry Business Technology Solutions built for Ammirati Coffee. In the time Tri-Bry has been working with Ammirati, the small coffee distributor has grown from eight employees to 24, and from a simple network into an online store.

If Cafaro had perceived Ammirati as destined to stay low-tech, he would have left a lot of business on the table.

Larry Hooper is managing editor/news at CRN . Contact him via email at [email protected] .