Ebusiness Ruled by Pack of Big Dogs!
by Mike Banks Valentine
As a small business journalist I make it my top priority
to search out and review products of value to the little
guy. Scouring the trade shows like InternetWorld and
eBusiness Expo for those solutions that matter to the
small business, I've discovered dozens of wonderful
tools for customer relationship management, office
productivity and ecommerce enabling of businesses.
Attending shows over the last six months has grown less
and less interesting and the tools I've discovered of
lower value until it seems that there are only a handful
of innovations to consider and even fewer that are of any
value to your business. The crowds have fallen off as fewer
demonstrators reserve booths and some shows have even been
rescheduled due to lack of interest from vendors and
attendees.
I've worked out why products are of less value, innovations
are of less merit and crowds are disappearing from the shows.
I may have even worked out why the economy is drying up
like
a windblown pile of leaves before a storm.
It's the enterprise! The Big Dogs of business now rule the
eMarketplace. LittleGuy.com can't afford their solutions
and
they no longer offer any that matter to us anyway. Massive
solutions providers providing solutions only to each other.
It's survival of the biggest, not the fittest.
Global 500 companies are only doing business with each other.
Start-ups only want to do business with those same companies.
Venture Capital only goes to fund ideas that matter to those
same Global 500 companies and now the economy is reflecting
that development. The big boys already do business with
each
other. Why demonstate products to each other at public shows?
They sure aren't showing anything of the remotest interest
to
the public.
"People leaving a job are often told not to burn any
bridges.
That philosophy appears to be paying off for the founders
of
digiMine Inc., a Seattle, Washington-based company founded
in
March 2000 by three Microsoft veterans."
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/9891.html
In order to create an effective startup, start by working
for
the Big Dogs first and then leave to create your own company
which then sells things to your previous employer and those
very same Global 500 companies that they already deal with.
There is no need to ever deal with the public except to
"mine
their data", which is the business of DigiMine.
If I had one piece of advice for those laid off from jobs
at
the Global 500, it would be to do the same. Don't sell products
of interest to the public, they've all been laid off because
the profit is in the enterprise! Sell your services or ideas
to
the Big Dogs and you can join them in the big dog house!
As I sit in the pressroom of the ebusiness conference and
expo on the floor of the San Jose Convention Center, writing
up this piece I face the booth of IBM which takes up the
space
of 16 smaller booths. Beside them is a similarly sized space
for
HP which holds more Hewlett Packard staff than interested
visitors checking out the product displays.
The next booth holds a multi-million dollar optical storage
hardware demonstration from a company called StorageTek
which
could only be purchased by their two show neighbors, IBM
and HP.
Next to that sits the GE Global Exchange booth, of interest
only
to other giant corporations. Intel has a presence here,
as does
Oracle.
Vendors are resorting to giving away cash to gain audience
for
their presentations -- literally. EC Outlook is giving away
fifty bucks to one out of 10 people willing to sit through
their
10 minute demo. Vistors are watching presentations to gain
logo
laden tchotchkes, not pay attention to "Solutions"
meant only for
other giant corporations.
The show is attended by fewer and fewer folks because none
of
us need "Enterprise Solutions across legacy systems"
but we do
need little products and services for our little web sites.
Those billions of web pages were not put up by the Global
500
or even the Global 1000. They were put up by millions of
individuals and small businesses that just want a share
of the
ebusiness pie. A pie that is increasingly being baked up
and
served with the same 16 stale ingredients either produced
or
sold by the Global 500.
As you approach the refreshingly small booth of WebTrends,
you are approached as a possible "Enterprise Edition"
customer
seeking the $4500 software that provides "metrics to
predict
ROI", not the buyer of the $400 CD that measures and
charts
your web site traffic. Although the latter is available,
it's
not promoted actively to attendees. After all, what would
the
other big dogs at this show think if we were offering a
dinky
little boney item that built our business ahead of the one
keeping
us afloat while we try to come up with stuff of interest
to the
giant corporation in the next booth.
The web has become dominated by B2B (business to business)
not
because B2C (business to consumer) doesn't work, it's because
they can stay afloat financially longer by providing expensive
"solutions" to monstrous companies rather than
affordable
products to little businesses.
Am I frustrated that there is very little to report here
of
any interest to small business. You bet.
Am I upset that the only hotel I can get is a $200 per night
"corporate solution" instead of a place to sleep.
You bet.
Do I believe this show reflects the reason ebusiness is
in steep
decline? You bet. I'll even wager that the next show I attend
will be one that offers a thing or two that matters to someone
other than IBM, Intel, Oracle and GE Global Exchange.
As I was preparing to go live with this issue, I discovered
a cute one paragraph piece from eMarketer.com news stating:
No Go for SOHO
Xerox will terminate its small office/home office
(SOHO) business that includes personal inkjet
printers and xerographic products. Pink slips
will be photocopied and handed out to 700 of
the unit's employees. Xerox will contine to
provide service and support to customers who
own SOHO items.
The press release on the Xerox.com site links to a live
recorded conference call from CEO Anne Mulcahy reducing
the decision to a few columns of numbers to investment
analysts. Listen for yourself:
http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=xrx&script=1100
But apparently the profits are where, boys and girls?
In the Enterprise! Who are all doing the same thing.
Now if all the big dogs stop doing business with the
little guy, they'll soon be barking up the wrong tree!
They've each chased that money to the top of the money
tree and find themselves balanced on slender branches
that can't support their weight. Now there's nowhere to
go but back down to the bottom to deal with the little
guy again.
Ya gotta wonder why IBM and Intel make those commercials
that air during prime time when they could simply call up
each others web pages and buy from each other. They sure
don't offer anything of interest to the public. But then,
to whom would they give away logo laden tchotchkes to?
Maybe they could interest those Global 500 executives? No?
Those guys won't respond to the $50 prize offered to sit
through the demos either. How's business Sparky? "Ruff!"
Sit up and beg boy, want a bone?
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