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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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WebSite101 "Reading List" Weekly Netrepreneur Tip Sheet

Ezine emphasizing small business online http://website101.com/arch/

e-tutorial online at: http://website101.com/shortcourse.html

By week's end you're ready expand your business to the web!

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