Carl Tyler's Blog :: How big is small?

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How big is small?

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One of the items that seamed to get discussed over coffee or tea at the Collaboration University was IBM's interpretation of what a small business is, the discussion would often arise from concern from attendess that IBM solutions were requiring more and more hardware to be installed and functional (Quickr directory support and Sametime Gateway for example). Most people felt that IBM's definition of a small business was too large, and by assuming a small business is above say 500 employees, IBM is missing most of the small business market, which Microsoft seems very adapt at winning. So the new poll, is what size do you consider a Small Medium Business (SMB) to be, and if you feel you work for a small business, please feel free to add comments on how you believe IBM could sell to you more effectively.

Posted by Carl Tyler On 07/25/2007 | Permalink |

Comments

1 - Glad to see you're back mate !

I've seen notes shops as small as 10 - 15 people before now

Posted by Coatsie At 02:07:51 PM On 07/25/2007 | - Website - |

2 - Small Businesses are business with less than 250 users. Medium sized business are businesses with 251 - 1000 users.

Posted by Rod Westwood At 02:24:08 PM On 07/25/2007 | - Website - |

3 - Entirely depends on the regional market, Here in New Zealand the largest % of businesses are less than 50 people. With a large % less than 25. How do you play in that space and be competitive with offering such as Google APPs, and other online services that provide 90% of requirements for free.

Posted by Pete Brown At 07:31:05 PM On 07/25/2007 | - Website - |

4 - I agree with @3 < 50 people is small business. These are the people that need IT to be easy to use and cheap. They either do the IT themselves outsource that to a third-party. If they do the IT themselves then it needs to be as easy as plugging in a toaster. If a third-party does it then they are generally support a number of similar clients and they pay a retainer. The third-party also needs something that requires minimal interaction. I know of a 12 person company and they would pay a third-party about $1000 AUD/Month for support of their network, pc's, email and filesharing. The only time that they needed support was when they had a new employee or if the server crashed/hung. They ran it all on one box with MS SBS on it. IBM needs to provide a single box solution i.e. Hardware (Server, Backup, Tapes), Software(Domino, Quickplace, ST) all configured and ready to go with the assistance of a really easy wizard for a single price. IBM should also add it to the (http://www-07.ibm.com/systems/au/x/express/sbss.html) web page as another alternative. Goto IBM.com and do a search for small business server and see if you can find a Lotus solution.....go on...I dare you!

Posted by Tony Palmer At 08:19:51 PM On 07/25/2007 | - Website - |

5 - @4 Spot on with the "single box solution".

Even if this was a VMWare image to start with, that'd be a great step forward, if only for demo, evaluation purposes.

Posted by Simon Scullion At 04:05:42 AM On 07/26/2007 | - Website - |

6 - @3 - the reference to "Google APPs" is a very good one. Where as Microsoft attempts to get the SMB market from the consumer market space, Google, is working from consumer and "micro businesses".

Posted by Glen At 08:18:01 AM On 07/27/2007 | - Website - |

7 - I agree, definately <50 users for Small Business.
It would seem that for MSFT, Small Business is less than 75, which is apparently what the SBS user limit is. At least in Australia, that sounds much more sane than 1000 users. Since according to some IBM stats, most of the big companies (public companies included) around here technically fall into IBM's Small Business Catagory if it is judged by revenue alone.

@4 A competiting product against MS SBS would be nice as well.

Posted by Pumynt Chooboonraj At 07:48:15 AM On 08/01/2007 | - Website - |