The future of small business is not dumbed-down big business

Small and Mid-size Enterprises (SMEs) need more affordable management systems.

Collections of spreadsheets, disconnected apps, and manual processes are wasteful, but upgrading to subscription software with their endless line-up of modules and user fees is needlessly expensive.

Sumer has a better solution that starts by recognizing that SME managers are already experts in their field. Managers model their business with forms and reports, and they can represent their entire business in spreadsheets.

So aping big business development by using programmers to analyze data structure and to design interfaces is pointless. SME managers have already done that.

A simpler and far less expensive solution is to

assist managers in applying their existing knowledge to build their own integrated management systems.

Sumer can do this, no knowledge of IT required.

Nothing revolutionary here except attitude

Eveyone knows how business works. Activities like

have been routine for thousands of years.

So seriously, with all our advances in technology—including now AI—we cannot create a tool to convert these basic patterns into a coordinated management platform?

Of course we can. Big Tech could have delivered something like Sumer 20 years ago.

The essential technology is the relational database*. Programmers know how to build them, SME managers don't. The inequality creates a cartel forcing managers to buy back their own systems that they created in the first place.

SME managers could build a complete management system for themselves—if they had a tool like Sumer.

* (Relational databases are essential, but unless you are a programmer the details are not important. 'Relational database' just means a way to store data as a collection of data tables—price lists, inventory, sales invoices, accounting, etc.—all logically 'related' or linked. SME managers do it intuitively, in their head. Sumer does it physically amd automatically based on managers' spreadsheets, no need for users to get involved.)

The Big Tech promise... 'never do simple again'

Big Tech's failure to deliver simpler SME solutions is intentional.

When Microsoft realized in the 1990s that they had made a terrible mistake with Excel and Word by improving them to the point that customers no longer needed yearly upgrades, they converted Office 365 into a subscription service. The modern Big Tech strategy was born, and no one would ever do simple again.

From social media to business management programs, high-tech solutions are designed to

1. push subscription and advertising revenue,
2. split off features into up-sale modules and extensions,
3. ensure customers stay dependent on the software provider,
4. keep customers' hands off the controls.

High Tech enjoys astonishing profits by adding extravagant subscription, module, and user fees.

Business data is low tech, however. In fact that is why this is called 'Sumer', because the Sumerians were doing it 6000 years ago.

The problem with a low-tech solution in a high-tech world is that it violates the goals of Big Tech, but if you don't have an issue with that, you should look at Sumer.

Simple reborn

Sumer disrupts the subcription package cartel by helping SME managers take back control.

Sumer is based on templates. Comparing templates with standard subscription modules, why buy modules if templates are free?

Modules are a marketing, not a technical, invention. The data underneath doesn't change, but modules are intended to split and repackage your data as forms and reports to sell back to you separately.

Sumer allows managers to create their own forms and reports. Spreadsheet-style setups are intuitive, and Sumer's library of existing templates can be easily customized.

How it works

The template behind this Price List is almost self-explanatory.

• Column names across the top, parameters down the left side. You probably recognize most of them.
• Add new columns—anything you want—with the 'AddColumn' button.
• Set DataType, Width, Alignment and so on. You can even add Filters and Formulas.

This price list can be recalled and used automatically in sales entry forms and reports.

Other forms for purchasing, production, sales, scheduling, and more have additional parameters, but all work the same way.