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

Why do Small and Mid-size Enterprises (SMEs) not have access to more efficient and affordable management systems?

Collections of spreadsheets, disconnected apps, and manual processes are wasteful, but upgrading to subscription packages with their endless line-up of modules and user fees can be ruinously expensive.

Big Tech's monopoly on advanced solutions is not inevitable, however. Sumer is a simple and inexpensive alternative designed to

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

SME managers are experts in their field. They model their business with forms and reports, and they can represent their entire business in spreadsheets. Software suppliers that ape big business methods by analyzing data structure and designing new interfaces only duplicate work already done by SME managers.

Sumer lets managers skip the expensive software packages to build their own system, 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.

* What is a relational database?

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

Over-complication is a business tactic.

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, extensions, and pay walls,
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 is still here

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.