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

Many Small and Mid-size Enterprises (SMEs) want to move on from inefficient collections of spreadsheets, disconnected apps, and manual processes, but Big Tech's endless line-up of subscription modules and user fees can be impossibly expensive.

It should not be so difficult: business managers are experts in their field. They already model their businesses with forms and reports, and they can represent their entire business in spreadsheets. Why not use this knowledge to allow managers to build their own custom management systems?

Sumer provides a simple and inexpensive solution, as clear to use as spreadsheets and requiring no knowledge of IT.

Sumer assists managers apply their existing knowledge to build their own integrated management systems.

Big Tech can not do it, or will not do it?

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 unequal relationship 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.

Despite the ads, Big Tech is not "your business partner" out to solve your management problems. Big Tech's mission is to solve only enough of your problem that they can repeatedly tempt you back to buy their next module.

Ideally, a complete solution should be always just out of reach.

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

So why buy modules?

The Sumerians figured out business about 6000 years ago by creating forms and reports. No modules.

Modules are a marketing, not a technical, invention. The data underneath doesn't change, but the modules are intended to split and repackage access to your data and 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

Here is an example. 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.