A common effect of recession is to cause larger companies working off a bigcost base to become cautious, opening the way for smaller, more nimble companies to slip in and grab a bigger piece of the pie. As a result, SMEs are often more inclined to look at a new investment in a recession, making them attractive targets for software vendors.

Take the announcement made last week by software infrastructure vendor Axway, recently merged with Tumbleweed and the now headquartered inScottsdale, Arizona. Axway has released B2Bi Express, a B2B solution targeted specifically at SMEs. Mindful of the needs of this market segment, Axway offers B2Bi Express not only as licensed software but also as a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution.

Most major software vendors now include products designed for SMEs, although in many cases the larger vendors such as IBM rely on partners to fill out their solution sets. I expect to see a lot more focus on SMEs over the coming months – the one warning, however, is SMEs should watch for vendors offering ‘big user’ products with simply a few marketing slides around them to make them look like SME products. SME needs are quite different (eg a SaaS option such as included by Axway in the above release) and need special handling in both product and presentation.

Steve