[depolitic]

I work for a small IT company, which builds a target custom application for IT resellers, this product is Windows only (I build the ecommerce web front to this Windows Fat Client). In this company I have come across an interesting idea and question about the Mac in small business.

Many small business have specific requirements to their individual business needs, to manage their clients, data, resources, staff, and finances. Now most of these companies run on Windows, because it seems their is a large selection of Business focused applications targeted at the small business user from IT companies that are Windows centric.

Now I have been thinking that the Mac may not be an appealing option for the small Business market (A huge market), not so much based on hardware price, which is very competitive, rather due to the lack of small business application for the Mac.

Is this theory a possibility, were ever you go, in a shop, a restaurant, any kind of small business, you can see the beige box running some specific industry application.

Do such applications exist for the Macintosh? Can you list them? I am also not talking small share ware or OSS application, I am talking complete and feature rich with support.

The reason I raise this is that their may be a business opportunity to develop an iBusiness suit of applications, Say a CMS, CRM, Local Domain Mail Solution, Inventory / Stock Tracking that are very flexible and adaptable for small business, to deploy on the Mac. That are as feature rich and drawing on the native features to give them an edge over the MS crowd.

Combine this with the growing problems that Windows users are experiencing with viruses, Trojans and patches. And the expected growth in Apple market share that is in the horizon. Their may be an opportunity to develop and target for the small business market. Viruses and the problems with Windows is a major concern for small business, and is costing them real money.

Now I can hear people say:

Q- Why should I give up Windows and move to the the Mac no matter how amazing application X is, the move would cost to much.

A- What I have seen is that so many MS shops are also hardware dealers, what they do is, buy this software package, then they end up talking you into a hardware upgrade which they sell to you, or have a partner of theirs sell to you. So is it not possible to sell this cool application X for the Mac at a reduced price or free and then include a new Mac sold at a good price, were the Mac company skims part of the profits from the hardware sales. Then make our money on the support and training and selling extras.

Also sell them on Application X, then pop the fact that it is Mac only. I sit near Windows sales staff, they promise and tell customers everything plain and simple lies and clients come back for more. Now I am not saying that we should lie, but the trick will be in the sales and giving sales an application to sell. If the desire is strong enough then logic, or fear become irrelevant and people will buy.

Look at the iPod, its from Apple, yet people will still pay hand over fist for it, it solves a problem and provides solutions in a fun way.

I just have been thinking this over, comments......anyone?

Kurt

[Appleman]

Originally posted by depolitic:
Q- Why should I give up Windows and move to the the Mac no matter how amazing application X is, the move would cost to much.

Indeed, X is an amazing piece of software

hardware is simply too expensive for being a cash register.

[depolitic]

Yes for a cash register maybe, but an eMac for $900 Australian is not that expensive, and it is much cooler and less complex, then any Dell any day of the week, and most likely be very good value for money.

Also think about the XServe integration possibilities for these iBusiness applications. Run a Macintosh Small Business Server (M-SBS) for the Mac and have a bunch of cheap eMacs as dummy terminals.

The reason I have also raised this is that all to often I have heard the sales man go:

Sales: So what version of Windows do you run?
Customer: MMm Mac OS 10.3 Panther
Sales: Stunned silence.......(Covers phone and makes some anti - macintosh remark to the rest of the office)
Sales: Is that a Mac is it?? Well do you run any Windows PC?
Customer: No, --- will you application run on a Mac?
Sales: No.... More silence....
Sales: Well we advise you to buy a real computer i.e. a Windows Computer, then we can talk.
Customer: Ohh I see.....

I have seen this to often....

[Appleman]

Originally posted by depolitic:
Yes for a cash register maybe, but an eMac for $900 Australian is not that expensive, and it is much cooler and less complex, then any Dell any day of the week, and probley very good value for money.

Also think about the XServe integration possibilities for these iBusiness applications

According to the Apple Store Australia a simple eMac costs A$1299,-.
I'm sure you'll find much cheaper peecee's doing the things you want to do.
I love the idea though.

[depolitic]

$900 is student rate with discounts, as an Apple reseller I am sure that we could supply the eMac at that price.

[depolitic]

PS: If their is enough positive feedback on this idea, I would be keen to take it further. I am a junior Cocoa programmer, maybe other would join me. Developing a Small Business Package for the Macintosh.

[Appleman]

Just do it

[depolitic]

I am doing it... Working on a CMS at the moment, just out of interest I posted this question to see what other people are thinking on subject.

[pliny]

Originally posted by depolitic:
Yes for a cash register maybe, but an eMac for $900 Australian is not that expensive, and it is much cooler and less complex, then any Dell any day of the week, and most likely be very good value for money.

Also think about the XServe integration possibilities for these iBusiness applications. Run a Macintosh Small Business Server (M-SBS) for the Mac and have a bunch of cheap eMacs as dummy terminals.

The reason I have also raised this is that all to often I have heard the sales man go:

Sales: So what version of Windows do you run?
Customer: MMm Mac OS 10.3 Panther
Sales: Stunned silence.......(Covers phone and makes some anti - macintosh remark to the rest of the office)
Sales: Is that a Mac is it?? Well do you run any Windows PC?
Customer: No, --- will you application run on a Mac?
Sales: No.... More silence....
Sales: Well we advise you to buy a real computer i.e. a Windows Computer, then we can talk.
Customer: Ohh I see.....

I have seen this to often....

heh heh, that is funny.

i think you have a good idea, what kind of small business applications would you think about developing as part of your package?

[beamso]

Compiere is something close to what you're looking for. I haven't heard or seen the server run on a Mac though. The client will.

[depolitic]

Well it is a question of demand. What is it that most small business need most of all?

Now the acronyms thrown around in Business is CRM, every one seems to want a CRM for everything. And every application wants CRM integration. Then I would say it would be some-kind like CMS, design, deploy, manage ecommerce and online solution system.

Then I would say mail, my company spend a pretty penny on Microsoft Mail server with strong outlook integration, outside of the fact that it crashes daily and cost a fortune it is very nice and especially fast. Just think some open source mail server with a mail client and CRM integration.

Now I would say that a CRM solution would be a good place to start, and then have modules to add that can customize the basic functionality to specific needs. Because a flower shop has different needs to a Design studio.

I think however design wise - It would be best to follow the iLife suite concept of smallish and light application with strong integration rather then an Windows solution of one MONSTER application.

Also apple has already supplied the foundation technologies for us in the form of Address Book API and the forthcoming "Core Data" in Tiger. I know their is a wrapper application that can act as a CRM on the Mac which employs these base technologies.

If any one is interested in evening just suggesting ideas for such a CRM application like design and core functionality I would most welcome feedback. I am currently coding the basics of such an application and feedback and support is welcome.

In terms of License, I think that the Application should be free or Donation ware however the support would have to charged.

[f1000]

Originally posted by Appleman:
hardware is simply too expensive for being a cash register.

If I recall correctly, even the Apple Stores don't use Macs as cash registers.

[mikellanes]

Originally posted by f1000:
If I recall correctly, even the Apple Stores don't use Macs as cash registers.

The ones around here (Florida) do, iMac's 15" I think, they have there own POS software too, I think just FileMaker stuff?

[tooki]

There's a LOT more specialized business software out there for the Mac than most people think.

Apple runs its stores entirely on Macs.
Apple itself runs entirely on Macs except for the accounting/ERP/MIS system. Even Apple's call centers (some of which are outsourced) run on Macs.

There are tons of specialized programs out there for (just some examples) POS, dentistry, law, and ISPs. There are probably countless privately-developed systems that nobody will ever hear about.

There are zillions of FileMaker Pro and 4D databases out there for almost any field, some commercial, some in-house, some outsourced.

tooki

[cpac]

Yep - I would think with Filemaker out there, you can find (or hire somebody to create relatively cheap) software customized for your small business.

As far as "CRM" goes, there's DayLite, which has a full ACT! importer, palm sync, etc. There's both Quickbooks and MYOB for payroll, etc., There's MS Office, for, well, MS Office....

And there are quite a few POS (point of sale, not the other POS) applications out there too...

So... Yes. I would think that some small business would get fed up paying constantly for Windows support, and getting hammered by viruses, and would switch over to Macs

Perhaps Apple should start up a consultation service that actively goes after small businesses. ("Think you have to run windows in your line of work? Think again... Let us show you how easy and *less expensive* it could be to run your business using Macintosh")

PS - yes an eMac is an expensive cash register, but you can get an older iMac that will run fine for POS type uses for a couple hundred....

[f1000]

Originally posted by mikellanes:
The ones around here (Florida) do, iMac's 15" I think, they have there own POS software too, I think just FileMaker stuff?

Hmm, that's interesting. I wonder if the software is custom-made?

[pliny]

Originally posted by cpac:

Perhaps Apple should start up a consultation service that actively goes after small businesses. ("Think you have to run windows in your line of work? Think again... Let us show you how easy and *less expensive* it could be to run your business using Macintosh")

apple consultants network

[Gavin]

I'm definitely an advocate for business software on the mac.

Here's a real world example. 3 years ago I helped set up the computer system for a small retail store. Where a bigger place might have a dedicated computer as cash register they had one computer for everything.

The machine ran all this:
point of sale software (P.O.S.) - inventory, reports and cash register with the ability to drive a cash drawer and receipt printer. It also did bar code and price label printing with various templates.
barcode reader - simply pasted the number into the active field.
invoices / purchase orders
scanning
faxes
email
contacts / address book
quickbooks
web surfing
making and printing signs
UPS with shutdown software

I found that it could all be done on a mac except for the cash register stuff.
The bar code reader required a serial cable. I couldn't find any POS software for the mac at all. There are outfits that will set you up with custom solutions - add on packages for filemaker or things that try to integrate excel, 4D and quick books and whatever. They were just too complicated and not in the budget. I found nothing that was a single app that did it all. Good luck finding something the opens the cash drawer and drives a thermal receipt printer and customer display monitor.

I was able to find just what they needed on windows for less than $300 so that's what they went with. The cash register half of it is just fine (ugly though) but the work station part is the usual windows headache.

The cool part is that with OSX there's new stuff popping up. Today I probably could set them up with everything on an iMac.

One of the problems I ran into was data export. I needed to use the data to populate a web catalog but the software was pretty limited as to what you could get out of it.

the bottle necks were entering the data and figuring out the reports.. it used a grid / table format that scrolled off the the right forever so it was very easy to make a mistake and made users want to skip entering the data. It was slow and annoying so they'd just enter the minimal - name and price, etc. It only printed formal accounting reports that were useless for a mom and pop outfit. No quick way to see how much money you made today or how many whatevers you sold last week.

So: open standards, full data access, simple user interface, useful info/feedback.

[Mohammed Al-Sabah]

hello, i for one is looking for OS X Point of sale software, looked for quite abit for a good PoS software, easy, simple to use and ease of data entry, ( inventory ) found a few but not as good as i want it to be. and i really dont want to buy a PC for it.


depolitic thannks for starting this post and would love to know if you did develop anything for small business?

if so let me know about it please

would you guys post what PoS software you are using ? ( if anyone is using macs for POS )

thanks again !

[Sherwin]

We'd go totally Mac if we had a localised copy of QuickBooks available (we don't - QuickBooks Mac is only for the US, AFAIK) and MYOB wasn't so flaky. Still have to use Windows for the accounts.