Interesting opinion piece by Gene Marks in Business Week called "Tech Solutions Your Small Biz Can't Use."  The gist of the article is a lot of technology is over hyped and not appropriate for small business.  It goes on to list 10 technologies that the author claims don't work for small business.

The article was clearly written to be controversial and generate discussion and response.  Because of this, it is a bit over the top in terms of complaining about technology.  However, I agree with premise that technology is often over hyped and often underperforms.  I also agree that small businesses need to be careful in choosing technology. 

One issue this article highlights is that the small business sector is too broad and too diverse to make generalized statements about.  There are lots of small businesses that shouldn't use the technologies on the list.  But at the same time, it is obvious that lots of small businesses are effectively using these technologies. 

For example, RSS, spam filters, blogs, SEO, CRM and Web 2.0 tools are all very important to my small business and work quite well.  They also are cheap (mostly free) and easy to use.  I don't use adwords, but I know of many, many small businesses that consider adwords crucial to their small business.  The same is true for online video and mobile applications. 

The bottom line is blanket statements about technology and small business are going to be wrong.  What makes sense and what will work depends on the specific needs and requirements of the business. 


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