Microsoft

DESCRIPTION
How does a company keep growing when its primary products are already ubiquitous? If the company is Microsoft, it takes on other markets. Microsoft Business Solutions, the software giant's enterprise software division, offers a wide range of software applications for small and midsized businesses. Comprising the operations that produce the Microsoft Dynamics product suite, the division offers software for accounting, customer relationship management, supply chain management, analytics and reporting, e-commerce, business portals and online business services, human resources, manufacturing and retail management, field services management, and project management.

In 2005 Microsoft launched a new brand for the products formerly known as Microsoft Business Solutions, renaming them Microsoft Dynamics. Microsoft will continue to use Microsoft Business Solutions as the internal name for the business unit.

Microsoft Business Solutions was formed in 2001 when Microsoft combined the operations of accounting software maker Great Plains Software -- which Microsoft purchased that year for $1.1 billion in stock -- with its existing small business software operations, including the bCentral small business services unit. The division grew in 2002, when Microsoft bought Danish enterprise software maker Navision for about $1.5 billion.

Sun Microsystems

DESCRIPTION
When it comes to network computing, it's hard to find an area where the Sun doesn't shine. Sun Microsystems is a leading maker of UNIX-based servers used to power corporate computer networks and Web sites. It also makes workstation computers and a widening range of disk- and tape-based storage systems. Unlike most hardware vendors, Sun makes computers that use its own chips (SPARC) and operating system (Solaris). Its software portfolio includes application server, office productivity, and network management applications. Sun also developed Java, a programming language for creating software that can run unchanged on any kind of computer.RETURN