Microsoft Inc.

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 (and often marketing itself as Microsoft Dynamics), 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.

Dell Inc.

Whether you spend most of your time in a cubicle or on a couch, chances are good that there's a Dell in front of you. The world's #1 direct-sale computer vendor provides a broad range of computer and entertainment products for the consumer and enterprise markets. In addition to a full line of desktop and notebook PCs, Dell offers network servers, workstations, storage systems, printers, LCD and plasma televisions, projectors, and Ethernet switches. The company also markets third-party software and peripherals. Dell's growing services unit provides systems integration, support, and training.

Entrepreneurial wunderkind Michael Dell pioneered the direct-sales model for computers and took the company from his dorm room to the top of the PC heap by keeping it focused on a simple formula: Eliminate the middleman and sell for less. Dell's built-to-order boxes allow for lower inventories, lower costs, and higher profit margins -- elements that leave it well armed for the PC price wars and IT spending recessions.

Early in 2007 Dell was renamed CEO, a position he had ceded to his hand-picked successor, Kevin Rollins, in 2004. Rollins' resignation came as the company struggled with a number of difficult issues, most notably disappointing earnings and an SEC investigation into its finances. Immediately following the shakeup, Dell announced streamlining measures including a reduction in managers and the elimination of 2006 bonuses.