chandigarhwhen you offer peanuts you get monkeysthe axiom sums up the dilemma facing small and medium enterprises in the regioneven as technologybased companies reinforce their drive to offerwebbased solutions to these enterprises the lack of funds and tight marketconditions are forcing the latter to do a serious rethink before opting for these technologiesthe poor state of infrastructure on the connectivity front available in places like parwanoo baddibarotiwala gobindgarh batala and other industrial townships of the region only adds to the woes of the small scale enterprises however international computer major ibm is optimistic of small enterprises opting for the new technologiesibm is offering web service products like websphere lotus tivoli db2 and eserver aimed at improving the data processing systems so as to enable small businesses to integrate their buying and selling with the global marketssays anjana aggarwal country head ibm service solutions our products are aimed at ushering in business flexibility automation of business processes time to market business integration and faster business innovation through ubiquitous interoperabilitythe small and medium business enterprises are our major target clients and we feel that the changing market conditions makes it imperative for these businesses to upgrade their business processes to compete in the global marketsbut aggarwal is faced with issues which are much beyond her control she is often encountered with questions likewill these solutions improve the speed of data transfera business executive of punjab based international tractors limited asks there is a very low bandwidth available at the place of our operations is there any web based service that is able to enhance the speedanother typical query comes from an executive of purolator the parwanoo based manufacturer of engine filterswe supply our products to the big auto manufacturers like tata and ashok leylandafter investing the kind of money required will these systems be compatible with those at the auto manufacturersaggarwal however remains optimistic from an almost zero level in 1995 when applets were offered in the market the coming of server side j2ee in mid 1999 has resulted in an exponential growth in the marketaggarwal maintains that these services would enable businesses to integratetheir marketing systems to the global marketit will create a common pool of suppliers and the manufacturers will be able to get orders from buyers elsewhere if their products suited to the specific needs of the particular companyhowever with small enterprises still grappling with the basic issues the newtechnologies are bound to remain out of their reach at least for the time being