History of Business Technology Applications

In the late 1990's technology soared. It was the era of the dot.com boom and subsequent bust. Many new software and hardware advances were adopted by large companies that began to integrate new technologies into their business processes.
Some of these technologies were on the 'bleeding edge' with buggy software, crashes, insufficient memory and so on. Online 'cloud' or web based applications were often not reliable and not user friendly.
For smaller companies without IT departments, being on the technology bleeding edge was the equivalent to living a nightmare.
Around 2003 the applications became more robust and bugs and crashes were less of a problem. Part of this progress was due to the dramatic drop in pricing for computer memory meaning that more robust programs could be run without crashing.
Also around this time many industries developed industry specific software to run businesses like car dealerships or bookstores. Called "management systems" this genre of software allowed smaller companies to combine all their processes under one program. This management software also did not require an onsite IT department to keep it running.
This vertical industry specific software was complemented by horizontal industry software such as bookkeeping and contact management software. This meant that a company could also run its books and keep track of prospects and customers in ways they were not able to do before.
Software and platform integrators stayed busy. The big drive during this period was to try to link and integrate software. For instance, management software would generate an invoice, note that it was paid and then route the data to the proper category in the general ledger through a linked accounting system.
It was clearly understood that the more integrated and "seamless" a software was, the more powerful and cost effective it could be. And since human error continued to be a major drawback to software applications, greater integration meant not only saving time and money but reducing errors.
As hardware and software improved it also became cheaper and more affordable to smaller companies. By 2005 and 2006 many of these applications became more mainstream and were used by smaller and smaller companies.