[sgh]

I can speak from experience. If you do technical work, it is very difficult to fight against big companies like ST, even though your solution is better. Our GLC are competing too much with the SMEs and they have a big advantage cos they could provide all kinds of support which you cannot.

I remember one company asking me how long I can support my products. I told them 1 year at most. They insisted on 10 years. I can't even guarantee my company is still afloat after 10 years.

Agree and Spore customer market is not big enough as most generous spender is govt hence they every year throw IT projects out as need to expend taxpayers budget. So most IT startup with govt links e.g former high rank civil servant setup shop bid govt projects and do. They have close to zero private company customer projects landed. I used to work in one of them. Spinoff from one of NUS research unit encourage by govt to setup company.