Originally, smaller enterprises designed the business software required by their peers, but because this is now such a lucrative market, the bigger players want part of it.

The market is worth an estimated $10 billion annually and is growing fast, the BBC said.

Companies like SAP of Germany and US players Oracle and now Microsoft are starting to target smaller firms with their enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

UK software giant Sage says that once small firms find a supplier they are likely to stay with it and this is a difficult market for software suppliers to break into.