Small and medium enterprises or SMEs are companies

Small and medium enterprises or SMEs are companies whose headcount or turnover falls below certain limits. The abbreviation SME occurs commonly in the EU and in international organizations, such as the World Bank, the United Nations and the WTO. The term Small or Medium sized Business or SMB has become more standard in a few other countries. EU Member States traditionally had their own definition of what constitutes an SME, for example the traditional definition in Germany had a limit of 500 employees, while, for example, in Belgium it could have been 100. But now the EU has started to standardize the concept. Its current definition categorizes companies with fewer than 50 employees as "small", and those with fewer than 250 as "medium". [1]

By contrast, in the United States, when small business is defined by the number of employees, it often refers to those with less than 100 employees, while medium-sized business often refers to those with less than 500 employees. However, the most widely used American definition of micro-business by the number of employees is the same of that of European Union: less than 10 employees. As of 2005, Germany will use the definition of the European Commission. Business enterprises of fewer than 10 employees often class as SOHO (for Small office/home office

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Pharm. Optima research scientist Doug Decker works in the Innovation Center in Kalamazoo. The firm was founded by nine former Pfizer scientists in the wake of the pharmaceutical giant's job cuts in 2003. See full image

Drew Nelson graduated with a 1 st Class B. Eng. (Hons) in 1976 and a Ph. D in Semiconductor Technology in 1979. This was followed by a period of post-doctoral research with us, when Drew was a leading member of the original team that designed, commissioned and ran the SERC Central Facility for Compound Semiconductors. This centre of excellence, now known as the EPSRC National Centre for III-V Technologies, is recognised as one of the outstanding jewels in the University´s crown. Drew joined the British Telecom Research Laboratory at Martlesham Heath in 1981 and soon became Head of a research group that developed state-of-the-art compound semiconductor growth technology known as metal organic vapour phase epitaxy (MOVPE). This is now used extensively in the fabrication of all current optical communication systems. In 1988 Drew became Technical Director and co-founder of Epitaxial Products International, or EPI for short. This Cardiff-based company was Europe´s first merchant supplier of high quality MOVPE-grown IIIV semiconducting device layers. Four years later, Drew was Chief Executive Officer and EPI had become the premier worldwide supplier of MOVPE-grown III-V device structures to all of the world´s leading semiconductor companies. Following a management buy-out of EPI and the acquisition of the