REDMOND, WASH.— Stan is a hands-on sort of guy. The entrepreneur's day starts at 7:30 a.m., when he gets into work and checks his e-mail. At 8:30, Stan starts preparing for the daily 9 o'clock sales meeting. The rest of the day is a blur of calls and meetings: Stan's banker, his accountant, his suppliers. The chubby, graying 41-year-old usually leaves work at 5:30 with a briefcase full of reports to read that night. Sometimes Stan goes straight home to his wife and two children. But often he goes out to dinner with a client and doesn't get home until late.
Stan may sound like you, or many hardworking small-business owners you know. But there's one important difference: Stan doesn't really exist. He's a fictional character dreamed up by researchers at Microsoft to help them develop Office Small Business Accounting 2006, a new financial-management application that will hit stores in September.
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