It's all about the management

Joel Spolsky has a fantastic essay about what it takes to successfully run a software company.

His thesis is that there needs to be a "development abstraction layer" that sits above (or below) the developers- the key people who create what the company sells- that enables them to focus on doing their job (programming)- and nothing else. It's management's responsibility to see that the developer abstraction layer is in place and functioning properly all the time.

This thesis is true for almost any business, and it's very clearly and cleverly stated in Joel's essay.