SpaceX filed for 1 million compute satellites. Your ERP still can't export clean sales data.
SpaceX filed for up to 1 million AI satellites the week Anthropic shipped Claude Fable 5, while many distributors still rekey COAs into a 2004 ERP. The limit is clean product data, an ERP you can get data out of and one documented workflow.
On Monday SpaceX unveiled AI1, a satellite built only to run AI models. The solar array spans wider than a 747, the compute payload runs 120 kilowatts, and the company has filed with the FCC for a constellation of up to 1 million of them. The next day Anthropic shipped Claude Fable 5, the most capable model it has ever made available to the public. That is the frontier-view this week. Now the view from the warehouse floor.
Distributors still have CSR’s rekeying supplier COA’s into an ERP installed in 2004, while pricing for the top 200 customers lived in a spreadsheet only one person knows how to update. It may have worked 5 years ago, but the industry is quickly moving to be more efficient.
After 25 years in the industry, the gap between those two scenes is the widest I’ve seen it. And it widens every week.
The limiting factor sits in your own building: clean product data, an ERP you can actually get data out of, and one documented workflow the whole team follows.
The data foundation is fixable, and most of the fix fits inside this year’s budget. Orbital compute will be there waiting once your data deserves it.
Could you pull clean sales history out of your ERP this afternoon? If not, let’s talk.