Embracing the Pivot
Founded before the modern-day computer existed.
AE Business Solutions has spent three quarters of a century watching technologies arrive, peak, and quietly get replaced. It teaches you what few firms ever learn: which changes matter, and which merely make noise.
Today we focus on bringing cutting-edge solutions and architecture to enterprise organizations across the Midwest. The work changes constantly, but the way we approach it stays the same.
1949
Founded in Madison, Wisconsin as Lettercraft Press, we began in a world that ran on paper. Ledgers, forms, and handwritten correspondence were the information infrastructure of the time. We formed strong partnerships with Wisconsin institutions including the University of Wisconsin, Oscar Mayer, and National Guardian Life. While the medium would continue to change in the decades ahead, our commitment to serving institutions with excellence would not.
1959
Renamed Accounting Equipment Corporation, the firm built partnerships with Burroughs, Olivetti, and National Cash Register — placing us at the origin of business computing. Electro-mechanical devices brought the first data processing capability to American business, and information began its migration from paper to machine.
1970s
Embracing the shift to a more technology-focused world, we hired our first programmers and built custom software for the State of Wisconsin, American Family Insurance, and UW-Madison. The minicomputer put computing within reach of the enterprise, and for the first time, the question shifted from acquiring machines to instructing them. It marked a permanent shift in the firm’s identity — from selling machines to solving problems.
1980s
In 1986, we became AE Business Solutions — a name reflecting a lasting conviction: technology in service of the business, not the reverse. The personal computer carried computing out of the data center and onto every desk, transforming how organizations worked almost overnight. We organized our firm to lead clients through the transition.
1990s
Our Network practice began in this decade, allowing us to expand into the connective discipline of the modern enterprise that has been a pillar ever since. The internet rewired the economy, forcing isolated systems to become networks, and networks to become the foundation on which every organization would run.
2000s
As increased connectivity created exposure to cyberthreats, we made Cybersecurity a core discipline, putting us years ahead of the industry. As threats matured from nuisance to enterprise risk, security ceased to be a feature of technology and became a condition of doing business.
2010s
Virtualization and cloud redefined the data center, dissolving the boundaries between hardware, software, and place. We guided clients through the transition — modernizing the platform while protecting what mattered most: continuity of operations. The era confirmed a belief we had held for decades: infrastructure decisions are business decisions.
Today
Trust, sustained over decades, carried the firm across the Midwest, with Wisconsin as our headquarters. Our clients’ operations now span the nation and the globe. Ours grew to meet them.
HOW WE WORK
We over-prepare so the cutover is uneventful. The best compliment we get is that nobody noticed.
We hold strong opinions about what’s best for your environment. If you already own the right tool, we will say so.
Clients have stayed with us for twenty and thirty years, because we plan for the system after this one, too.
WHO LEADS THE WORK
Executive
Solutions Architecture & Engineering
Sales Operations
Operations, Finance & People
Justin Barnes
Senior Director of Professional Services
AE Business Solutions serves clients from a dense base in the Upper Midwest — Madison, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago, Des Moines, St. Louis and Sioux Falls — across major United States metros from Seattle to Boston, and in client markets throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.