The days of Tom, Dick and Harry taking a shotgun in Dubai and shooting willy-nilly and renting a ballroom with big parties and all of it bearing fruit are over.

Got it? No? Here’s a translation:

Everyone considered themselves a developer amid Dubai’s property boom but the global credit crunch has put paid to the days when all you had to do was make a splashy announcement, draw in tons of money and flip a project as soon as it’s built.

Now, only those developers with long-term focus and relatively debt-free balance sheets will survive the tumult while small fry will have to pack up and leave, according to developers at the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit.

“I think right now it’s a very much more targetted approach,” said Markus Giebel, chief executive of Dubai developer, Deyaar. “Before you had a shotgun…people shoot and whether its hotels, residentials or offices everything bears the fruits. These times have now gone. We have to go back to basics.”

Or, as the executive chairman of Zabeel Investments put it: “”Let’s face it every Tom, Dick and Harry became a developer. Now is the time when you differentiate the men from the boys.”

Or the women from the girls but what’s really important is that there’s no room for small fish when big possums are on the prowl. Get that? No? OK, here’s a translation…