SMBs IT investment set to grow

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SMBs IT investment set to grow

A recent survey stated that SMBs are planning to make significant investments in new hardware and software over the next six months

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

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AUSTIN, TEXAS: Small and medium businesses are holding on to their servers and laptops longer these days, according to a new survey by Spiceworks Inc, a provider in free IT management application designed for small and medium organizations.

But most are also planning to make significant investments in new hardware and software over the next six months.

These findings were uncovered in a Q3 2009 survey of over 1,000 IT professionals, which was designed to investigate current technology purchasing, usage and staffing trends among small and medium businesses (SMBs) worldwide.

Small and medium businesses are squeezing an extra year out of their hardware. The average planned lifespan of hardware, which includes desktops, laptops and servers, increased 26 per cent from 40 months to 50 months.

According to the study, despite using hardware for a longer period of time, 68 per cent of SMBs plan to add new hardware to their networks within the next six months.

Among hardware purchasing priorities, 56 per cent plan to buy desktops, 55 per cent plan to purchases laptops, 45 per cent plan new server purchases, 31 per cent plan to add printers, and 27 per cent plan to add new network devices. Only 13 per cent have their eyes on netbooks.

Hardware remains the biggest IT budget item with SMBs expecting to spend 37 per cent of their annual budgets refreshing and expanding physical infrastructure.

51 percent are planning new software purchases. Security and anti-spam solutions top the list with 32 percent of SMBs planning such purchases within the next six months. Of these, just over 1 in 3 (35 percent) plan to buy cloud-based security and anti-spam offerings.

Within small and medium business networks, 21 percent of their total server computing capacity is virtualized. Over the next six months, 30 per cent of SMBs plan to deploy or expand virtualization in their networks. Currently, 44 percent are using virtualization solutions.

25 percent are planning backup and recovery purchases within the next six months. Of these, 75 per cent plan to store data on premise and 25 per cent plan to utilize cloud-based storage solutions.

42 per cent of data is slated to be stored on network-attached storage (NAS) or storage area network (SAN) devices. 38 per cent will be stored in direct-attached and local storage, 7 per cent is planned to be hosted offsite, and 13 per cent on tape and other media.

57 percent currently use one or more "cloud computing" services. The three most popular cloud computing services in use or on the purchase list include anti-spam (43 percent), hosted email (25 percent), and online backup (20 percent), said the study.

Small and medium business IT budgets took a beating in 2009. 39 percent cut 2009 budgets from 2008 levels with the average cut being 22 percent. 31 percent kept budgets the same, and 30 percent actually grew their budgets this year by 27 percent. Most did feel some impact from the economy this year with 60 percent having delayed or canceled at least one project so far in 2009.

IT hiring among small and medium businesses is poised to grow. While many technology departments are holding staff sizes steady, 22 percent plan to hire additional full-time or part-time staff, while only 3 percent plan to further reduce staff over the next six months.

"It's good to see small and medium businesses showing positive signs of growth in technology spending," said Jay Hallberg, co-founder and vice president of Marketing for Spiceworks.

"Most are clearly ready to buy and it will be interesting to watch how these plans play out among different geographies, industries and company sizes. We will track these and other technology trends of interest in future studies."

©CIOL Bureau

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