Microsoft recently released its global SMB IT and Hosted IT Index
2010, which investigates how small and midsize businesses (SMBs)
across multiple segments fared during the recession and how they
use technology. As part of the study, over three thousand SMBs were
surveyed in France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South
Africa, Spain, UK, USA, Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea
and Singapore in a cross-section of different industries.
The research finds that businesses that value IT as an enabler for
better business productivity and effectiveness and those that use
hosted services performed better fiscally than those that do
not. The 2010 index indicates SMBs are beginning to see the
benefits of cloud computing; more than 40 per cent of the
respondents that use hosted or cloud technology reported revenue
rises of 30 per cent or more compared with 90 per cent of
respondents not using hosted technology that saw decreases in
revenue.
The advantages of hosted or cloud technology are viewed as reduced
cost and IT management and maintenance, as well as increased
business value, productivity and competitiveness. Further,
awareness of hosted services is increasing with 65 per cent of SMBs
using hosted software to some extent, while 73 per cent of the
remainder have considered it, compared with only 44 per cent in the
2008 Index. SMBs are also beginning to understand the value of
“renting” IT as a service — 36 per cent said a
pay-as-you-go model would be attractive.
“Over the last five years, we have seen nearly 40 per
cent growth in usage of hosted services,” said Michael
Korbacher, director of EMEA Software plus Services in the
Communications Sector at Microsoft. “Using pay-as-you-go
cloud technologies, small and midsize businesses can now afford and
easily have access to enterprise-class, secure services across any
platform.”