(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Seeing gains in business productivity and effectiveness despite one of the most torrential economic disasters of the modern era, small and medium-sized businesses of all stripes fared better during the recession by using hosted services, according to a new study from Microsoft (www.microsoft.com).
According to Microsoft’s global SMB IT and Hosted IT Index 2010 released on Thursday, which polled more than 3,000 companies across 15 countries, more SMBs surveyed in 2010 reported an increase in revenue than in 2008, and those that reported growth viewed IT as a critical component of their business success. Also, it appears that in 2010, SMBs are beginning to see the benefits of cloud computing.
“Over the last five years, we have seen nearly 40 percent 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.”
In the past 12 months, according to the study, 52 percent of SMBs polled reported an increase in revenue — up from 39 percent in 2008. Fifty-five percent of SMBs view IT as critical to their business as opposed to just 35 percent in 2008. And of the SMBs that view IT as critical, 60 percent saw revenues grow over the past 12 months. In contrast, among SMBs that stated IT is not important, less than 29 percent saw revenue increase.3
More than 40 percent of the respondents that use hosted or cloud technology reported revenue rises of 30 percent or more, largely due to reduced cost and IT management and maintenance, as well as increased business value, productivity and competitiveness. In contrast, nine of ten respondents not using hosted technology saw drops in revenue.
Also, hosted services awareness is on the rise with 65 percent of SMBs using hosted software to some extent, with nearly three quarters of the remainder considering it. As well, SMBs are beginning to understand the value of “renting” IT as a service, with 36 percent reporting that a pay-as-you-go model would be attractive.
“Our assessment of the report tells us that an increased focus on IT correlates with good performance in all of the size categories surveyed,” Freeform Dynamics (www.freeformdynamics.com) research director Dale Vile said in a statement. “This whole picture corroborates the notion that technology and hosted services can provide tangible business advantage, even for smaller companies, and it’s not surprising to see that investment in IT and hosting goes hand in hand with good financial performance.”
No related posts.
