By Alex Scroxton
29 October 2008
Microsoft has released the results of a study into SME
attitudes towards IT suggesting that around 80% small firms want to compete
more effectively with big businesses but are unsure of how to go about getting
access to enterprise-grade IT.
The survey also showed a lack of awareness of hosted IT
services and SaaS, the cash-saving aspects of which Microsoft is keen to talk
up during the downturn. Michael Korbacher, EMEA director of web and application
hosting at Microsoft, said that only 37% of SMEs were aware of SaaS - although
when questioned 65% said they would consider buying IT services on a
subscription basis.
Korbacher also pointed out that many SMEs were already using
free-to-use hosted software without knowing it in the form of webmail services
such as Microsoft's Hotmail or Yahoo! and Google equivalents.
"Hosted services allow SMEs to accelerate adoption of
enterprise-grade applications at a low upfront cost, which is very compelling
during the credit crunch," Korbacher argued, calling for partners to take
more of a stake in plugging the concept.
Commenting on the survey results, Freeform Dynamics analyst
Dale Vile said that while demand for hosted services was low there was still
time for VARs to get in on the ground floor.
The survey, conducted on a worldwide basis, revealed that
emerging markets such as Russia
and China were scoring
highly in terms of SaaS adoption and related concepts such as social networking
in the workplace; the UK
was also singled out for above average adoption of hosted services.
