Microsoft bullish on SMB market

Stephen Withers
Monday, 17 May 2010 15:10

IT Industry - Development

Microsoft is looking forward to increased IT spending in the SMB market predicted by a survey of its SMB partners, driven in part by the adoption of Windows 7 and Office 2010.

According to Birger Steen, vice president for SMB and distribution, the SMB sector represents 7 million customers that are served through Microsoft's partner channel.

"For the first time, we have a very broad portfolio of products [for SMBs]," he said, adding that each of them would have a cloud complement in the next 2 to 12 months.

This market has been fuelled by a wave of "newly self employed" working with a notebook and a mobile phone, and doing everything else in the cloud, he said. These people have no legacy investment, and they need to get up and running quickly and at low cost.

Traditional approaches to IT involve lumpy investments in infrastructure, leading to negative cash flows from time to time. This is an issue for small startups and fast-growing businesses alike. Consequently, Steen sees a strong movement to the predominant or at least partial use of cloud computing.

"Small business is going to be much better served by IT companies" through cloud computing, he said.

Please read on for the survey findings.