The AMI-Partners Blog

It’s hard to turn on the TV, open the newspaper to the technology section, or visit your favorite technology web site without seeing an article or ad for tablet PCs. With the latest release of Apple’s iPad 2 in the United States on March 11^th and sales skyrocketing, it makes you wonder where do SMBs go from here? Industry estimates for 2010 tablet PC sales to both consumer and business are around 17 million. The consumer space has dominated the tablet market to date while businesses quickly adjust their PC strategy to account for new tablets. AMI estimates that worldwide tablet shipments to SMBs accounted for approximately 6-8% of all tablet shipments, with an overwhelming majority coming from North America and Western Europe.

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Smartphones are becoming the norm today. Which should I select, iPhone, Blackberry or Android? Today’s market reflects the battle of mobile OS and apps. But Japan’s recent earthquake and tsunami highlight another aspects of smartphone requirements – disaster utility.

Features and functions that today’s popular smartphones do not have will be crucial in times of disaster -solar battery, waterproof and GPS connection in a smartphone. Good to have, but can live without? Many Japanese must have had reservations until March 11, 2011.  [Read more →]

As a new parent, I am realizing that raising children is all about the timing that can make tricky childhood transitions go more smoothly. Likewise in business, timing is of the essence in an era of instant gratification to appeal to consumers toting smart phones and mocha lattés, a significant number of us in fact.  This is especially relevant for small businesses (at AMI-Partners, we characterize these firms as ones with less than 100 employees) who have to run faster than ever before just to stay where they are. Trying to cater to these customers on the go is like chasing a moving target except if you are a Steve Jobs who can anticipate what customers like you and me need even before we are aware of it ourselves. [Read more →]

Recent findings show continued SMB interest in conferencing solutions, but how much of that will be premium (paid) solutions? Digging deeper into AMI’s 25 country tracking of the market, small businesses (SBs) are trending to bootstrap many free solutions together. Examining various cross-cuts of our data, strong clusters surfaced. Roughly 1 in 4 showed explicit interest in paid solutions.

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“The missing piece of the U.S. economic recovery – job creation – is finally falling into place,” led a news story by the Washington Post over the weekend.

Employers added 192,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department said Friday, and the unemployment rate edged down to 8.9 percent from 9 percent, marking the third straight month of decline.

The jobs report was the most promising since the recession began more than three years ago and the most solid evidence yet that the recovery is gaining momentum.

The report buoyed global stocks instantly. As this piece makes clear, stocks rose in Asia in anticipation of the report. But with the bloodbath in Libya and protests around that region it wasn’t all good news for the economy:

Still, oil prices hovered above $101 a barrel in Asia as fierce fighting between supporters and opponents of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi may have cut crude output in the OPEC nation more than previously estimated. The dollar was higher against the euro and steady against the yen.

“My basic reaction to today’s jobs report,” writes NY Times economic columnist Paul Krugman, “was, been down so long it looks like up to me.” Krugman then showed a chart going back to Clinton suggesting we still have a ways to go.

(Cited: US adds 192,000 Jobs in February;
Asian Shares Rise After Strong U.S. Jobs Report;
Jobs in Perspective )

And AMI has a new press release about web-conferencing:

New York, New York – March 9, 2011 – U.S. small businesses (SBs, or firms with less than 100 employees) are increasingly adopting Unified Communications (video- and web-conferencing solutions), utilizing various free offers available on the market. According to a recent AMI-Partners’ report, over 25% of U.S. SBs would deploy Unified Communications integrated with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings as paid services, if available from a single provider. This bundling preference proposes a challenge to premium cloud computing, video- and web-conferencing providers to compete with many free solutions providers and build a more comprehensive menu of services.

You can read the whole release here.

AMI has a new press release on home-based businesses:

New York, New York—March 3, 2011—Weathering the economic storm over the past few years has been difficult for most businesses, especially the smallest. But despite the economic downturn (or perhaps because of it) home-based business (HBB) appears to be a growth sector for employment in the U.S. Not only that, but HBBs are showing strong signs of growth plans in the future.

Read the full release here.

AMI has a few new press releases. Here’s the first, on worldwide cloud security:

New York, New York—February 24, 2011—Transition to cloud computing is a global phenomenon, but small and medium businesses (SMBs – companies with 1-999 employees) focus on different cloud areas in different regions. Security services are expected to lead cloud initiatives among Asia-Pacific (APAC) SMBs in 2011 demonstrating greater growth than other regions, according to AMI Partners’ Worldwide SMB Cloud Services Study APAC SMBs show a higher interest in adopting SaaS security solutions than the US, UK, Germany, Canada & Australia, who have already adopted these applications. Meanwhile, APAC and the Association of Southeastern Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries are more likely to invest in remotely managed security service than the leading advanced countries.

You can read the full release here.

The cloud is changing the landscape of the IT industry as we know it.  SMBs in the US alone will spend $6B on hosted services by 2014.   But what are the factors leading up to that change?  

Understanding key market trends is the first step in ensuring your products and services find their way into the SMB market with the right message at the right time.  Here’s how we see the confluence of environmental, behavioral, and organizational aspects of the cloud forms together to create the perfect storm of a market opportunity for IT vendors:

Environmental:   SMBs now have the infrastructure in place to support accelerated cloud growth.  Access to broadband is ubiquitous and speeds are becoming faster and faster.  The uncertain economic environment also accentuates the benefits of low upfront cost and low monthly payment structure of cloud solutions.

Behavioral:  As the mobile workforce and number of telecommuters rise, SMBs demand business information away from the office.  Increased penetration of mobile apps in the consumer world also raises the bar for expectations from business applications hosted in the cloud.  SMBs purchase IT solutions differently from large enterprises; often they want a one-stop shop for their IT needs, and this mindset is driving demand for integrated “As a Service” solutions at competitive pricing.

Organizational:  Many SMBs operate under the mantra “do more with less” and are often understaffed (or not staffed at all in the case of very small businesses) in the IT department.  Hosted solutions allow little or no incremental IT support, a value proposition that is in direct alignment with core SMB needs.

For more on this topic, be sure to register for our upcoming March 23 webinar or review our 2010-2011 Worldwide SMB Cloud Service product page