Economic Worries Blinding SMBs to New Tech

By Greg McNevin

August 13, 2008: A new report from IDC has found that SMBs are far more concerned about the economy around the world than they are interested in innovative new technology.

Called Taking the Temperatures of SMBs Worldwide: Regional Attitudes and Technology Interests, Mid-Year 2008, the study assesses the current level of interest or concern among small and midsize business owners relating to future economic growth and business conditions, as well as four technologies that could be considered "cutting edge" among SMBs.

"Green" technology is covered, as is software-as-a-service (SaaS), virtualisation and use of online resources for business purposes. The study also looked at the factors that could change these levels of interest/concern in the future, and in which direction this change might go, and found that while there are differences across regions, SMBs in general are currently cold (or showing little interest/concern) when it comes to new and emerging technologies but are considerably warmer (or showing a great deal of interest/concern) when the discussion turns to economic issues.“While the growth of SMB investment in technology will continue to outpace spending growth in larger firms, economic and business conditions are on everyone's mind,” says John Roberts, Ph.D., research manager for Global SMB Research at IDC.

“Despite the global slowdown, SMBs across all regions need to look ahead to when the global economy rebounds. Most still have a near term focus, with only modest interest in technology areas that have been getting a lot of attention elsewhere.”

This study also found that there are a myriad of factors that could raise, or in some cases lower, the future level of interest/concern among SMBs when it comes to the economy as well as new technologies and that the use of the Internet as a key business resource was considered having the greatest upside potential in terms of future interest among SMBs.

Virtualisation and "green" technology are also not yet registering with SMB owners except in more advanced medium-sized businesses across regions, while SaaS has a higher level of visibility.

IDC expects more interest to be shown in virtualisation and SaaS over the next 12-24 months as vendor promotions gain traction, while going "green" will be a much harder sell.

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