A report by Access Markets International (AMI) contends that IT and telecom spending by U.S. small and medium businesses (SMB) was three times higher (6.5 percent versus 2.2 percent) than the nation’s GDP.
A hefty portion of the spending is attributable to the natural movement of vendors who have changed their focus to concentrate on the SMB space, said Melissa Chong, an AMI analyst and the report’s author.
While traditional service providers continue to carry the day among SMBs, cable operators have finally started to use their IP-based network expertise to feed more than best-effort residential users, Chong said in an e-mail.
“We observe that cable operators have a much greater presence in ISP services compared to voice services (and) the top five cable operators (Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox and Time Warner) have around 20 percent market share in Internet services versus a 6-7 percent market share in voice services,” she said. “Also they are making more inroads with smaller businesses (1-99 employees) compared to medium businesses (100-999 employees).”
To make their presence known and appreciated, the cable operators are offering “value-added services such as hosted e-mail (and) hosted PBX,” she continued.
Wireless, too, is impacting on the space and the advanced 802.11n Wi-Fi specification is expected to replace current WLAN installations among SMBs and “will certainly promote mobility and fixed-mobility convergence among SMBs,” she said. Advanced mobile wireless applications (WiMAX and LTE) will be “complementary” but won’t supplant wireline in SMBs who are moving towards smartphones as the workforce becomes more mobile.
“One-third of SBs and two-thirds of MBs currently use a smartphone/PDA with phone functions” and a “substantial percentage” will adopt the technology over the next year, she said.