Communications and Technology Industry Research

International Data Corporation had undertaken a study to analyze the expenses incurred by small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the US in the area of information technology. According to the study, in 2012, the 8 million SMBs in the US will be responsible for nearly 25 percent of total SMB IT spending across the world. Similarly, these SMBs will also be responsible for at least 10 percent of the total IT spending across the world during the same time period.

During the years 2008 and 2009, U.S. SMB IT spending was at an all time low. SMBs have recovered to a certain extent and are expected to spend at least $138 billion in 2012. SMBs are not expected to make equal investments across the different technology types.

In a release, Justin Jaffe, Research Manager, Small/Medium-Sized Business and Home Business Research, IDC (News - Alert), said, "SMBs will account for an increasing share of overall corporate IT spending in the U.S. Vendors that are sensitive to the changing dynamics in SMB technology requirements as well as the critical differences in the ways SMBs and large enterprises approach IT investment will be best positioned for success in 2012 and beyond."

As part of the study, IDC categorized the companies into small organizations with less than 100 employees and midsize organizations with more than 100 but less than 1000 employees. The IDC study analyzed the range and expansion of the five major technology sectors for these two categories. The study also compared the SMB IT spending against those made by large organizations with more than 1000 employees, and noted the important variations.

According to the study reports, in 2012, the major spending is expected on PCs and peripherals with the midsize business sector spending half of what the small business sector expects to spend. This year, SMBs are expected to invest at least 50 billion on packaged software. Nearly $38 billion, which is over 33 percent of the complete U.S. SMB IT spending, has been assigned to IT services. While the slowest-growing IT category in the SMB space is systems and storage, the networking equipment category will receive the least investments from the SMBs.