Techaisle Blog

Techaisle’s SMB Virtualization Adoption Trends and SMB Converged Infrastructure Adoption Trends studies show that virtualization and converged infrastructure are poised for strong growth in 2015 within the US SMB market because they both address specific high-priority IT and SMB business issues. SMBs have a clear need to reduce costs and improve efficiency of back-end infrastructure and to establish better control over mobile resources. Virtualization helps accomplish both of these goals and converged infrastructure provides a platform that sophisticated SMB users are already finding compelling.

Server virtualization: the thin edge of the wedge?
Sever virtualization is not the only virtualization option available to SMBs, client virtualization technologies VDI and DaaS are also increasingly prominent in SMB IT strategies. However, VDI and DaaS should not be seen simply as “next steps in virtualization.” Like server virtualization, VDI and DaaS address key SMB corporate issues – but they are different issues - support for mobility solutions and improving productivity rather than cost control.

Techaisle routinely conducts depth interviews with actual SMB and Midmarket customers using technology to understand their business issues, challenges and lessons learned. For the first time, Techaisle is opting to publish select interviews (five in each report) under its SMB Spotlight Series reports - Insights from the Trenches of Implementers.

These reports are:

20 Questions with SMB NetSuite ERP Users
20 Questions with SMB SAP Business One ERP Users
20 Questions with Midmarket Big Data Users
20 Questions with SMB PaaS Users: SoftLayer, Azure, AWS

Techaisle’s recently completed study 2015 SMB Cloud Computing Adoption Trends shows that SMB cloud buyers look first to large, established vendors for cloud solutions, but their sourcing preferences diverge from there, with small businesses most likely to trust product vendors and midmarket firms willing to investigate a wide range of specialist providers.

Over 30% of current small and midmarket cloud users report that they turned to a large IT vendor (including Amazon in this group) for in-use cloud solution. Small businesses were also very likely to have acquired cloud from a specialized vendor selling security, storage, virtualization or a similar offering. Small businesses also frequently rely on software vendors like Salesforce.com or their telecom service provider for cloud, and are somewhat likely to acquire solutions from SIs, consultants or outsourcing companies.

The midmarket results are fascinating.

Techaisle’s recently completely study 2015 US SMB Mobility Solutions Adoption Trends shows that mobility adoption within US SMB is reaching 86 percent by end of 2015. However, mobility adoption is not about mobile devices anymore, rather it has transitioned to mobility applications and over to mobility solutions (solutions that provide management, security and infrastructure needed to connect mobile devices and applications into the corporate IT environment).

Unfortunately for SMBs, each of the above three essential areas of investment has different suppliers. Data from the survey shows that SMB buyers are therefore confused about where to turn for help, especially with respect to mobility solutions needed to integrate and manage their burgeoning mobility portfolios that includes both company and employee mobility activity.