IT markets tend to be complex and fast-moving – but even by IT industry standards, the endpoint device market in 2017 is extremely complex, and subject to significant and abrupt changes, as shown in Techaisle’s US SMB & Midmarket PC Purchase trends survey. The acceptance of multiple screens, coupled with the availability of new platform technologies, has created a market where “endpoint devices” span a wide range of device categories: desktop PCs, notebook PCs, tablets and smartphones, as well as thin clients, All-in-Ones, and other device types. Consider the following trends – some of which have played out over several years, and some of which are scant months old – and how they might affect buyers and suppliers of client technology this year:
Techaisle Analyst Insights
The ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) trend has its roots in two significant events that challenged corporate IT behavior. The first was the “Great Recession” of 2008-2009. The recession affected the entire economy, and IT was not spared its shadow. One key result of the recession was the interruption of regular refresh cycles. Prior to the recession, many businesses replaced endpoint devices (then, almost exclusively PCs) on a regular cycle – e.g., one third of devices would be refreshed every year, and the devices themselves would be used for three years, dividing the capital cost of keeping endpoint technology up-to-date across multiple annual budgets. The cash crunch that hit most businesses in the recession prompted many to forego refresh cycles, replacing individual units only when they failed. This approach did conserve scarce resources during the downturn, but when stability returned to the economy, CIOs realized that a large proportion of corporate endpoints were due for replacement – and CFOs realized that they lacked the CAPEX funds needed to refresh the entire endpoint fleet.
At the same time, another trend – Consumerization – was sweeping through the IT industry.
They are here. Techaisle's annual SMB and Midmarket Top 10 IT Priorities, IT Challenges and Business Issues. This is the 5th year of Techaisle tracking at a WW level and is much sought after by IT vendors, channels and media. For 2017, Techaisle investigated 15 different technology areas, each with several sub-technology categories, 20 different IT challenges and 20 different business issues.
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When compared with 2016 the list for 2017 SMB and Midmarket Top 10 IT Priorities, IT Challenges and Business Issues reveals major changes – digitalization has become an IT priority and supporting digital marketing/workplace an IT challenge, improving workforce productivity as a business issue has catapulted to the top, enabling mobile workforce is among the top 3 IT challenges and Collaboration, Cloud, Mobility and Security are the IT priorities. Cloud orchestration has also appeared for the first time in the list of IT challenges as IT is finding it necessary to orchestrate across the entire enterprise to deliver business infrastructure via the cloud.
In 360 on US SMB & Midmarket Security solutions adoption trends report, Techaisle analyzes survey responses from over 1,100 US SMBs to provide the insight needed to build and execute on IT security marketing strategies for the small and midmarket customer segments. Survey shows that overall, spending on security products by small businesses as flat but spending by midmarket firms is on a strong upward trajectory. Most SMBs rely on core security practices and technologies to address cloud-specific threats, but many are underinvested in cloud security solutions. Data encryption and security for virtual environments are particularly primed for growth. Mobile device security, gateway messaging/web security, and (as noted above) virtualization security as high-growth opportunities for security-as-a-service providers.
Techaisle’s research investigated 17 different types of IT security solutions. Techaisle positions these as belonging to one of four categories-
- Protection of data entering the corporate environment
- Protection of data that is being used within the corporate environment
- Protection of the mobile environment
- Traffic inspection and management
Highlights of findings from the survey include:
