US SMB and Midmarket PC-as-a-Service Adoption trends - depth report

The PCaaS report quantifies the “refresh deficit” in the US SMB PC market, and illustrates PCaaS awareness, adoption and demand by e-size, with additional perspective on approaches by cloud maturity, digital transformation status and IT sophistication level. Detailed data on motivations for pursuing PCaaS and articulation of benefits realized by PCaaS adopters helps validate marketing messaging strategies, while analysis of competitive offerings from Dell and HP provide insight into approaches taken by major PCaaS vendors.

The US SMB market for PCaaS is currently at an early stage – but there is a market. The total proportion of PCs that are provisioned/delivered via PCaaS is still relatively small, but this is not a pure development market – an adoption beachhead has been established.

Current awareness, use and adoption plans are concentrated within the more advanced segments of the SMB market. PCaaS marketers are urged to understand the drivers motivating these advanced buyers (firms atop the IT sophistication, cloud maturity and/or digitalization adoption scales) and to reflect their preferences in PCaaS positioning. Additionally, PCaaS marketers will benefit from understanding the characteristics of these segments – use of appropriate market channels will help ensure that marketing investments yield awareness and preference within the advanced user groups.

With respect to message content, both small business and midmarket buyers are attracted to PCaaS by a combination of predictable cost, streamlined procurement and access to current technology. PCaaS marketers will need to focus messaging on how their firms help customers by addressing these objectives.

“Land and expand” is an overused term in today’s IT market, but it is an appropriate description of PCaaS marketing objectives. Firms that can establish initial relationships with leading-edge SMB buyers are poised to both expand within these accounts and to benefit from longer-term interest from less advanced SMBs who will come to see the benefits enjoyed by leading-edge peers/competitors, and who will look for suppliers who have established traction and relevance within the US SMB community.

Table of Contents is:

• Methodology
• PC-as-a-Service: Definition & Context
• Analyst observations
• The PC Refresh deficit
  • The problem
  • The solution

• PCaaS within Small & midmarket firms – analysis by employee sizes
  • PCaaS awareness and demand
  • Current & Planned adoption of PCaaS
  • PCaaS benefits
  • Reasons for adopting PCaaS

• PCaaS within Small & midmarket firms – analysis by IT Sophistication segments
  • PCaaS awareness
  • Current & Planned adoption
  • Reasons for adopting PCaaS

• PCaaS within Small & midmarket firms – analysis by Digital transformation segments
  • PCaaS awareness
  • Current & Planned adoption
  • Reasons for adopting PCaaS

• PCaaS within Small & midmarket firms – analysis by Cloud maturity segments
  • PCaaS awareness
  • Current & Planned adoption
  • Reasons for adopting PCaaS

• Dell PCaaS and HP DaaS – Competitive offerings
  • Dell
  • HP Inc.