2008 SMB IT Budgets North America: It's Back To Basics

For 2008, small and medium-size business (SMB) IT decision-makers will focus on ensuring that their IT shops operate smoothly and on leveraging their companies' infrastructure and data assets. This will drive investments in disaster recovery, security, virtualization, data management, and collaboration tools. In spite of their desire to increase IT efficiency, SMBs will spend more on IT staffing, and application and infrastructure management services spending will remain constant. Business process improvements will assume a new level of importance, and SMBs will need outside assistance in this area. When targeting the SMB market, tech marketers must address SMB needs for efficiency and disaster recovery and ensure that their channels have the skill sets to augment those of their customers.