Small Businesses Still Hosting Their Own Websites, Email and Ecommerce Software
By Anna Johnson on February 11th, 2010Whilst a recent survey of small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) indicates greater use of cloud technologies and hosted solutions, most SMBs still host their own websites, email and ecommerce software.
Based on Microsoft’s SMB IT and Hosted IT Index 2010 – the result of surveying 3,192 SMBs in 15 countries – Michael Korbacher, director of EMEA Software plus Services in the Communications Sector at Microsoft said:
“Over the last five years, we have seen nearly 40 percent growth in usage of hosted services. Using pay-as-you-go cloud technologies, small and mid-size businesses can now afford and easily have access to enterprise-class, secure services across any platform.”
SMBs have some way to go, however, before they fully embrace the cloud. Here are Microsoft’s findings as to how SMBs deploy various technologies:
E-mail:
- 67 percent SMBs have on site
- 29 percent SMBs have hosted
- 4 percent SMBs don’t have
File sharing/collaboration:
- 56 percent SMBs have on site
- 23 percent SMBs have hosted
- 21 percent SMBs don’t have
Backup:
- 71 percent SMBs have on site
- 22 percent SMBs have hosted
- 7 percent SMBs don’t have
CRM:
- 52 percent SMBs have on site
- 31 percent SMBs have hosted
- 17 percent SMBs don’t have
Webconferencing:
- 40 percent SMBs have on site
- 39 percent SMBs have hosted
- 21 percent SMBs don’t have
Web site:
- 49 percent SMBs have on site
- 39 percent SMBs have hosted
- 12 percent SMBs don’t have
Server:
- 59 percent SMBs have on site
- 28 percent SMBs have hosted
- 13 percent SMBs don’t have
E-commerce:
- 46 percent SMBs have on site
- 33 percent SMBs have hosted
- 21 percent SMBs don’t have
