Techaisle Analyst Insights

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

There are many differences in the cloud outlooks of large vendors and niche suppliers, startups and Fortune 500 firms, traditional channel members and online markets, but there is one common issue that firms across the cloud spectrum face: the need to find an effective way to attract and engage prospective SMB cloud customers. What are the best ways to reach SMB buyers as they make cloud decisions?

Techaisle’s SMB Cloud Computing Adoption survey research shows that there is no one method that will engage cloud buyers within the small business or midmarket segments: in both markets, buyers use a mixture of multiple reach and multiple depth vehicles to understand and evaluate options.

As a means of providing some meaningful clarity to the question of how to allocate resources across the buyer’s journey and to help indicate where buyer time is spent today – and where marketers will need to invest Techaisle looked at fifteen different influencer options and segmented them into one of three categories:

1. “shallow” (TV and print advertising),
2. “moderate” (technology websites, IT magazines, brochures/fact sheets/newsletters, catalogues, search), and
3. “deep” (vendor websites, recommendations, personal sales calls, conferences, webinars, case studies, white papers, blogs/forums)

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.