I gave a talk at the Linksys by Cisco reseller day yesterday. There was a good turnout despite the torrential rain and the venue, the Williams Formula1 Conference Centre was a top notch attraction. The day went well with ISP KeConnect demonstrating SIP trunks into a Linksys SPA9000.

 

The content of some of the presentations was also very interesting and I wrote down some salient facts.

 

The top three priorities for Small and Medium Sized businesses in the next 12 months are enhancing IT security and privacy 47%, deploying DR solution 40%, enhancing internet access speeds  35%.

 

Laptops represented 47% of all PCs shipped in 2006, up from 35% in 2004 and there is a 14-15% annual growth in handheld/PDA shipments. 14% of Small Businesses offer telecommuting and over 50% SMBs have mobile staff

 

Group calendaring the norm in MB, growing in SB. Web conferencing, Intranets the norm, IP voice and applications connect growing in MB with growth in business utility of IM and soft phones.

 

SBs are rapidly transitioning to broadband (60%) and the desire to upgrade bandwidth is universally strong. Strong growth in WiFi, acute sensitivity to security and data protection, a strong desire to connect multiple sites and SaaS, virtualization adoption were also key forces.

 

Finally all this indicates that on-premises IT complexity is increasing and managed/hosted services are becoming more viable. There is also an increasing preference for “better” channel partners and SMBs are reassessing their choice of “trusted partner”.

 

This world is full of opportunity…

Me with constructors’ trophy next to Williams F1 car