NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--According to AMI's latest worldwide SMB Cloud Services Practice, there are roughly 750,000 (12 percent) small businesses and 20,000 (24 percent) medium businesses already using software as a service (SaaS). However, looking at today's SaaS users, 78 percent of SBs and 31 percent of MBs are leveraging a SaaS plus on-premise mix (or hybrid model), while approximately only a third of SaaS users are using an actual pure-SaaS product.
With an anticipated growth of up to $95 billion in global SMB cloud-related spending by 2014, it isn't a surprise to see over half of US SMBs looking into SaaS as a potential solution. Approximately one in five US SMBs plan to use SaaS. However, AMI believes that SMBs are easing into the concept of local plus cloud-based computing rather than leapfrogging into a pure-play platform.
"Though cloud computing is seen as the next IT platform, the consideration of SaaS amongst SMBs as the next favorable cost-saving model is expedited by the macro situation we are in today," says AMI Senior Associate Yedda Chew.
Almost two years since the downturn began; we still see 77 percent of US small businesses (1-99 employees) and 84 percent of US medium businesses (100+ employees) very concerned with current market conditions. This marks a 31 percent and 81 percent year-over-year increase, respectively.
"In addition to this," noted Ms. Chew, "SMBs have their doubts, particularly around the security of a 3rd party hosting confidential numbers. But companies like Microsoft and IBM who provide a convergence of on-premise and SaaS are clearing these concerns for interested SMBs who are trying to maximize the combination of cloud and on-premise issues."
