Market snapshot

"The SMB market in Australia is extremely fragmented with about 800,000 businesses employing 1-500 people. Of these, only 26,000 are in the mid-market with 50-500 staff. This leaves you with a very diverse small end of the market. At the top of SMB there are bigger and more sophisticated companies with the same needs as large organisations without the same financial needs. The sales strategy needs to be around best value because they are very price sensitive. "The small end of the market is behaving differently because they are not focused so much on the technology as results. They don't really care about brand as long as it works. "Technology adoption is very high. The SMB has a server adoption rate of about 85 per cent but whether it is meeting their needs is a totally different question." Jean Marc Annonier, IDC