Astrid Hamilton, senior analyst at BMI-T, says that the rationale of the reports was based on the changes occurring in the local IT user landscape in the two sub-sectors, including the increasing convergence between IT and telecoms.
 
"The mid-market sector has evolved from a relatively unsophisticated and immature market to the biggest growth opportunity for vendors. The increasing need for IT and telecoms products and solutions to conduct business effectively has also played a role. While the big business segment has progressed to the adoption of technologies that enhance functionality of current IT infrastructure rather than replacing it coupled with the need to leverage and optimise existing investments are two more factors driving changes in IT spend," says Hamilton.
 
The survey of the big business sector included companies with turnover of over R100m per annum, and the mid-market sector survey included companies with annual turnover of less than R100m, as well as a minimum of 10 PCs in the organisation.
 
The reports have uncovered a number of differences between the two sectors with regard to:
  a.. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA);
  b.. BEE status of suppliers;
  c.. Security threats.
 
"SOA adoption is higher in the big business sector, with 13% of survey respondents implementing SOA to some degree, versus 9% in the mid-market sector, and 20% of big business respondents considering implementing SOA versus 8% in the mid-market sector, the report says.
 
In addition the BEE status of the respondents' suppliers is much more important to the big business sector than the mid-market sector, with 40% of the mid-market sector giving BEE status of suppliers a ranking of four or five out of five, compared with 60% of the big business sector giving BEE status of their suppliers a four or five out of five on a scale of one to five, where one equals totally unimportant and five equals extremely important.
 
With regard to security, the big business sector indicated that their own employees are the single biggest security threat compared with viruses for the mid-market sector," adds Hamilton.
 
However, a number of similarities have also emerged between the two sectors with regard to:
  a.. Strategic emerging technologies;
  b.. Vendor selection criteria;
  c.. Fully installed business solutions.
 
"Both sectors ranked Web-based applications, VoIP and mobile data access from cellular operators as the three most strategic emerging technologies, while the top vendor selection criterion for both the big business and mid-market sectors is quality/reliability. The next two most important criteria, with only the order of the two swapped around for the two sectors, are customer service and price.
 
The top two business solutions that are the most fully installed are the same for both the big business and mid-market sectors, being security and storage solutions. However, the third most installed solution for the big business sector is software asset management, compared to content and document management for the mid-market sector," concludes Hamilton.