AMI-Partners: Japan SMBs Spent $41 Billion on IT-Related Products and Services in 2006.

Key Drivers Were Investments in Security and Storage That Increased 17% and 14%, Respectively

NEW YORK -- Small and medium businesses (SMBs) that employ 1-999 employees in Japan spent $41 billion on IT-related products and services in 2006, up 7% from $38 billion in 2005. Security and storage were the key areas for IT investments among Japan SMBs, who spent $954 million and $1.8 billion, up by 17% and 14%, respectively.

Those findings were released from the recently published 2006-2007 Japan Small and Medium Business Overview and Comprehensive Market Assessment Reports, which are based on surveys conducted in the third quarter in 2006 by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc. The survey results reveal that IT investments among SMBs in Japan have shown a healthy rise driven by strong economic growth experienced in the first half of 2006. Particularly, security and storage were the major areas for investments and showed strong growth.

Currently, the adoption of advanced security solutions beyond basic anti-virus, anti-spam, and anti-spyware applications are still in the early development stage, particularly among SBs (1-99 employees). However, the survey findings show identity and access management and intrusion detection/prevention will be the leading areas for security investments among both Japan SBs and MBs in 2007.

In the storage arena, the growth of newly implementing network-attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN), which enable better security control and data management, are expected to surpass that of direct-attached storage (DAS) this year. Moreover, offsite data backup is expected to double in both the SB and MB arenas.

"The recognition among Japan SMBs about cyber threats, as well as the physical risk contingent on their location in the earthquake-rich archipelago, has significantly improved over the last year," says Yuki Uehara, New York-based research analyst at AMI-Partners. "Driven by ongoing digitalization of historical documents and records, expanding network connectivity through the Internet, and legal requirements to effectively protect privacy-related data, Japan SMBs are increasingly seeking sophisticated security and data storage/backup solutions."

About the Study

AMI's 2006-2007 Japan Small Business Market Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity Assessment and 2006-2007 Japan Medium Business Market Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity Assessment studies highlight these and other major trends in the context of current/planned IT, Internet and communications usage and spending. Products and services covered include established and emerging hardware, software, applications and business process solutions. Based on AMI's annual surveys of SMBs across Japan, the studies track a broad spectrum of issues pertaining to budgets, purchase behaviors, decision influencers, channel preferences, outsourcing, service and support. Also covered are detailed firmographics and critically important technology attitudes and strategic planning priorities. This data points to key opportunities and messaging hot buttons for vendors and service providers seeking to match their offerings to SMB market requirements.

For more information about these studies, AMI-Partners, or our global SMB research, please call 212-944-5100, e-mail [e-mail], or visit the AMI Web site at www.ami-partners.com.

About AMI-Partners

AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence -- with a strong focus on global small and medium businesses (SMBs), and extending into large enterprises and home-based businesses. The AMI-Partners mission is to empower clients for success with the highest quality data, business strategy perspectives and "go-to-market" solutions. Led by Andy Bose, the firm has built a world-class management team with deep experience cutting across IT, telecommunications and business services sectors in established and emerging markets.

AMI-Partners has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150 leading IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services companies over the last 10 years. The firm is well known for its IT and Internet adoption-based segmentation of the SMB markets; its annual retainership services based on global SMB tracking surveys in more than 20 countries; and its proprietary database of SMBs and SMB channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm invests significantly in collecting survey-based information from several thousand SMBs annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and analysis.