AMI-Partners: New Zealand SMBs IT Spending Forecast to Jump 8% in 2006; Computing and IT Services Account for the Majority of Total IT Budget Security and Storage Fuel Growth.

NEW YORK -- New Zealand's small and medium businesses' (SMBs) spending on IT will jump 8%, to $1.5 billion in 2006. 31% of the $1.5 billion will be spent on computer and related hardware, including PCs, servers, printers, peripherals and PDAs. Spending on IT services such as IT consulting, software support, IT management, computing and network support, etc. will account for close to a third of the total IT budget. Enhancing data security and deploying in-house or hosted data back-up and disaster recovery remain priority issues for many SMB IT decision makers.

A new study from AMI-Partners focuses on the IT adoption trends and attitudes of the New Zealand SB and MB market segment. The study reveals that New Zealand SMBs continue to grow their IT budget. Key drivers for this increase include improvement in New Zealand's economy, and businesses' desire to gain a competitive business edge via effective deployment of IT solutions. Top priorities for New Zealand SMBs in 2006 include enhancing data security and privacy via firewall deployment, implementing data back-up and disaster recovery solutions and interconnecting branch offices and customer locations using extranets and wide area networking (WAN).

"Businesses around the world have made security a top priority and New Zealand SMBs are no exceptions. Ever-increasing Internet use and high speed access, and the need to extend IT systems to external suppliers, vendors and customers make security a lucrative, expanding market," says Sau Lam, New York-based Research Analyst at AMI-Partners.

AMI-Partners estimates that New Zealand SMBs will invest $40 million on security-related products and services such as anti-virus and anti-spam software, intrusion detection programs, firewalls and other IT security measures this year, up from last year's 22%. 93% of SBs and virtually all New Zealand MBs have installed anti-virus protection, and more than 93% of MBs are using network-based firewalls. SMBs will also invest more in storage, business continuity and disaster recovery solutions to protect their businesses against possible natural disasters, terrorist activities and widespread epidemics such as the avian influenza, with total storage spending expected to almost double by 2010. Currently,close to two-thirds of New Zealand SMBs use external hard disk drives, CD/DVD drives or zip drives for desktop storage, and one in five SMBs uses (SAN) and network attached storage (NAS).

About the Study

AMI's 2005-2006 New Zealand Small Business Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity Assessment and 2005-2006 New Zealand Medium Business 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 New Zealand, 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. These data point 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 AMI-Partners at 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 -- focusing on global small and medium business (SMB) enterprises. The AMI-Partners mission is to empower clients for success with the highest quality data, business planning and "go-to-market" solutions. AMI was founded in 1996 under the name of Access Media International (USA), Inc. by Andy Bose, formerly group vice president at IDC. Since its inception, the firm has built a world-class management team, each with ten to fifteen years' experience in IT, telecom, online communications or multimedia.

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 ten 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.