Australia SBs to Invest US $6.7 Billion on IT Solutions This Year; AMI-Partners' Survey Reveals IT Services and Computing to Be Primary Drivers of IT Expenditures.

NEW YORK -- Australian small businesses (SBs) will spend a whopping US $6.7 billion to beef up info-tech infrastructure and solutions. The service sector will lead this growth.

After a steady growth rate of 2.6% in 2005, the Australian economy is characterized by rising consumer confidence, a strong business outlook, and increases in raw material and agricultural exports.

The majority of the country's small businesses experienced an average revenue growth of 7% over the past year, according to the latest study by New York-based AMI-Partners.

Australian small businesses are technologically advanced and well versed in leveraging the benefits offered by IT adoption to enhance business operations. In this geographically dispersed country, 17% of small businesses have employees who telecommute, while over half have a mobile workforce. To facilitate working from home, over a third of SBs supply their telecommuting & mobile employees with computing & networking gear, thereby further driving IT adoption & expenditures.

"IT deployment is now moving to the next stage of mobile computing. This is reflected by the increased spending on portable PCs & mobile technology," commented Neha Jalan, Analyst at AMI-Partners.

IT Services & Computing- Primary Drivers of IT Expenditures

"Spending on computing products and IT services will be the primary drivers of Australian SBs' increased IT expenditures this year," says Ms. Jalan. "The deployment of increasingly sophisticated IT products is creating a corresponding need for increased IT consulting and support which small businesses, given their limited budgets and in-house IT skills, cannot handle internally". In the past year, 46% of Australian SBs spent $641 on average on software support while nearly three in ten availed external IT consulting services. "This trend is unlikely to decrease in the near future - in fact, a fifth of small businesses anticipate increased spending on IT services this year," noted Ms. Jalan.

Small businesses in Australia have already achieved the first wave of IT adoption - almost all businesses in this segment own PCs, and have adopted basic technologies such as internet access. PC vendors are now looking at tapping into the lucrative PC replacement market, and are also steadily promoting portable PCs. PC lifecycles among Australian small businesses is comparatively low, with enterprises replacing their PCs every two years on average.

Data Security: Fastest-Growing IT Segment Among Australia SBs

"As small businesses increasingly use the internet to improve business efficiency and profitability, their use of security solutions increases as they try to protect their networks against threats such as viruses, trojans and worms, as well as against hackers," remarked Ms. Jalan. "Enhancing data security and privacy is among the top strategic focus areas for businesses in this segment and consequently security solution spending is anticipated to be the fastest-growing segment among SBs' IT expenditures."

About the Study

AMI's 2005-2006 Australia Small Business Market Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity Assessment study highlights 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 SBs in Australia, the study tracks 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 SB market requirements.

For more information about this study, AMI-Partners, or our global SMB research, please call AMI-Partners at 65-6238-1101, e-mail [e-mail], or visit the AMI Web site at www.ami-partners.com.

About Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.

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.