Competitors Aiming at SMBs

Microsoft’s competitors in the SMB market fall into two major categories. At the top of the market are traditional enterprise vendors who have typically been geared to serve the computing needs of large firms that make extensive use of technology. At the bottom of the market are some persistent competitors who have successfully managed to work with Microsoft and even to outpace the company in certain technologies that are important to small businesses.

Enterprise Competitors Move Downmarket

Many enterprise vendors have elected to aim their products and servers at smaller firms, for the following reasons:

• The perception that the SMB market has substantial room for additional IT spending
• A parallel perception that enterprise technology spending is likely to grow only slowly over the next few years
• Gradual migration of enterprise software to inexpensive Intel hardware running Windows or Linux, which is more affordable for small firms and requires less special expertise
• Widespread availability