Businesses spend 15% more on data storage and security

By Janet Harris

According to a new report from US-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners Inc, small and medium-sized UK businesses (with up to 999 employees) will spend up to $2.2bn on data storage and IT security in 2007, 15% higher than expenditure in 2006.

The research found that while small UK businesses (with up to 99 employees) spend most of their IT security budget on anti-virus products and services, medium-sized companies (100 – 999 employees) tend to allocate funds to security services providers.

Medium sized UK businesses spent approximately $187m in outsourced IT security spending in 2006 with 50% allocated to third party vendors.

Small businesses in the UK tend to focus their storage budgets on hardware devices, principally for Desktop PC backup, while medium-sized companies focus their spending on managed services in support of data storage requirements.

According to the report, hard drive failure is the leading cause of data loss among UK businesses.

The research is published in AMI’s 2006-2007 U.K. Small Business Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity Assessment and 2006-2007 U.K. Medium Business Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity Assessment. It is based on annual surveys of small and medium businesses across the UK.