SmallBusinessNewz

Microsoft has released some research that suggests a direct correlation between IT usage and business growth for small and midsize businesses. According to the company's findings, businesses using hosted services have better financial performance.

The findings were concluded by analyst firm Freeform Dynamics, which independently assessed the research. "Our assessment of the report tells us that an increased focus on IT correlates with good performance in all of the size categories surveyed," said Dale Vile, research director of Freeform Dynamics. "This whole picture corroborates the notion that technology and hosted services can provide tangible business advantage, even for smaller companies, and it's not surprising to see that investment in IT and hosting goes hand in hand with good financial performance."

According to the findings, despite the global recession, more SMBs reported an increase in revenue than in 2008, and those that did view IT as critical to their success. In the past year, 52% of SMBs reported an increase in revenue, up from 39% in 2008. Of the SMBs that view IT as critical, 60% saw revenues grow over the past year. Among those that didn't view IT as important, less than 29% saw revenue growth.

"The 2010 index indicates SMBs are beginning to see the benefits of cloud computing; more than 40 percent of the respondents that use hosted or cloud technology reported revenue rises of 30 percent or more compared with 90 percent of respondents not using hosted technology that saw decreases in revenue," says Microsoft. "The advantages of hosted or cloud technology are viewed as reduced cost and IT management and maintenance, as well as increased business value, productivity and competitiveness."

Awareness of hosted services is on the rise. 65% of SMBs reported using hosted software, while 73% of the remainder have considered it. That's up from 44% the previous year. 36% find the pay-as-you-go model appealing.

"Over the last five years, we have seen nearly 40 percent growth in usage of hosted services," said Michael Korbacher, director of EMEA Software plus Services in the Communications Sector at Microsoft. "Using pay-as-you-go cloud technologies, small and midsize businesses can now afford and easily have access to enterprise-class, secure services across any platform."

The research was conducted among 3,193 SMBs in a cross section of private industries in 15 countries. For a long list of interesting stats from it, check out the second half of this release.