(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Market research and consulting firm Techaisle (www.techaisle.com) announced on Monday that overall managed services spending for worldwide small and mid-market business is expected to reach $14.3 billion in 2009, according to a the results of its recent study.

The study follows a recent study by 1&1 Internet which revealed that SMB owners are resorting to unnecessary spending because of confusion over the cost and effort involved in web hosting.

This projected figure shows a growth of 9.2 percent over 2008. Additionally, the same study saw SMBs spending $15.7 billion on managed services in 2010, which shows a growth rate of 9.6 percent.

Worldwide SMB spending on remote managed services, in particular, will grow the fastest at 9.2 percent in 2009 to reach $3.6 billion. The trend will continue through 2012 to reach $5.3 billion at a compounded annual growth rate of over 10 percent from 2008.

The Asia/Pacific region, with the exception of Japan, is expected to grow by 12.2 percent followed by US at 8.5 percent, while the EMEA region will grow by 6.5 percent in 2009 and increase by 8.1 percent in 2010.

Over 36 percent of managed services spending by SMBs in 2009 will be made by 10 to 49 employee size categories. These results make it the most lucrative target segment but also most difficult to reach.

“SMBs are now looking beyond infrastructure investments as their respective countries slowly emerge from the global downturn,” says Anurag Agrawall at Techaisle. “With continuing education by vendors and channels SMBs have begun embracing managed services with cautious optimism. Not surprisingly SMB managed services spend represents a 46 percent share of the total managed services spend of US$31.1 billion by businesses that include large enterprises with 1000-plus employees.”

Techaisle’s study included market sizing for remote and onsite/remote managed services and includes sub-segments of PC management, server/network management, security, network storage and back/recovery managed services.

The study excluded email and web hosting, collaboration and SaaS services from the managed services categories, sizing them separately.

SMB network and server managed services account for highest level of spending at $3.5 billion while PC managed services is expected to reach $2.7 billion in 2009.

The study that includes extensive market sizing based on primary research shows that emerging markets will have the highest growth rate at 13.7 percent while the established markets are projected to grow by 8.4 percent.

Courtesy of www.thewhir.com