The competitive distance between SMBs and enterprise organizations has been closing for years. While there used to be a Grand-Canyon-sized chasm between the different market sizes, it’s now more like the length of a football field. What’s the factor that makes the biggest difference? SMBs now have access to the same type of technologies that enterprises have had access to all along. The difference is these redesigned midmarket systems are packaged differently, and the prices are more manageable. In addition, there are typically fewer licenses available for the midmarket solutions compared to the enterprise solutions. Organizations like IBM see the SMB space as a primal ground for adding to their revenue streams. Here are some numbers to bring that point into perspective:
- The midmarket was an $8.3B global market opportunity in 2013 with an estimated $1.9B in growth markets.
- Business Analytics midmarket growth was 25 percent higher in 2012 than the previous year; strong double digit growth continued in 2013.
- IBM Cognos Express sales rose 50 percent year to year worldwide in the first half of 2013. This customer community is approaching 3,000 worldwide customers. 98% of those transactions were led by Business Partners.
In addition to the different midmarket priced and packaged analytics solutions that are available, IBM has also focused on promoting their hardware systems. Big Blue has developed midmarket-specific solutions such as IBM System x, IBM Storwize, and IBM Easy Tier Storage.
IBM System x
According to a TBR 2Q study for 2014, IBM earned the top position in a comparison to other servers (such as Dell and HP) for virtualization, efficiency, and scalability satisfaction. All of these factors are critical for SMBs to improve their operational performance.
IBM Storwize
Both the IBM Storwize V7000 unified and IBM Storwize V7000 systems are virtualized storage systems geared for scalable functionality. They are scalable and adaptable to high volume data storage workloads. SMBs gain the capacity of a storage solution that can expand as their business continues to see surges in business growth.
IBM Easy Tier Storage
IBM Easy Tier Storage enhances the performance of IBM Storwize V7000. Through the Easy Tier mechanism, the appropriate tiers for storage are determined, and data is automatically moved to these tiers based on access requirements and capacity needs. For SMBs, Easy Tier storage helps alleviate the manual processes of data storage.
To find out more about how each of these solutions can help SMBs continue to close the gap between their enterprise counterparts, click here for more information.
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