89% Unsatisfied With Current SMB Offerings From ‘Big Box Storage’ Companies

Drobo announced the results of a survey designed to identify SMB storage perceptions.

The survey of over 250 international small business and IT executives sheds light on the reality of SMB storage adoption, priorities and future goals.

Top findings

• SMB IT departments are limited: 68 percent of respondents have one or less person dedicated to IT.
• SMBs have no plans of moving all storage to the cloud: 99 percent of respondents say they will not move 100 percent of their storage to the cloud; and a majority note that 75 percent or more of their storage will remain on-premise.
• SMBs are not getting the solutions they need from traditional storage vendors: 89 percent of respondents say that they are unsatisfied with ‘big box storage’ companies’ current SMB storage offerings, citing a need for SMB-focused support for server virtualisation, Microsoft Exchange, and file backup at an affordable price
• SMBs want remote access, data protection and on-premise backup from their storage provider: 81 percent report it is of medium to high importance to have remote access to their data; 76 percent say that on-premise backup is a high storage priority; and 83 percent note that data protection features are a high storage priority followed by price.

"Today’s businesses demands technically sophisticated storage that works, without complicated management," said Tom Buiocchi, CEO at Drobo. "These survey findings align with what we’re seeing in the market – businesses want robust storage, that’s also affordable and easy to use."

Additional information on the survey

• Over 250 respondents, across EMEA and the U.S., completed the online survey in May 2011.
• Participants included business executives, business managers, IT executives, IT managers and IT professionals representing SMBs across industry verticals.

To access the full report (you need to register)