Research from the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) finds that nearly 75% of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) have one or more employees who telecommute and on average has 7% of its workforce working from home one or more days per week. In addition, 90% of SMBs reported having one or more employees traveling on business at least one day per week. On average, 10 percent of the SMB workforce is mobile.

As the workforce of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) is becoming more mobile, this shift is reflected in technology spending plans. Forty-four percent of the 518 North American SMBs surveyed by CompTIA said they plan to invest in smart phones, and 32% plan to invest in VPNs in the next 12 months.

The majority of SMBs surveyed rated VPNs and mobile e-mail through use of smart phones as offering high business value and benefits. Ease of
scalability and increased security are among the chief perceived benefits of deploying VPNs, along with seamless end-to-end connectivity between all employees.

More than four out of five SMBs said they are either "very satisfied" or
"somewhat satisfied" with their current IT and communications systems in
terms of boosting efficiency in managing day-to-day affairs. At the same
time, 70% said that deploying the latest convergent technologies
that allow for more effective means of internal and external communication has high strategic importance.

"With a growing portion of their workforce either mobile or remote, SMBs
need to provide cost effective, safe and secure remote access for these
employees," said John Venator, president and chief executive officer,
CompTIA. "This suggests there is a sizeable market opportunity associated with productivity-enhancing solutions such as virtual private networks (VPNs), smart phones and other applications."

For more information CompTIA Research and Surveys, please visit:
http://www.comptia.org/sections/research.aspx.

ITworld.com

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