A booming manufacturing sector and rising ambitions of mid-sized companies have opened up a new frontier for hardware and software makers.In the last few weeks, almost all major IT vendors , including Microsoft , HP , Wipro, RedHat, Oracle and TrendMicro , among others , have announced products and marketing initiative for SMEs. In the past , they were considered too small to be served profitably by established IT vendors.

With IT deployment growth tapering off in larger companies and rising prosperity of smaller companies , IT vendors have turned their sales and marketing machine on smaller organizations.

Small and medium businesses have been the biggest beneficiary of last two years of economic boom.This has raised their expectation and many of them are investing in IT infrastructure to better compete with their larger peers. IT industry defines SMB as companies with employees ranging from 50 to 500 people.SMBs segment accounts for around 40 to 45 per cent of Rs.25000 crore domestic hardware market.

It is expected to change.There are estimated to be over 25000 such businesses in India with a combined IT hardware and software requirement .

Source:The Economic Times.