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SMBs in Brazil to Spend US$260M on IT Security in 2007

Business Wire
Press Release
By AMI-Partners

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Small and medium businesses (1-999 employees) in Brazil are on track to spend more than US$260 million next year on IT security solutions. Much of this growth will come from medium businesses (100-999 employees) who account for more than 60% of all IT security spending. This is according to the latest study from Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc. "SMBs across Brazil need to strengthen their IT security all the more due to the increasing threat of cybercrime," said Yedda Chew, New York-based research analyst at AMI-Partners. "Their vulnerability to electronic threats doesn't depend upon their geographical location anymore."

Another study from AMI-Partners revealed that 72% of Brazil-based MBs cited enhanced data security and privacy as a key factor. This has boosted the demand for anti-virus and security applications, resulting in high anti-virus software penetration. Moreover, as major investments continue to expand Brazil's IT infrastructure, SMBs are aggressively adopting broadband.

"While spending on basic anti-virus and firewall applications will continue, SMBs in Brazil are increasingly recognizing the necessity of deploying advanced security applications such as virtual private network (VPN) and intrusion detection/prevention software," Ms. Chew said. "Especially now, as businesses continually evolve toward Internet-based connectivity, VPNs are being viewed as an inexpensive and efficient method to connect multiple sites, private or public, securely."

As the trend toward Internet connectivity and centralized networking grows, VPN applications such as IPsec and SSL VPN are seen as being essential tools for MBs to deploy. Currently, close to 50% of Brazil's MBs have deployed a router/firewall appliance-based VPN located on site, while 24% plan to implement one in the next 12 months.

AMI estimates that nearly 3 million of Brazil's SMBs do not currently have an anti-virus solution installed on their PCs. IT vendors - such as the alliance between Avaya and Brasil Telecom - have recognized the importance of this market. They even started offering products and services designed to meet the functional and budgetary requirements of SMBs, such as "VPN Simple", for example. "This is a good start," Ms. Chew said. "However, in spite of the rapid growth in recent years of spending on IT security, there still remains a large untapped potential market in Brazil."

About the Study

AMI's 2005-2006 Brazil Small Business Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity Assessment and 2005-2006 Brazil Medium Business Overview and Comprehensive Market Opportunity Assessment studies highlight these and other major trends in the context of current/planned IT, Internet and communications usage and spending. Products and services covered include established and emerging hardware, software, applications and business process solutions. Based on AMI's annual surveys of SMBs across Brazil, the studies track a broad spectrum of issues pertaining to budgets, purchase behaviors, decision influencers, channel preferences, outsourcing, service and support. Also covered are detailed firmographics and critically important technology attitudes and strategic planning priorities. These data point to key opportunities and messaging hot buttons for vendors and service providers seeking to match their offerings to SB market requirements.

For more information about this study, AMI-Partners, or our global SMB research, please call AMI-Partners at 212-944-5100, e-mail ask_ami@ami-partners.com, or visit the AMI Web site at www.ami-partners.com.

About AMI-Partners

AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence — focusing on global small and medium business (SMB) enterprises. The AMI-Partners mission is to empower clients for success with the highest quality data, business planning and "go-to-market" solutions. AMI was founded in 1996 under the name of Access Media International (USA), Inc. by Andy Bose, formerly group vice president at IDC. Since its inception, the firm has built a world-class management team, each with ten to fifteen years’ experience in IT, telecom, online communications or multimedia.

AMI-Partners has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150 leading IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services companies over the last ten years. The firm is well known for its IT and Internet adoption-based segmentation of the SMB markets; its annual retainership services based on global SMB tracking surveys in more than 20 countries; and its proprietary database of SMBs and SMB channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm invests significantly in collecting survey-based information from several thousand SMBs annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and analysis.