Most popular vendors among US small and medium businesses: Microsoft, Intel, Symantec

There are an estimated 44,327 channel partners that sell to small and medium businesses in the US. Channel partners have a strong business outlook for 2005 and expect annual revenues to increase by 23% YTY. This optimism is spurred by the anticipated 9% rise in US SMB IT spending, to $163 bln in 2005. According to AMI Partners, the following vendors enjoy the highest presence amond US small and medium businesses: Microsoft (84%), Intel (66%), Symantec (62%), HP (54%), 3Com (50%) and Cisco (45%) are the top vendors whose products/services are sold by SMB channel partners.