This IDC study investigates mobile opportunities in Western European SMBs, leveraging results from the IDC's European Vertical Markets Survey. The survey was completed in September 2011 and included 1,021 Western European companies SMBs with between 20 and 499 employees located in the top 5 Western European countries (France, Germany, Italy, the U.K., and Spain).

This study analyzes SMBs' results on:

• Adoption of mobile users' devices and employee penetration of mobile devices
• Adoption and plans of adoption by year-end 2013 for different mobile solution areas (mobile application platforms, mobile device management, mobile native applications for external usage, mobile native applications for internal usage, extension of on-premises corporate applications to mobile devices)
• Mobile software investments, the structure of license fees for mobile native applications for internal usage, and the extension of on-premises corporate applications to the mobile environment
• Plans to extend access to mobile devices for selected applications by year-end 2013

"Larger SMBs show the highest mobility sophistication, higher plans to invest on mobile solutions, and stronger plans to access on-premises applications on mobile devices by year-end 2013. Nonetheless, survey results confirm that despite the challenging economic landscape, mobility adoption will grow among SMBs of all sizes and, by the end of 2013, some 45% of Western European SMBs will have adopted at least one mobile software solution," said Nina Bonagura, senior research analyst, IDC European Industry Solutions.