Spiceworks recently released the results of its biannual survey on IT budgets for small and medium-sized businesses and noted that cloud hosting services and virtualization adoption continues to rise. According to the report, 48 percent of SMBs are now using cloud technologies, up from 46 percent in the second half of 2011.

Nearly half of respondents said they were using web hosting, making it the most popular tool used in the SMB cloud market. Backup, application hosting and storage were ranked as the top three services decision-makers plan to purchase in the next six months, the study noted.

Spiceworks also noted that virtualization continues to be adopted by SMBs, though at a slower rate than it was in the past.

"The results also show that SMBs are spending more on technology across the board, from hardware and devices, to cloud services and virtualization," said Jay Hallberg of Spiceworks. "This bodes well for technology vendors serving the SMB market in 2012."

A recent report by Gartner noted that SMBs are forecast to spend $874 billion on IT tools and services in 2012, an increase of nearly 7 percent from 2011.