By Rieva Lesonsky

How long has it been since you bought new technology for your business? If the answer has you scratching your chin to remember that far back, then your business is falling behind. A recent survey of small and midsized businesses (SMBs) by Spiceworks Inc. shows that most SMBs are ramping up their IT budgets–so if you’re not doing the same, you could get left in the dust.

Spiceworks found that in 2011, SMBs spent more on IT than they have for quite a while. Perhaps this isn’t surprising, with the rapid adoption of tablets and smartphones among consumers and the growth of cloud computing services. Now these trends are spreading to business as well. Here’s some of what the Spiceworks State of SMB IT survey found:

Businesses are spending more on IT. For the second half of 2011, IT budgets grew 9 percent over the first half of 2011 of the year—the biggest increase in two years.

Businesses are adding IT employees. Thirty-one percent of respondents said they plan to hire additional IT staff in the next six months.

Businesses are using tablets. Fifty percent of SMBs in the survey said they either already use tablet computers or will start doing so in the next six months.

Businesses are converting to the cloud. Almost half of SMBs (46 percent) said they use cloud services—a huge increase from the 14 percent that were doing so in mid-2010.

The Spiceworks survey focused on companies with under 1,000 employees, so this isn’t a survey of the smallest of the small. But what I think is interesting about these results is that two of the big trends—tablets and cloud computing—can easily be used by the smallest of the small. One of the most exciting things about cloud computing is that it’s so affordable. In fact, for small companies, it can be a huge savings. And even one-person businesses are using tablets to do things like take orders, accept payments and do demos to customers in the field.

And don’t think the other trend—hiring IT workers—is beyond your financial grasp. With the growing availability of outsourcing solutions like Guru.com or Elance.com to help you find virtual IT employees, even small companies that can’t afford to hire full-time IT staff can get the help they need part-time or virtually.

The growing business use of tablets and the cloud illustrates a key trend: Increasingly, the same tech tools we use for fun in our personal lives can also be used for business. This simplifies life—and isn’t simplicity that what busy business owners crave most?

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