Most smaller businesses are still primarily using the web for basic applications, such as e-mail and browsing. There are however, a growing number of brave and knowledgeable souls doing their own web development in-house.
Most small businesses doing their own Internet development already have an IT department.
Our data doesn't show that companies are initiating IT efforts soley for web applications, but rather, that having an IT deparment makes getting these capabilities up and running much easier. The vendor of choice for small companies doing their own web development is clearly Microsoft. This also represents an outgrowth of the increasing activity that Microsoft is seeing around NT in smaller businesses in general. From the small business perspective, it appears that the best course for firms planning on in-house web development is to stay within the vendor environments that are already installed. For many smaller firms, working cross vendor or cross platform adds an unecessary degree of difficulty.