Security is the top IT priority for small and medium-sized businesses. Really? That somewhat surprising finding comes from a survey issued today by SWC Technology Partners, an IT services provider that focuses on smaller companies.

According to SWC, which is based in Oak Brook, Ill., 55 percent of the 170 IT decision-makers surveyed called security projects a high priority, good for first place. Business intelligence, which has taken the top spot in many such surveys over the past couple of years, ranked second, with 38 percent calling it highly important. Storage, web development and LAN/WAN infrastructure followed.

Security is often one of the areas hardest hit by contracting budgets, since it can be difficult to demonstrate return on investment. Observers and analysts have been fretting that the current recession would end up having some nasty effects on corporate IT security, particularly at smaller companies.

SWC's results say otherwise. Of course, this is one isolated survey, which SWC conducted itself rather than using an independent research firm. Still, the participating IT leaders, which include both SWC customers and general contacts, hail from a cross-section of industries -- manufacturing, retail, education, construction, healthcare, accounting and non-profits. And while the mid-market companies represented were mainly in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, Elliott Baretz, director of business development, said that the numbers likely play out nationally to some degree.

Baretz told me that he was also surprised that security ranked so highly. "I'm with customers every day, and most of my conversations are not about security," he said. Unless the client has a specific security issue or a compliance concern, the subject doesn't often come up.

There are a couple of ways to look at the finding, according to Baretz. One is that when you present people with a list of areas to rank, they might consider it irresponsible not to call security a high priority. "Does it mean that's where I spend my next dollar? Probably not," he said.

On the other hand, the survey could be viewed as coming at the end of the recession, and IT leaders who have had to put security on the back burner are now feeling vulnerable. Where companies have been cutting back on IT security investments, said Baretz, they might now realize that they have to bump up spending to stay safe.

What about areas where it's easier to justify investment? Of the respondents, 41 percent named virtualization as technology with high ROI justification.  "Virtualization has become a widely adopted and accepted platform to consolidate and manage server infrastructure, thereby reducing costs associated with hardware acquisition and management as well as reducing the physical footprint of the server room itself," said SWC in a statement. Collaboration tools and Web development ranked second and third, respectively, in terms of cost justification.

Looking ahead, 51 percent of the IT leaders said they are "cautiously optimistic" about their business outlook over the next year. Eight percent said they are pessimistic and another 3 percent said they are highly pessimistic.

SWC, which has partnerships with Microsoft, Cisco, HP and Symantec, had $15 million in revenues last year. More than half of the IT decision-makers the company surveyed manage environments with between 100 and 2,000 users.