Digital Lifescapes

When, where, and how knowledge workers perform their role continues to evolve, as the COVID-19 pandemic disruption impacts the Global Networked Economy. Now, the Future of Work (FoW) model enables improved employee experiences in an environment unbounded by time or physical space. According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), FoW spending will be nearly $656 billion in 2021 -- that's an increase of 17.4 percent over 2020. "Traditional work models do not provide the agility, scalability, and resilience required by the future enterprise. This was, of course, highlighted by the ongoing health crisis. To drive growth and competitive differentiation, organizations will invest in technologies and services," said Holly Muscolino, vice president at IDC . Future of Work Market Development To facilitate the transition to a fully distributed workforce, organizations are investing in a wide range of solutions. The largest area of investment i

Real-time locating systems (RTLS) are used to automatically identify and track the location of things in real-time within a building or other confined areas. While numerous existing RTLS technologies, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and UWB have been available, they haven't captured the market potential. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, 87 percent of enterprises said they have not yet deployed RTLS technology within their business, primarily because of the significant barriers to adoption. Most of the challenges of RTLS deployment mentioned in the ABI study point to the fragmentation of existing solutions, which impact the total cost of ownership, the complexity to implement, operate and maintain them. There are also uncertainties around reliability and maturity. RTLS Technology Market Development "All the barriers identified by the survey are currently constraining the RTLS ecosystem from developing and flourishing. Current solutions addressing this

Business technology leadership continues to evolve as more progressive organizations apply innovative digital transformation strategies. The focus is on business outcome attainment and a culture of meritocracy that reward bold leaders. By 2024, 80 percent of technology products and services will be built by mainstream business people who are not technology professionals, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. This trend is driven by a new category of buyers outside of the traditional IT organization, occupying a larger share of the overall IT market. Today, total business-led IT spend averages up to 36 percent of the total formal IT budget, and it will continue to grow. Business-Driven App Market Development "Digital business is treated as a team sport by CEOs and no longer the sole domain of the IT department," said Rajesh Kandaswamy, vice president at Gartner . "Growth in digital data, low-code development tools and artificial intelligence (AI)-assi

As more enterprise organizations embrace the ongoing transition to digital business transformation, CIOs and CTOs are adopting new technologies that enable the secure identification of individuals within their key stakeholder communities. A "digital identity" is a unique representation of a person. It enables individuals to prove their physical identity during transactions. Moreover, a digital identity is a set of validated digital attributes and credentials for online interactions -- similar to a person's identity within the physical world. Individuals can use a 'digital ID' to be verified through an authorized digital channel. Usually issued or regulated by a national ID scheme, a digital identity serves to identify a unique person online or offline. Digital Identity Systems Market Development Complementary to more traditional forms of identification, digital identity verification systems can enhance the authenticity, security, confidentiality, and efficiency of

As more organizations adapt to a hybrid working model for their distributed workforce, enterprise CIOs and CTOs are tasked with delivering new productivity-enabling applications, while also seeking ways to effectively reduce IT cost, complexity, and risk. Traditional IT hardware infrastructure is evolving to more software-based solutions. The worldwide software-defined infrastructure (SDI) combined software market reached $12.17 billion during 2020 -- that's an increase of 5 percent over 2019, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). The market grew faster than other core IT technologies. The three technology pillars within the SDI market are: software-defined compute (53 percent of market value), software-defined storage controller (36 percent), and software-defined networking (11 percent). "Software-defined infrastructure solutions have long been popular for companies looking to eliminate cost, complexity, and risk within their data cente

Despite a challenging backdrop from the ongoing effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the negative impact on fifth-generation (5G) wireless supply chains has been minimal compared to the wider mobile smartphone market. This led to 5G mobile devices becoming more diverse, brought to market quickly at a variety of price points, thereby accelerating affordability and adoption. The mobile market is transitioning to 5G and many leading vendors are now exploring the low-priced 5G smartphone segment. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, 681 million 5G handsets will be shipped in 2022. Therefore, the race is on for OEMs to find that all-important level of differentiation in their flagship portfolios to help boost margins and improve market share. 5G Wireless Market Development Vendors continue to drive the adoption of new product designs, screen technology, chipsets, and camera setups -- notably within the flagship smartphone segment. Meanwhile, the leaders seek a

As more multinational organizations adopt distributed workforce policies for their employees, CIOs are seeking superior IT and networking solutions that will scale to support fully protected hybrid working models. That includes end-user computing apps that can securely adapt to any device. Gartner reports that enterprise security and risk management spending grew by 6.4 percent in 2020 due to increased demand. Worldwide spending on information security and risk management technology and services is forecast to grow 12.4 percent and reach $150.4 billion in 2021, according to the latest market study by Gartner.  Security & Risk Management Market Development Gartner analysts believe that the strong growth rate reflects continuing demand for remote worker technologies, such as the digital workspace, and public cloud security for SaaS applications. "Organizations continue to grapple with the security and regulatory demands of public cloud and Software as a Service," said Lawre

The global eCommerce market gained new momentum as the COVID-19 pandemic transformed many legacy business sectors. As an example, conversational commerce enables end-users of smart devices to leverage them for commercial purposes -- including retail transactions and online banking. The ecosystem for conversational commerce has evolved with many communication service providers acting as the primary point of connection between the end-users of these devices and the brands, enterprises, and financial institutions that use them. According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the global conversational commerce spend over rich communication services (RCS) messaging will reach $27 billion by 2025 -- that's rising from less than $10 million in 2021. Conversational Commerce Market Development This phenomenal growth will be driven by increasing RCS support from telecom network operators and growing interest from business leaders wishing to capitalize on this emerging eCo

It's likely that the global COVID-19 pandemic will impact parts of the legacy enterprise networking sector, as fewer employees at the more progressive companies return to a headquarters office campus, branch office, or other traditional workplaces. However, some IT networking sectors continue to grow. Revenues in the enterprise segment of the wireless local area networking (WLAN) market grew at 24.6 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2021 (1Q21). In the consumer-class WLAN market, revenues increased 11.7 percent in the quarter, giving the combined enterprise and consumer WLAN markets year-over-year growth of 16.7 percent in 1Q21, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Wireless LAN Market Development The 24.6 percent growth in the enterprise-class segment of the market builds on a strong end of the year in 2020, with fourth-quarter 2020 revenues increasing 10.3 percent year over year. Combined, two strong quarters in a row indicate