Over thirty companies worldwide represented at BSF meeting -- At its first meeting, the members of the Broadband Services Forum (BSF) set the direction of the group�s future initiatives. Project work on IPTV and dynamic and interactive services such as gaming and video were given top priority by a poll of the meeting�s attendees. Content-to-go was another area on which the BSF membership wanted to focus. These areas will top the BSF�s agenda in 2005. The input from a membership representing diverse industry segments within the broadband market is one of the greatest strengths of the BSF. �As the only industry group that represents the interests of service providers, content providers and technology vendors, the BSF is a unique position to address the profitable new services that are critical to all of these stakeholders,� said BSF Chairman Derek Kuhn. The keynote The Promise of IP Television was delivered by Amy Friedlander, SVP of Programming at SBC. In her presentation, Friedlander shared SBC�s services vision, and provided valuable insights into how service providers and their partners can work together to define and monetize new services.
The global cloud computing market is undergoing new significant growth, driven by the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and the demand for flexible, scalable infrastructure. The recent market study by International Data Corporation (IDC) provides compelling evidence of this transformation, highlighting the accelerating growth in cloud infrastructure spending and the pivotal role of AI in shaping the industry's future trajectory. Shared Infrastructure Market Development The study reveals a 36.9 percent year-over-year worldwide increase in spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud deployments in the first quarter of 2024, reaching $33 billion. This growth substantially outpaced non-cloud infrastructure spending, which saw a modest 5.7 percent increase to $13.9 billion during the same period. The surge in cloud infrastructure spending was partially fueled by an 11.4 percent growth in unit demand, influenced by higher average selling prices, primari