Tier One US Providers' Immature Offers Hope To Morph In 2005 -- According to Forrester Research "The current generation of softswitch-based hosted VoIP services is aptly, but not perfectly, suited to meet the needs of small and medium-size businesses (SMBs). Currently, they are ill-equipped to meet many fundamental enterprise requirements. For example, none is geographically ubiquitous. However, this service is not stillborn. Distinctions between the three major providers are emerging, such as the ability to support soft clients/softphones, integration with wireless services, and the availability of unified messaging. Each tier one hosted VoIP service provider plans major service enhancements this year. When combined with the prospect that more tier one providers plan to enter the market this year, 2006 could be a turning point in business use of managed voice services � but only if providers make services truly enterprise-class."
Enterprise AI budgets are flowing in two directions at once, and only one of them builds an asset the buyer actually controls. Gartner's latest forecast puts worldwide AI spending at $2.7 trillion in 2026, but the composition of that figure matters far more than the total. Executives who read only the headline will miss the tension between what they are buying and what they actually own. The Number Behind the Number Gartner projects 2026 AI spending is a 49.5 percent increase over 2025, with $3.6 trillion forecast for 2027. AI infrastructure accounts for $1.5 trillion of this year's total, more than half. Gartner's John-David Lovelock calls the data center buildout the largest infrastructure project humanity has undertaken, and describes demand as inelastic even as memory prices climb. Compute Concentration is a Sovereignty Issue Gartner expects hyperscalers and service providers buying AI-optimized servers to remain the largest single area of spending. For an enterprise, t...