According to a new study from ABI Research, annual global sales of dual-mode mobile phones -- which can connect to either a conventional cellular service or a Wi-Fi network -- are likely to exceed 100 million during the final year of this decade. Such dual-mode handsets have been virtually unknown to consumers until now, and have not penetrated the enterprise space to any degree either. But according to ABI, some of the leaders of global telecom -- notably British Telecom and Korea Telecom -- plan to offer dual-mode services by the end of 2005. That could start a very large ball rolling. Though the full spectrum of capabilities won't appear in the first generation of products, when these services are mature you will be able to start a phone call at home (where your phone connects to your residential Wi-Fi network and then to your broadband Voice over IP phone service), continue it in your car (where the phone switches to your cellular provider's network), and wind it up at work, where the phone once more switches to your organization's 802.11 LAN, and VoIP.
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