Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (DSLAMs) port shipments grew at a solid rate in 2004, but the rate of growth is expected to decline in coming years as the DSL market matures, reports In-Stat. The competition in the DSLAM market is fierce with many large global vendors and small vendors competing for contracts, a trend that will shrink average selling prices over the next several years, the high-tech market research firm says. "Worldwide DSLAM revenues will stay relatively flat, ranging from $3.1 - $3.3 billion over the next several years," says Henry Goldberg, In-Stat analyst. "The market will be highly competitive, with vendors increasing revenues only by taking market share away from other vendors." Alcatel had the leading market share in all regions, except the Asia-Pacific region, in 2004. Huawei had the second-leading worldwide market share, driven by their sales to the booming broadband market in China. IP DSLAMs are growing in popularity, and will become the dominant form of DSLAM in the future, replacing the older, ATM-based DSLAMs. DSLAM vendors also need to have a complete solution for support of triple-play services.
Even the savviest CEO's desire for a digital transformation advantage has to face the global market reality -- there simply isn't enough skilled and experienced talent available to meet demand. According to the latest market study by IDC, around 60-80 percent of Asia-Pacific (AP) organizations find it "difficult" or "extremely difficult" to fill many IT roles -- including cybersecurity, software development, and data insight professionals. Major consequences of the skills shortage are increased workload on remaining digital business and IT employees, increased security risks, and loss of "hard-to-replace" critical transformation knowledge. Digital Business Talent Market Development Although big tech companies' layoffs are making headlines, they are not representative of the overall global marketplace. Ongoing difficulty to fill key practitioner vacancies is still among the top issues faced by leaders across industries. "Skills are difficul