According to MRG, the shift from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 encoding and headend purchases is expected to begin in volume in the 2007 to 2008, meaning prolonged life for MPEG2 in IP TV systems. Moreover, the rise of IPTV content subscribers will drive an equally rapid installed based of IPTV video headends. Broadband service providers in the U.S., Asia, and Europe have announced or plan to announce deployments of IPTV-based content services, opening up opportunities for all video headend suppliers. One key forecast is that IPTV subscriber revenue will grow from about $400 million in 2004 to over $6 billion in 2008, meaning a substantial investment in content and infrastructure is fast approaching. Whether for SBC, Verizon, or BellSouth in the U.S., China Telecom in Asia, or France Telecom or Telefonica in Europe, IPTV video headend suppliers must help service providers compete in increasingly competitive markets. "IPTV vendors, in addition to offering unique and innovative services, have to use new technologies to achieve competitive advantages,' stated Gary Schultz, MRG principal analyst. "Yet the end-to-end value chain needs to remain price-sensitive to new adopters."
The prevailing narrative around artificial intelligence (AI) has been one of relentless scale. Bigger models, bigger clusters, bigger budgets. The assumption, largely unchallenged until recently, was that raw parameter count translated directly into competitive advantage. New research from Omdia suggests it's time to retire that assumption. According to the latest market study by Omdia, parameter growth in frontier AI models has slowed to around 5 percent annually since 2021, a stark contrast to the more than hundredfold expansion seen between 2019 and 2021. Enterprise AI Market Development For executives who have been making infrastructure and investment decisions based on the assumption that AI would keep demanding ever-larger, ever-more-expensive hardware, this finding deserves serious attention. The race to the top of the model size leaderboard has, at least for now, plateaued. Crucially, Omdia's analysts are not reading this as an AI winter. Alexander Harrowell, senior pri...