According to The Diffusion Group, new research suggests that those classified as "home office workers" are neither homogenous nor early adopters as once believed. TDG's latest report reveals that while home business owners are more likely than others to subscribe to broadband and own a home network, they are not necessarily more likely to own or be interested in purchasing new media devices or services that do not have any obvious business application. Nearly one-third of self-employed home office workers own home networks, compared to 20 percent of other households. However, they are 19 percent less likely to be using wireless networking technology. "Home office workers include home business owners of many different types as well as full- and part-time telecommuters," says TDG. "In order to understand these consumers properly, it's important to make the right distinctions about the different subgroups included under the home office worker umbrella. By specifically targeting full-time home business owners in our study, we're getting a clearer picture of how this market segment actually works."
Gartner's latest worldwide IT spending forecast exposes a trend every CIO has already felt in budget negotiations. Total spending will climb 14.2 percent in 2026, reaching $6.37 trillion. It seems that the IT infrastructure market is simply having a strong year. However, the more useful insight is how unevenly that growth is distributed. The Headline Number vs. The Real Story Data center systems and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) are absorbing capital at a pace several multiples faster than devices, communications services, and traditional IT services. This is not incremental growth spread across a healthy portfolio. It is a wholesale reallocation of enterprise technology budgets toward AI infrastructure, made on the expectation that demand for AI workloads will justify the outlay before that demand has been fully proven. Where the Money is Going Data center systems are forecast to grow 62.5 percent in 2026, that's up from 51.6 percent growth in 2025, reaching $822 billion....