Digital Lifescapes

With hackers becoming more effective in targeting and exploiting emerging technologies -- such as smartphones, media tablets and associated cloud services -- enterprises are investing in mobile endpoint security software to protect and manage mobile devices. Hackers are able to gain access or control of mobile devices via malicious software (malware), while mobile applications (apps) on the device can perform unwanted, high-risk actions. This threat jeopardizes the safety of sensitive data stored on the mobile device, as it can be lost or stolen. With the ubiquity of mobile devices and trends such as bring your own device (BYOD) to work, industry and government regulations requiring businesses to control network access for all device types and applications adds to market growth. According to the latest market study by Frost & Sullivan, the mobile endpoint protection market earned revenue of $433.5 million in 2012, and estimates this to reach $1.0 billion in 2017. They note

The creative talent of independent software developers has helped to make the smartphone and media tablet into a global phenomena. International Data Corporation (IDC) has released new estimates for the worldwide software developer, plus the closely related Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skilled worker population. The numbers of software developers and ICT-skilled workers in the world are important for a variety of resource allocation and investment decisions -- and because they are the gating factors to addressable market calculations for many software and IT services providers. So, how big is the current talent pool? Heading into 2014, IDC believes that there are 18.5 million software developers in the world, of which 11 million are professional software developers and 7.5 million are hobbyist developers. According to the IDC assessment, there are 29 million ICT-skilled workers in the world -- including professional software developers and 18 million operations

Bring your own device (BYOD) to work policies have already changed the mix of mobile phones being used in the workplace. ABI Research concluded that Samsung is the top ranked enterprise smartphone vendor, followed closely by Apple -- with BlackBerry rounding out the top three. The ABI vendor matrix ranks companies based on scoring in Implementation and Innovation categories. Nine smartphone OEMs were compared on eighteen criteria including workspace management solutions, partnerships and business customer adoption. Samsung's large and diversified partner network coupled with it being the first Google Android OEM to offer an integrated enterprise solution pushed the company to the number one spot. The vendor matrix score separating Samsung and Apple was less than a single point. Apple received extremely high marks in Implementation due to high iOS smartphone adoption by business users and because its smartphones are the most activated device within EMM/MDM platforms. Samsung

Most industry analysts would agree that media tablets have had a significant impact on the personal computing industry. But these devices also aided in the disruption of the legacy news and entertainment sector. That trend will likely continue into 2014, as still more people buy a new tablet. Tablets have been on the top of many wish lists since 2010 when Apple launched its first iPad device. The installed base of big brand (Apple, Samsung, etc.) media tablets is expected to surpass 285 million units at the close of 2013, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. The United States, which has been the largest single tablet market since inception, represents more than 70 million tablets alone -- or about one device for every four persons in the nation. "Apple’s early tablet lead is not as evident three years into the market’s boom," says Jeff Orr, senior practice director at ABI Research . The initial Apple iPad shipments are aging out with the first wave of

People everywhere are saving much more multimedia data in online storage services, and more users are forecast to add to this phenomenon. The active accounts associated with personal cloud storage services will exceed 1 billion at the end of 2013 -- that's nearly twice as many as a year ago, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. Over the next five years the global account base will more than triple, reaching 3.61 billion by the end of 2018. In the meantime, the aggregated data storage utilized by personal cloud services is expected to increase from 685 petabytes in 2013 to an incredible 3,520 petabytes in 2018. "Various factors are contributing to the rapidly increasing personal cloud uptake -- including the consumerization of enterprise IT and multiple device ownership. For storage needs, the most far-reaching driver is the expansion and improvement of camera technologies," said Aapo Markkanen, senior analyst at ABI Research . In particular, digital

Telecom and Cable TV broadband service providers have continued to invest in their infrastructure during 2013. Broadband customer premise equipment (CPE) shipments at the end of 2013 were expected to surpass 147 million units, according to the latest global market study by ABI Research. The CPE devices counted include broadband modems, wired routers, and home gateways. Despite a growing broadband subscriber base and increasing demand for advanced broadband services, broadband CPE shipments are only expected to grow to 150 million in 2014. "Increasing adoption of fiber-optic broadband services is driving the growth of fiber-optic CPE shipments," said Jake Saunders, VP and practice director at ABI Research . Fiber-optic CPE will represent 26 percent of overall broadband CPE shipped in 2014. Cable and DSL CPE devices will have equal market share of around 37 percent. As cable broadband operators rapidly extend to DOCSIS 3.0 networks, related DOCSIS CPE shipment is gainin

The market for mobile entertainment could follow a number of paths, where rapid growth is a likely outcome. Today, the mobile ecosystem includes a combination of other very closely related components -- all interacting with each other, based on the operating system, software applications, and device type. Juniper Research has found that by 2017, annual revenues from mobile entertainment services will reach almost $75 billion. This upside growth, from an estimated $39 billion in 2013, is primarily driven by the emergence of more sophisticated strategies to increase overall revenues. Some new growth will be allied to a nascent ecosystem of app-centric mobile devices, such as smart watches and other wearable mobile devices. Juniper has observed that video games will continue to generate the largest share of revenue throughout the forecast period. Those revenues are now primarily derived through a freemium business model, where mobile content is upsold after an app is downloaded by t

Communications infrastructure investment is having a substantive impact on economic development within Latin American. By the end of 2013, Latin American cellular mobile phone subscriptions are expected to grow by 3.9 percent to reach 709.4 million, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. An expanding population base and positive economic indicators for a number of Latin American markets means the region continues to stimulate the interest of foreign and regional telecommunications companies and other investors. At the end of 3Q-2013, while the mobile service prepaid ratio stood at 79.5 percent, the smartphone user base was just 16.1 percent. But smartphone adoption is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 31.7 percent between 2013 and 2018. "Smartphones are presenting mobile carriers with an opportunity to upgrade prepaid subscriptions to postpaid subscriptions," commented Jake Saunders, VP and practice director at ABI Research . An example of this mobile inter

It's possible that smartphone adoption may be reaching the market saturation point in America. comScore reported the key trends in the U.S. smartphone industry for October 2013. Quarterly growth of smartphone ownership has dropped to the low single digits. Once again, Apple ranked as the top smartphone manufacturer with 40.6 percent OEM market share, while Google Android was the leading overall smartphone platform with 52.2 percent platform market share. Meanwhile, Google Sites ranked as the top mobile media property, and Facebook was the leading individual mobile software application. Smartphone OEM Market Share 149.2 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones -- 62.5 percent of mobile market penetration -- during the three months ending in October, that's up 4.1 percent since July. Apple ranked as the top OEM with 40.6 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers (up 0.2 percentage points from July). Samsung ranked second with 25.4 percent market share (up 1.3 percenta

Major retailers can no longer solely rely upon their in-store point-of-sale (POS) terminals for transactions. They must quickly evolve their POS strategy to offer both online and mobile payment options to customers, that's according to the findings from the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media. Retailers that offer multiple payment options -- including a mobile checkout facility -- will be able to serve more customers and reduce loss of sales due to the busy shopper's reluctance to wait in line, especially during the holiday season. The use of mobile POS terminals can help retailers to serve more customers during busy times and issue paperless receipts to customer e-mail addresses, rather than making customers wait in long lines to pay at fixed POS terminals. During the 2012 Christmas holidays, lifestyle brand Alex and Ani implemented mobile checkout technology in several of their U.S. stores and witnessed an impressive 318 percent increase in sales just fr

Media tablets have already been adopted by millions of new users during the course of this year. Worldwide tablet shipments are expected to reach 221.3 million units by the end of 2013, that's down slightly from a previous forecast of 227.4 million but still 53.5 percent above 2012 levels, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). However, new growth will slow in the coming years, as some key markets approach the saturation point. Shipment growth is forecast at 22.2 percent year-over-year in 2014, for a total of 270.5 million units. By 2017, annual market growth will slow to single-digit percentages and shipments will peak at 386.3 million units, that's down from the previous forecast of 407 million units. One key factor to watch is the mix of small vs. large media tablet sales. The market has trended toward small tablets over the last 24 months, but the rise of large smartphones could attract people back toward larger tablets as the diff

When Dell recently announced a low-priced chromebook -- based on Google's Chrome OS -- it became the last major Windows PC maker to embrace the cloudbook phenomenon. Like the stubborn CIO that resisted the cloud computing trend but eventually faced up to the market reality, Dell has finally accepted what others knew to be true -- the glory days of the high-priced PC era are over. Worldwide personal computer (PC) shipments are expected to fall by -10.1 percent by the end of 2013, slightly below the previous projection of -9.7 percent. That's, by far, the most severe yearly market contraction on record, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Interest in PCs has remained limited, leading to little indication of positive growth beyond replacement of existing systems. Total shipments are expected to decline by an additional -3.8 percent in 2014 before turning slightly positive in the longer term. At these rates, total PC shipments will re

Armed with today's mobile and cloud-based technology, commercial vehicles like new trucks or vans no longer need expensive PC hardware, and the availability of consumer mobile devices with increasingly sophisticated capabilities means that smaller fleets are embracing commercial telematics. Most commercial fleet operators in numerous industries around the globe are already using smartphones as service access devices to monitor their vehicles remotely. Now commercial telematics service providers are increasingly adapting their core applications -- including track and trace/route planning, driver behavior and fuel management solutions -- to run on consumer-grade smartphone and media tablet devices. "With GPS and accelerometer functionality, plus the power and flexibility of a sophisticated computer, smartphones and tablets are already important platforms for telematics applications," said Gareth Owen, principal analyst at ABI Research . As sensors continue to develo

The notion of an Internet of Things (IoT) includes some very practical applications within the home. The global smart thermostats market is expected to grow from 1.3 million in 2013 to 8 million unit shipments in 2018 -- that's  a CAGR of 43 percent, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. Disruptive innovation in thermostats from new entrants such as Nest Labs, ecobee, and EcoFactor has significantly raised the bar for product design and innovation in a device category that had seen little change over several decades. As demand grows in the coming years, smart thermostat global revenues are expected to experience five-fold growth to reach $600 million by 2018. Currently, North America is the most lucrative market for smart thermostats, contributing more than half the worldwide total. Driving this region’s dominant market share is a tech-savvy population adopting smart mobile devices packed with low-cost wireless sensors, an expanding install base of buildings

Online gambling has grown since the beginning of the 21st century, with some setbacks along the way -- when the U.S. government was staunchly opposed to this emerging business. However, both smartphone penetration and software app downloads continue to rise steeply, as more consumers switch to using their mobile devices to carry out Internet-related activities. Over the next five years, the number of smartphone and/or media tablet owners using their devices to gamble online will increase by 100 million. That means about 164 million people will either place a bet, visit a mobile casino or buy a lottery ticket on their mobile device in 2018. These findings come from a new market study on mobile gambling, which highlighted that the strongest growth would come from the North American market. Exploring Remote Gambling Market Development According to the latest study by Juniper Research, although growth has been slow in the U.S. market since the Department of Justice ruling in 2011,

Valuable wireless spectrum repurposing is gaining momentum across the globe. Meanwhile, even though the deployment of 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks is proceeding as anticipated, there are still numerous challenges ahead for mobile network service providers. The launch of Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) services by major carriers -- first in South Korea and soon in the United States -- is part of the effort to move voice calls from the circuit switched 2G and 3G networks to the packet switched LTE networks. To achieve this evolutionary goal, mobile network operators have built extensive LTE networks, which also serve as a marketing tool to stay in competition with other providers in their market. "For CDMA operators such as Verizon, aggressive LTE deployment is necessary because a VoLTE call cannot fall back to the circuit switched domain," said Ying Kang Tan, research associate at ABI Research . Even for WCDMA operators like AT&T, it makes sense to do likewise -- b

A "smart wearable" product is an app-enabled computing device which is worn on, or otherwise attached to the body, while being used. In some cases a wearable device is also considered a fashion accessory. Most wearable devices are always on and accessible at any time with a constant interaction between the user and the device. This definition covers a wide range of devices from watches to displays which can either work independently or in conjunction with an external platform -- such as the smartphone or media tablet. The outlook for wearable technology applications is very bright. New findings from a recent market study has revealed that the smart wearable device shipments -- including smart watches and smart glasses -- will approach 130 million by 2018, that's 10 times more than was forecast for 2013. The study, performed by Juniper Research, notes that market development activities in 2014 will likely add new vendor momentum and increased early-adopter user appli

Worldwide smartphone shipments are expected to surpass 1.0 billion units in 2013, representing 39.3 percent growth over 2012, according to the latest global market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Despite a number of mature markets nearing smartphone saturation, the demand for low-cost computing in emerging markets continues to drive the smartphone market forward. By 2017, total smartphone shipments are expected to approach 1.7 billion units, resulting in a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.4 percent from 2013 to 2017. A number of trends co-exist in the global smartphone market, but none have more of an affect on driving market growth than the steady decline in average selling prices (ASPs). Google Android has enabled a number of new manufacturers to enter the smartphone market supported by a variety of turnkey processing solutions. Many of these handset vendors have focused on low-cost devices as a way to build brand awareness. In 2013, IDC expects smartphon

The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) published findings from a survey on the Wi-Fi hotspot market, conducted by Maravedis-Rethink. The global market study revealed that mobile network operators expect 22 percenet of all additional data capacity added during 2013-2014 to come from Wi-Fi offload. By 2018, Wi-Fi offload is predicted to contribute 20 percent of additional mobile data capacity -- plus a further 21 percent will come from small cells with integrated Wi-Fi. Data offload is deemed to be very important to mobile service providers -- accounting for an average of 20 percent of data traffic, up to 80 percent in densely populated areas such as transport hubs and cafes. Within homes and businesses offload levels are 50 to 60 percent. The survey also highlighted that 51 percent of respondents -- 56 percent of network operators -- are more confident about investing in Wi-Fi to supplement cellular than they had been a year earlier. Renewed confidence can be attributed to increa

Today, securing all devices with mobile internet access has become an ever increasing concern. People want to be protected during their daily activities involving email access, online banking or simply browsing content. Meanwhile, corporate stakeholders are much more concerned about their organisational network integrity and business data protection. The number of employee owned smartphones and tablets used in the enterprise will exceed 1 billion by 2018, as the growing trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) redefines business connectivity, according to the latest market study by Juniper Research . This represents almost 35 percent of the total installed base of consumer owned tablets and smartphones. However, the Juniper study uncovered that there are a number of issues and implications that need to be addressed and a single policy or measure may not be sufficient while devising future BYOD strategies. Assessing the BYOD Pros and Cons The study found that while BYOD has th

The introduction of new applications will give greater meaning to the esoteric concept of mobile machine to machine (M2M) communications. As an example, the number of new cars shipping globally with factory-installed safety and security telematics is expected to grow from 11.5 million in 2013 to 50.8 million in 2018, with a CAGR of 34.5 percent. "Traditional safety and security telematics services such as eCall, bCall, stolen vehicle tracking, and remote diagnostics continue to be rolled out across the globe. Recent announcements include VW’s Car-Net in the US, GM’s Onstar in Mexico, and a host of domestic and foreign car OEM offers recently having become available in China, said Dominique Bonte," vice president at ABI Research . However, the high expectations surrounding telematics mandates -- such as the EU eCall, Russia ERA GLONASS, and Brazil CONTRAN stolen vehicle tracking legislation -- have not materialized due to successive delays, mounting uncertainty and critici