Digital Lifescapes

Most business technology vendors are already in the process of revamping their traditional marketing organizations to better support their IT channel partners. The ongoing shift to a progressive digital marketing methodology has challenged many leaders, due to the difficulty in re-training their legacy employees. Moreover, demand for marketing talent that is skilled in the development of digital business transformation projects has increased over the last year, yet the available talent pool remains somewhat limited. As a result, the competition for recruiting (and retaining)  digital polymaths is intense -- particularly for those marketers that possess knowledge of hybrid cloud and IT security technologies. Market Development in the Channel The global information technology (IT) channel remains optimistic -- despite predictions of a challenging 2016 -- according to a recent Canalys survey of 260 IT channel partners around the world. 75 percent of partners expect revenue grow...

Across the globe, wireless technology vendors and telecom service providers are assisting companies in the healthcare sector to develop new telecare system applications. The huge amounts of data that's being created has fueled demand for cloud-based storage solutions. It's all part of the growing Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem that's growing rapidly during 2016 to support these trends. The number of people monitored using mobile telecare systems in Europe and North America was about 450,000 at the end of 2015, according to the latest worldwide market study by Berg Insight. Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 percent, this number is expected to reach almost 3.4 million by 2021. There are several types of monitoring systems that can help elderly and people with cognitive disabilities to live independently in their homes for as long as possible. These assistance systems are usually called telecare systems, telecare alarms or social alarms in Europe ...

Back when cloud computing services were first introduced, some industry analysts thought it was obvious that traditional telecom service providers would participate in this emerging new opportunity. Eager to uncover new sources of revenue, telecom incumbents would likely enter the market with high expectations. However, as the market evolved, the largest and fastest growing competitors would drive ongoing demand for their public cloud offerings by emphasizing lower-cost -- typically, much lower than most enterprise CIOs were able to match in their on-premise data centers. And, telecom service providers were equally challenged to keep pace with the cloud pioneers. These leading cloud providers built highly optimized, hyperscale data center infrastructure that utilized commodity system components and automated service provisioning. This business model created the market dynamics for what is now referred to as the "race to the bottom" phenomena. Moreover, if a telecom operat...

Last year was challenging for many traditional software vendors, particularly those that have been slow to embrace the shift to cloud services. Worldwide application infrastructure and middleware (AIM) software revenue totaled $23.9 billion in 2015 -- that's 0.1 percent growth from 2014, according to the latest study by Gartner. The rapid adoption of enterprise platform-as-a-service (PaaS) cloud offerings, often applied as a foundation for digital business transformation projects, may have caught some legacy software vendors by surprise. Meanwhile, those with strategic foresight were able to adapt to the market development momentum. "The PaaS segment showed the most impressive growth, not just in the AIM market but across the entire enterprise software market," said Fabrizio Biscotti, research director at Gartner . "Integration PaaS (iPaaS) grew 55 percent in U.S dollars, while application PaaS (aPaaS) grew 40 percent, despite headwinds from the appreciating U.S....

The next wave of mobile internet service adoption will be supported by fifth-generation (5G) wireless technologies that form the foundation for many new applications, including numerous iterations of the Internet of Things (IoT). ABI Research has forecast that mobile broadband service provider 5G revenue will reach $247 billion in 2025 with North America, Asia-Pacific, and Western Europe being the top markets. Moreover, mobile network operators, vendors, and standards bodies will finalize technical details by 2020. "5G will be a fast growing cellular technology, most probably faster than preceding generations including 4G," said Joe Hoffman, vice president at ABI Research . "The technology migration over the next few years will mean the continued decline of 2G. 3G and 4G will grow in many markets but 5G will generate new use cases and market revenues." Challenges for 5G Market Development As infrastructure vendors and mobile network service providers prepare...

The global voice over IP (VoIP) service market totaled $73 billion in 2015 -- that's a 5 percent increase over the prior year, according to the latest worldwide market study by IHS . The growth was fueled by more companies shifting to cloud-based services and the adoption of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). VoIP communication services, including residential and business offerings, have become viable alternatives to legacy landline telephone services in most developed countries around the globe. Although residential VoIP service remains a significant portion of VoIP services revenue, business services and the dynamic supplier landscape are driving new growth in the market. VoIP Market Development Trends The competitive landscape has become highly fragmented for VoIP business services, with an increasing number of PBX and Unified Communications (UC) vendors, enterprise agents and resellers expanding into the market along with traditional telecom service providers. Additio...

Personal computer (PC) demand is still a major concern. Worldwide PC shipments totaled 60.6 million units in the first quarter of 2016 (1Q16) -- that's a year-on-year decline of 11.5 percent, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). IDC also anticipated slow progress during the first half of 2016, as Microsoft Windows 10 enterprise upgrades largely remained in a pilot deployment phase. IDC believes that the global volatility in stocks, commodities and currencies has depressed PC shipments. Moreover, the outlook remains a problem. Inventory reductions in the channel now seem to be over. A rebound in economic conditions could support both commercial and consumer activity going forward. Nevertheless, channels, vendors, and users remain cautious about new PC purchases. Overall, Asia-Pacific and EMEA performed slightly better than forecast, while the Americas pulled down worldwide results. Overcoming Market Development Stagnation "In the...

Converged systems infrastructure is gaining increased adoption for data center workloads and large-scale consolidation projects, according to the latest worldwide market study by Technology Business Research (TBR). As a result, global converged systems revenues will grow at a CAGR of 11 percent from 2015 to 2020 reaching nearly $22 billion. The forecast growth will likely occur at the expense of traditional, stand-alone server, storage and networking infrastructure. "The value of converged systems in reducing critical IT pain points such as costly and complex IT deployment and management is well known, leading to a period of mainstream adoption," said Krista Macomber, senior analyst at TBR . Moreover, TBR says that the long-standing hardware OEMs seek to maximize the success of their converged systems businesses as a strategic priority. More Converged System Use Cases Customers are deploying converged systems optimized for key use cases such as big data analytics. T...

Capturing data from video is a growing application within the Internet of Things (IoT). Video asset management and big data analytics software are enhancing the inherent benefits of high-quality IP cameras. As a result, the video surveillance market is experiencing a significant transformation. ABI Research forecasts global value-added services market revenues will reach $10 billion by 2021. Data and analytics services, as well as device and application platform services, show the strongest revenue growth within the non-consumer video surveillance market. "With hardware revenue margins destined to decline, many industry players are adopting a more service-oriented approach to find new revenue opportunities," said Eugenio Pasqua, research analyst at ABI Research . "The intersection of video surveillance and IoT opens the doors to a whole new set of players." Big Data Analytics and Cognitive Demand Enterprises can derive valuable insights from the data generat...

Be forewarned, the Internet of Things (IoT) will be a disruptive force across many industries. Moreover, total commercial IoT revenue among 21 benchmark companies grew by 14.8 percent year-to-year in 4Q15, reaching $6.7 billion, according to the latest market study by Technology Business Research (TBR). TBR believes North America is currently the epicenter of IoT activity due to rising interest in the efficiency benefits from commercial IoT applications among energy, manufacturing, transport, retail and healthcare vertical customers in the region. North America represented 40.3 percent of the benchmark commercial IoT revenue and grew 14.1 percent year-to-year to $2.7 billion in 4Q15. APAC and CALA, while growing faster at 16 percent and 26.3 percent year-to-year, only represented 24.8 percent and 5.5 percent of total revenue, respectively. Commercial IoT Market Development "Effectively, every type of IT and operational technology (OT) vendor will have a stake in the growin...

Cloud computing infrastructure vendor revenue for public and private cloud grew by 21.9 percent year-over-year to reach $29 billion in 2015, with the fourth quarter (4Q15) growing 15.7 percent to $8.2 billion, according to the latest global market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Compared to overall global IT infrastructure spending, the share of cloud IT infrastructure sales climbed to 32.2 percent in 4Q15 -- that's up from 28.6 percent a year ago. Revenue from infrastructure sales to private cloud grew by 17.5 percent to $3.3 billion, and to public cloud by 14.6 percent to $4.9 billion. By comparison, revenue in the traditional (non-cloud) IT infrastructure segment decreased by 2.7 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter 2015, with declines in all three technology segments (server, storage and networking). Cloud Computing Market Development All three technology markets showed strong year-over-year growth in both private and public cloud segments, except...

Technology Business Research (TBR) forecasts revenue of $12 billion in 2020 for the global enterprise software-defined networking (SDN) market, that's a CAGR of 70.2 percent from 2015 to 2020. Moreover, it's going to become a substantial portion of the overall enterprise networking infrastructure market, as it displaces legacy technologies. Large enterprise organizations are in the early stages of SDN trials to reduce network bottlenecks. As the technological and business value of the SDN architecture is established, ongoing user adoption will expand over time. Notably, vendors will need to help their customers evolve their internal organization silos to support digital business transformation projects and enable SDN to flourish. Open Networking Systems Gain Momentum "Adoption is still fairly small and concentrated," said Krista Macomber, senior analyst at TBR . But 2016 will be a telling year as standards bodies, such as the Open Networking Foundation, matu...

Major car manufacturers and their key suppliers are changing legacy business models to better accommodate the evolving market demand for personal transportation. The automotive industry will undergo several transformative paradigm shifts over the next 25 years. These stages include the connected software-defined car, sensors and big data, cooperative mobility, Internet of Things (IoT), electrification, car sharing and driverless cars. While the first phases are already underway, the latter phases will start to drive the market forward within the next 10 years. Car manufacturers are currently revamping vehicle electronics and networking architecture to ensure every sub-system is connected and software-defined, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. Moving toward the next decade, the automotive industry will achieve cooperative mobility. Cars will communicate with each other, surrounding infrastructure and environments. Electrification will then change the way cons...

Today, the sharing economy represents numerous and varied services and business models, which have branched from a core group of offerings. Ride-sharing services that utilize independent drivers -- such as Uber and Lyft -- are seeing significant returns from their ongoing market development strategies. These shared transport online platforms, who typically take 20 percent of driver earnings, will see their revenues grow from an estimated $3.3 billion in 2015 to reach $6.5 billion by 2020, according to the latest global market study by Juniper Research. Their worldwide study found that a combination of promotional incentives, flexible working hours, and new business models will potentially attract more new freelance drivers to these companies. Service Expansion to Drive Future Growth While Uber has struggled to gain a significant foothold in China -- apparently due to the dominance of Taxi hailing service Didi Kuaidi -- Uber is not without the determination and the means to forc...

While software-as-a-service solutions change the way that business technology is being used within the enterprise, legacy IT vendors are scrambling to evolve and rationalize their product portfolios -- relative to the emergence of nimble new players that apply very different business models. According to the latest worldwide market study by Technology Business Research (TBR), software providers that also have hardware portfolios are implementing flexible delivery models, and now they're marketing the implied value of their unified and optimized product portfolios. "We are seeing vendors embrace their inherent strengths, as large multi-line vendors integrate products to control more of the stack, while smaller pure plays leverage a deeper niche focus," said Meaghan McGrath, analyst at TBR . Remaining Market Development Challenges These actions indicate that some go-to-market issues still remain, as traditional software vendors look to maximize the monetization of t...

Why wait for your business model to be disrupted? The most savvy CEOs and informed CIOs will structure their business and technology investments to capitalize on the new economic realities of an emerging Digital Economy, according to the latest worldwide study by Gartner. "In the flash of a digital business moment, a customer may become a partner or even competitor," said Betsy Burton, vice president at Gartner . Digital business transformation requires an organizational architecture that empowers economic Agents, and can cope with an exponential increase in interactions from many different things. Gartner calls new economic models arising from digital business the "economics of connections." Why Connected Agent Ecosystems Matter This idea builds upon Metcalfe's law, which was originally used to describe telecommunications networks and states that the value of an agent within a network increases exponentially as the number of connections increases. ...

It's interesting to look back over the last few years of ups and downs within the American video entertainment and associated broadband internet access markets. The ongoing market transitions have created a volatile environment, where service providers react to the constantly shifting customer demand. Leichtman Research Group (LRG) reported that the thirteen largest pay-TV providers in the U.S. -- representing 95 percent of the market -- lost about 380,000 net video subscribers in 2015, that's compared to a loss of about 150,000 subscribers in 2014, and a loss of about 100,000 subscribers in 2013. The leading American pay-TV providers now account for 94.2 million subscribers -- the top nine cable companies have over 49 million video subscribers, satellite TV companies 33.7 million subscribers, and the top telephone companies 11.5 million subscribers. Shrinking Demand for Pay-TV Service Truly, 2015 was another year of transition for American pay-TV service providers. Th...

Many traditional IT vendors were challenged in 2015. The average revenue and gross profit margin slipped year-to-year as demand for legacy hardware vendor implementations declined, according to the latest worldwide market study by Technology Business Research (TBR). However, the study's benchmarked IT vendors still achieved $23 billion in revenue and avoided more severe declines by adjusting their go-to-market portfolios and selling models to capture emerging technology opportunities. "Industry-standard server (ISS) has a growing impact on the global data center hardware market, composing an increasing share of the data center market and retaining the largest share of total revenue," said Krista Macomber, senior analyst at TBR . TBR analysts estimate that average ISS unit shipments increased by just 1.8 percent year-to-year, indicating the growing impact of hardware commoditization and the reactive low-price strategies used by many vendors. Legacy IT Storage De...

Ongoing concerns about enterprise cyber defense shortcomings will drive demand for comprehensive solutions that reduce the impact of security threats. As more companies embark upon digital transformation projects, software security automation will be integrated into DevOps methodologies. Cloud computing and big data apps will drive the global threat and Vulnerability Management (VM) market to increase from its current $5.8 billion in revenue in 2015 to reach $8.6 billion by 2020, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. Moreover, nefarious security attacks are driving market growth and subsequently increasing the number of VM solutions available to protect people and their organizations from potential security breaches. Quest for Comprehensive IT Solutions As vulnerability assessment (VA) is a key component of a VM program, ABI Research calculates total revenues generated by the VA market to reach $1.4 billion by the end of 2016 and grow to $2.1 billion b...

While the traditional North American pay-TV industry has yet to respond to market share losses associated with Over-the-Top (OTT) video subscription services, this entertainment phenomenon is now gaining significant momentum in other parts of the world. Parks Associates announced new international data showing OTT video usage in Western Europe is continuing to expand, with 55 percent of UK broadband households and 51 percent in France watching TV programming and movies online -- that's compared to 70 percent in the U.S. market. However, the number of paid subscriptions in Europe is significantly lower, where 30 percent of broadband households in the UK and 17 percent in France subscribe to OTT video -- that's compared to 64 percent of U.S. broadband households. Video Subscription Service Market Development "OTT is definitely gaining traction across Europe. We are seeing new OTT video services spring up but not as many as in North America," said Brett Sappingto...

More multinational IT data center users are leasing space in various regions around the globe, partly due to data sovereignty requirements that are imposed by local government regulators. According to the latest market study by 451 Research, the worldwide colocation market will reach $33.2 billion by 2018. In the fourth quarter 2015, the data center colocation market realized $27 billion in annualized revenue. The majority of this revenue (54.6 percent) continues to be derived from local providers with sub-$500 million in annualized colocation revenues. "2015 was a record year for the data center, hosting, and managed services sector, with the highest number of deals since we began tracking it. But there are still hundreds of data center providers around the world that will continue to consolidate, either to gain scale or add services or both," saidd Kelly Morgan, research director at 451 Research . Colocation Market Leaders Drive Growth According to their analyst...