Digital Lifescapes

While much of the news about IT innovation focuses on public cloud computing, the on-premise data center is also being transformed by new technologies. CIOs have recognized that infrastructure complexity has inhibited their ability to rapidly provision resources for new workloads, and now they're adopting a variety of converged systems to overcome their legacy constraints. According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), the converged systems market increased revenue 11 percent year-over-year to $2.5 billion during the first quarter of 2016. The market generated 1,367 petabytes of new storage capacity shipments during the quarter, which was up 36.2 percent compared to the same period a year ago. "End users within the mid-market and even in the outer edge of the enterprise data center continue to prioritize simplicity in all aspect of the user experience. This is at the heart of the rapid growth rate within hyper-converged systems....

I recall when some of the first videoconferencing systems were installed in multinational enterprises across America, more than two decades ago. Since that time, there have been many new developments in video communication-related technologies and associated services. The introduction of Telepresence was a significant advancement. However, the arrival of software app and web-based services -- such as Microsoft Skype and Google Hangouts -- have raised expectations for online collaboration ease-of-use and transformed how video meetings are conducted across the public Internet. In the first quarter of 2016 (Q1 2016), video conferencing revenue declined 22 percent quarter-over-quarter to $701 million due to lower seasonal demand, according the the latest worldwide market study by IHS Technology . Video Communication Market Development Videoconferencing revenue is also trending down slightly on a year-over-year basis, primarily due to decreases in infrastructure sales. Demand for...

The progressive American companies have adopted the notion that there's real value in connecting their Things to the public Internet. International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts that U.S. firms will invest more than $232 billion in the Internet of Things (IoT) hardware, software and services market in 2016. Furthermore, IDC expects IoT revenues in the U.S. market will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.1 percent over the 2015-2019 forecast period -- eventually reaching more than $357 billion in 2019. According to the IDC assessment, the industries leading the way in U.S. IoT investments are Manufacturing and Transportation at $35.5 billion and $24.9 billion, respectively, in 2016. U.S. IOT Market Development Momentum However, cross-industry investment -- which represents use cases that are common to all industries -- will approach $31 billion this year. The IoT use cases receiving the greatest levels of investment from U.S. organizations across these t...

As more enterprises embrace the Internet of Things (IoT), we're seeing an increase in demand for analytics apps that can extract insight and meaning from sources of big data. Vendors are now busy identifying opportunities for software and professional services to assist buyers with their transformation projects. According to the latest market study by Technology Business Research (TBR), 57 percent of analytics software customers in IT departments believe analytics adoption 'significantly' or 'very significantly' changed their internal operations and their relationships with lines of business (LOB) leaders. Additionally, 28 percent of surveyed IT buyers reported a moderately significant impact. Big Data Analytics Software Market Development "IT and LOB decision makers play important roles in analytics purchasing and implementation," said Andrew Smith, software analyst at TBR . However, the unique demands of IoT require organizational and operation...

Mobile communication technology is evolving. Voice over LTE (VoLTE) deployment is quickly ramping up, with improvements in network efficiency and spectrum reuse as the primary drivers. There are currently sixty-three VoLTE commercial networks in operation, according to the latest market study by IHS . This is a net addition of 23 VoLTE networks to the existing 40 that were online at the end of December 2015. In each of the currently operational 63 VoLTE networks, existing subscribers become de facto VoLTE users when they upgrade their devices to LTE-capable ones. As an example, the Verizon Advanced Calling service is a device-driven offering. Users do not sign up for Advanced Calling, but if they buy a device that supports VoLTE, then they are on the Verizon VoLTE network by default. How VoLTE Services are Being Deployed For the majority of those VoLTE networks, the service is marketed as a device -- such as a smartphone -- feature rather than something to which a user subscrib...

More organizations across the globe are proactively making the move to embrace Digital Transformation methodologies. Why change now? Technology must be at the heart of every enterprise. It's time to "Go Digital, or Die," according to the latest worldwide market study by the Everest Group. To become truly digital, enterprises must develop a holistic IT applications and infrastructure strategy, with DevOps as the pivotal enabler. According to Everest Group research conducted during Q1 2016, over three-fourths of enterprises believe in leveraging digital technologies to achieve competitive differentiation. Digital Enterprise Market Development "Enterprises that embrace digital adoption are using technology to create new business, not just enable it. For example, enterprises are discovering how IoT and mobility can dramatically improve user experiences, which is unlike the traditional role of technology for driving efficiencies in back-office operations," said...

Sensors in automobiles that produce data for analysis by insurance companies are a compelling use case for Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. The number of Insurance Telematics policies in force on the European market already reached 5.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2015, according to the latest worldwide market study by Berg Insight. Increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.2 percent, that nascent market is expected to reach 25.8 million by 2020. In North America, the number of insurance telematics policies in force is expected to grow at a CAGR of 45.8 percent from 6.3 million in 4Q15 to reach 42.1 million by 2020. Moreover, the European insurance telematics market is largely dominated by hardwired aftermarket black boxes, while self-install automotive on-board diagnostic (OBD) devices instead represent the vast majority of all active policies in North America. Automotive Telematics Market Development Several major U.S. providers of usage-based insuran...

Global positioning system (GPS) wireless technology has transformed terrestrial travel and navigation, but there are numerous other uses. Now these nascent technology applications and new use cases are emerging both inside and outside the home. GPS personal tracking device shipments will more than double by 2021 with a 21 percent CAGR, as the industry shifts away from traditional markets, such as family and pet locator devices. ABI Research predicts that non-traditional markets -- including elderly or health, corporate, and personal asset tracking -- will embrace ubiquitous indoor and outdoor location technology. Indoor Location Market Development "Traditional markets still attract attention, given the huge total available market, but they remain too fragmented, with no obvious sales and distribution channels," said Patrick Connolly, principal analyst at ABI Research . As a result, a number of established companies in this space are being forced to consider new area...

As cloud computing services attract increased adoption at many multinational companies across the globe, the procurement process is now being driven by senior executive leaders that seek to transform their enterprise into a digital business early-adopter. According to the Technology Business Research (TBR) 1H16 cloud customer research program, the market for enterprise-grade cloud solutions is maturing and evolving with line-of-business (LOB) departments funding more cloud purchases than ever, therefore having more input into vendor and solution choice. As this trend continues, cloud X-as-a-Service workload adoption -- public, private and hybrid cloud computing -- proliferates and professional services engagements morph into longer-term managed services deals from one-off systems integration transactions to help manage cloud sprawl. Findings from the latest TBR research study show that cloud professional services have declined notably as a percentage of enterprise cloud budgets g...

Worldwide shipments of wearable devices are expected to reach 101.9 million units by the end of 2016, representing 29 percent growth over 2015. Wearable devices have a forecast compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.3 percent, culminating in 213.6 million units shipped in 2020, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). "Unlike the smartphone, which consolidated multiple technologies into one device, the wearables market is a collection of disparate devices," said Jitesh Ubrani, senior analyst at IDC . "Watches and bands are popular, but the market will clearly benefit from the emergence of additional form factors, like clothing and eyewear, that will deliver new capabilities and experiences." IDC believes that eyewear has a clear focus on the enterprise as it stands to complement or replace existing computing devices -- particularly for workers in the field or on the factory floor. Meanwhile, clothing will take aim at the co...

The exponential growth of data within the typical enterprise presents a huge challenge for CIOs that must seek new ways to fund and deploy comprehensive storage solutions. Enterprise IT organizations are embracing a range of Flash-optimized architectures as they continue to transform their storage infrastructures, according to the latest market study by 451 Research. Overall, almost 90 percent of these organizations now have some form of Flash-based storage installed in their data centers, while "all Flash" approaches are becoming increasingly standard to support transactional applications. Meanwhile, more enterprise IT leaders are assessing the merits of creating an optimal hybrid storage solution, where object storage platforms are deployed for warm or cold data in active archive applications. These lower-cost solutions can free-up IT budget that was otherwise allocated for legacy SAN and NAS upgrades. Quest for Unified Storage Transformation "Organizations of ...

Mobile internet applications have grown exponentially over the last decade, especially within urban areas around the globe. Mobile network service providers have started to deploy small cell wireless communications technology to support the growing demand. Outdoor small cell deployments were off to a slow start, but are now showing signs that they will grow significantly over the next several years, according to the latest worldwide market study by IHS Technology . Infrastructure investment is driven mostly by the mobile network operator common need to enhance saturated macro-cellular networks, and improve the mobile broadband experience by adding capacity through dense low power node deployments. Mobile Internet Market Development IHS has forecast that the global outdoor small cell backhaul market will reach $2.2 billion in 2020, with a five-year (2016–2020) compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 80 percent. Mobile network operators are currently testing and field trialing ma...

The traditional carrier networking equipment sector has been awaiting a major transition, as telecom service providers sought a way to free themselves from the constraints of proprietary platforms. Open source software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) hold the key to progress. According to the latest worldwide study by Technology Business Research (TBR), the NFV and SDN market will grow at a 116 percent CAGR from 2015 through 2021 to reach nearly $158 billion. Early adopters, such as AT&T, began to ramp up their investment in 2015 as open digital transformation became a top strategic priority. "A growing group of Tier 1 operators is leading the charge in implementing NFV and SDN. This group is driving a significant amount of development in the NFV and SDN ecosystem and is pushing the vendor community to rapidly adapt to this new architectural approach to networks," said Chris Antlitz, senior analyst at TBR . SDN and NFV Application...

Reports of the doubling in audio and video related mobile network traffic within 2015 highlights the fact that the demand for multimedia entertainment on smartphones and media tablets continues to grow. Meanwhile, revelations of Internet spying by governments, and content vendors worried about the quality of the consumer experience, are driving the mobile communications industry toward end-to-end encryption of more data traffic. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, apps enabled with content encryption eliminated nearly 60 percent of the traditional video and audio optimization market in 2015. Streaming Media Market Development Moving forward, telecom operators and vendors need to make significant operational moves to protect network performance and create a competitive advantage with streaming media entertainment. "With encryption here to stay, network operators need new tools to manage mobile broadband traffic," said Joe Hoffman, vice pre...

The world now contains 8.1 billion connected smartphones, media tablets, personal computers, televisions, TV-attached devices and various audio devices. On average, across the whole globe, this Internet-connected device installed base now equates to about four devices per household. "The proliferation of media-enabled connected endpoints has implications for media consumption, media production, broadband infrastructure, and the business itself of network management and traffic discrimination," said Merrick Kingston, principal analyst at IHS . Smartphones have already contributed about half a billion new devices to the market each year. Media tablet adoption has also grown rapidly. But that overall growth is not spread evenly. Case in point: by the end of 2020, the forecast smartphone-to-tablet ratio will rise to nearly 10:1, according to the latest worldwide market study by IHS. Gains for Mainstream Market Development The IHS study also noted the big changes in the...

Why travel to meet with employees and vendor partners when you can just as easily interact with them via online video communication? Whatever motivates people to endure airline departure delays and airport security lines, just so they can attend internal business meetings, it clearly isn't their increased productivity. Enterprise videoconferencing and telepresence systems market showed mixed results in the first quarter of 2016 (1Q16), with overall videoconferencing equipment revenue decreasing 21.1 percent quarter over quarter, but increasing 2.3 percent year over year, according to the latest study by International Data Corporation (IDC). The total worldwide enterprise video equipment revenue in 1Q16 was over $495 million -- that's down from about $628 million in 4Q15. The total number of videoconferencing units sold in 1Q16 (101,391) decreased 8.0 percent quarter over quarter, but increased 9.9 percent compared to 1Q15. "Some mixed news for the worldwide enterpris...

Every enterprise IT best practice eventually reaches obsolescence as new methods disrupt the legacy status-quo -- virtualization has reached that turning point. The worldwide x86 server virtualization market is expected to reach $5.6 billion in 2016 -- that's an increase of 5.7 percent from 2015, but demand has shifted, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Despite the overall market increase, new software licenses have declined for the first time since the virtualization market became mainstream more than a decade ago. Growth is now being driven by software maintenance revenue, which indicates a rapidly maturing market segment. "The market has matured rapidly over the last few years, with many organizations having server virtualization rates that exceed 75 percent, illustrating the high level of penetration," said Michael Warrilow, research director at Gartner . Virtualization Market Development Challenges The server virtualization market is ...

Traditional Pay-TV service providers in saturated markets, such as North America, could use a new value-add competitive edge to counter the ongoing subscriber losses from low-cost OTT video entertainment growth. Television sets with 4K video capabilities also present a growth opportunity for pay-TV equipment vendors. ABI Research forecasts the 4K set-top box market will quadruple in size from less than two million units in 2015 to more than 7 million in 2016, and then grow by 46 percent annually through 2021. However, the overall pay-TV set-top box market is on the decline, expected to drop by about nine percent in 2016 to less than $16 billion in revenue -- with both pay-TV and free-to-air boxes losing value. Pay-TV Market Development Challenges “Digital transitions are taking longer than initially planned and the market is experiencing significant downward pressure on set-top box pricing,” said Sam Rosen, vice president at ABI Research . According to the ABI assessment, har...

The mobile communication sector is still in transition. During the first quarter of 2016 (Q1 2016), the global macro-cell mobile infrastructure market totaled $10 billion. That's a decline of 18 percent sequentially, which effected all regions of the globe -- except Japan, North America and Mexico. The mobile infrastructure market is also down 8 percent on a year-over-year basis, signaling it has entered the post 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) peak era. As a result, LTE was down 23 percent quarter-over-quarter and down 6 percent year-over-year, according to the latest worldwide market study by IHS . For the first time since the beginning of 4G LTE rollouts in 2012, all generations of mobile communication technologies experienced a sharp decline. Market Development Challenges Remain Even India, the only BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nation bright spot last year, slowed down dramatically in Q1 2016 due to spectrum issues and various deals between local m...

Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are enabling municipalities around the globe to implement a series of digital transformation projects. Juniper Research has found that European cities are forging ahead with efforts to become Smart Cities, with 60 percent of the world’s leading smart city projects based in this region. Innovation to reduce congestion and energy consumption were key initiatives across many European cities, according to the findings from their latest worldwide market study. Juniper’s Smart City Rankings have been compiled following an extensive study of numerous cities around the world. Juniper applied forty metrics in their study -- covering technology, transport, energy, open data and the local economy. The top ranking Smart Cities for 2016 are: Singapore Barcelona London San Francisco Oslo "When addressed effectively, the impacts of reduced congestion are substantial -- higher economic productivity, potential for new revenue streams and servic...

Several related trends are accelerating the move to cloud computing. The dramatic shift of data center expenditure from enterprise on-premise IT applications to cloud service provider deployments is continuing in 2016, as the use of these services gain new momentum across the globe. Canalys estimates that worldwide expenditure on cloud infrastructure services reached $8.2 billion in Q1 2016 -- that's up by 53 percent year-on-year. Total spend is forecast to exceed $38 billion in 2016. This includes infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) delivered as part of hosted private and public cloud services. "Business adoption is increasing fast, but it is the growth of consumer-centric services, such as video streaming, content storage, gaming and social networking services, that has been the main driver," said Daniel Liu, research analyst at Canalys . More Public Cloud Provider Consolidation The combination of cloud and mobile has enabled new ...

Enterprise networking is experiencing a significant transformation, similar to the telecom service provider sector. The data center and enterprise software‑defined networking (SDN) market increased by 82 percent in 2015 from the prior year -- reaching $1.4 billion, according to the latest worldwide market study by IHS. New SDN use cases continue to emerge, with 2015 including the establishment of the SD-WAN market. Many new startups vendors, WAN optimization appliance vendors and some enterprise networking vendors have entered the market, now IHS has forecast SD-WAN revenue to reach $1.3 billion by 2020. Growth for SDN-capable Ethernet switches and SDN controllers continues to grow, with early players, pure-play SDN startups and traditional switch vendors gaining traction as customer deployments escalate. Enterprise SDN Market Development Trends Regionally, North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Asia-Pacific and the Caribbean and Latin America (CALA) were all...