Digital Lifescapes

The retail and financial services sectors will continue to innovate via mobile communications. Security is a high-priority in a trust-based economy. Two-factor authentication is based around 1) something the user has (i.e. a bank card); and 2) something the user knows (i.e. a PIN number or password). If a customer needs to log in to their bank account or needs to purchase physical goods online, they may be asked to enter the registered log-in ID and PIN along with a unique 'one time password' that is either sent to the customer via SMS, or generated by a mobile app already installed on the device. Mobile Biometrics Market Development Where smartphones are used as access tools, the Bring Your Own Token (BYOT) variant of authentication can be employed, combining a personal log-in (user name and password) together with a passcode, which is sent to the end user in a software app, email or SMS. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, G&D (Giesecke &...

While China has been viewed as a nation that's focused on economic growth via manufacturing, the forward-looking view is evolving -- digital growth is key to their ongoing success. Moreover, China has a limited amount of legacy IT infrastructure, so much of their current capabilities are very modern. CIOs in China are investing their fast-growing IT budgets in digital technologies, according to the latest market study by Gartner. Their survey of CIOs found that success of the leading internet commerce companies in China is encouraging more enterprises to build or participate in digital ecosystems. Digital Growth Investment within China "The survey results show that Chinese CIOs are firmly focused on digital priorities, rather than on traditional IT, and want their businesses to reap the benefits of digitalization," said Owen Chen, research director at Gartner . Chinese enterprises currently spend, on average, 28 percent of their IT budget on digitalization, which ...

Demand for simplified IT infrastructure, to be used in corporate data centers, gained momentum during the last couple of years as more CIOs attempted to offer their internal users compute and storage that could be provisioned quickly -- similar to the major public cloud service providers. The worldwide converged systems market revenues decreased 1.4 percent year over year to $3.09 billion during the fourth quarter of 2016 (4Q16). The market consumed 1.6 exabytes of new storage capacity during the quarter, which was up by4 percent compared to the same period a year ago, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). For the full year 2016, worldwide converged systems market revenues increased 5.8 percent to $11.3 billion when compared to 2015. Converged Systems Market Development "The converged systems market is going through a period of change," said Eric Sheppard, research director at IDC . "We are seeing strong growth from prod...

The Internet of Things (IoT) and the manufacturing sector are destined to collide, as more companies with factories explore the benefits of new technologies. This year we're going to witness how forward-thinking manufacturers innovate and grow. Though industrial manufacturers are somewhat slow in their adoption of cloud-based services and connecting their legacy systems to digital networks, the vision for a vast IoT market is finally starting to take shape. Industrial manufacturing applications will generate more than $138 million this year from cellular and satellite connectivity fees, according to the latest market study by ABI Research . Industrial IoT Market Development The industrial IoT (IIoT) market will add more than 13 million new wireline and wireless connections worldwide in 2017 to an installed base exceeding 53 million connections. "The costs for data storage and compute processing dropped significantly in the past few years making the digitization of in...

In North America, more CEOs encourage their whole organization to embrace applying business technology for commercial advancement and digital growth. Traditional IT vendors are responding by exploring relationships with their customer's CIO, CTO and/or Chief Digital Officer (CDO). Worldwide corporate IT spending funded by Line of Business (LoB) units will reach $609 billion in 2017 -- that's an increase of 5.9 percent over 2016, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). They also forecast that LoB spending will achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.9 percent over the 2015-2020 forecast period. In comparison, technology spending by IT buyers is forecast to have a five-year CAGR of 2.3 percent. By 2020, IDC expects LoB led technology spending to be nearly equal to that of the IT organization. Moreover, the trend is gaining momentum across the globe. Why LoB Leadership of IT is Accelerating "The Innovation Accelerators h...

Consumer appetite for smartphones and mobile-first business strategies are likely to create ongoing demand for mobile communications infrastructure across the globe, but some markets that are already saturated will start to evolve and transform in the coming years. Market maturity creates new opportunity. Western European mobility revenues are expected to reach $224.8 billion in 2017 -- that's a mere increase of 0.1 percent over 2016. Purchases of mobile hardware, software, and services are expected to grow more stably in 2019 and 2020, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.4 percent during the 2015–2020 forecast period and reaching $230.3 billion in 2020. European Mobility Market Development Mobile connectivity services currently represent almost 50 percent of European mobility spending, with consumer counting for more than 73 percent of this tech category. Hardware, driven by smartphones, follows, taking 42 percent of the mobility market in 2017, a share expected t...

Consumer demand for cloud-based services drive investment in data centers. Across the globe, the largest consumer cloud service providers continue to add more and more capabilities to expand their offerings, thereby making it very difficult for the remaining me-too providers to compete with them. Moreover, the traditional information and communication technology (ICT) vendors often don't benefit from this ongoing infrastructure expansion, because the cloud providers prefer to invest in open technologies from low-cost 'white label' ODM commodity vendors. That's unlikely to change. Hyperscale Cloud Market Development The hyperscale or webscale cloud service providers -- including the seven largest (Super7) Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent -- believe they are best positioned to provide access to a variety of cloud services in a scalable and cost-effective way, and view their public cloud businesses as critical to their growth over the...

The outlook for retailers have changed dramatically over the last few decades. This sector of the economy has shifted from a cash-driven, supply-driven industry to one that is very digitally-focused. The Internet has transformed retail. Where competition is most intense, innovation and market disruption are ongoing. Retail markets are now potentially unlimited, where previously they may have been very locally focused. Meanwhile, consumer expectations have altered in response to online and mobile retail. Customer service is now a key consideration before a purchase, now that it's easy to find the desired product at the lowest possible price. Retail Technology Market Development Meanwhile, in-store technology applications continues to evolve. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, retailers will connect 12.5 billion business assets, such as products, digital signs and Bluetooth beacons, to Internet of Things (IoT) platforms by 2021. This figure is expected to...

Key findings from a new video entertainment survey outline the increasing popularity of original content, and a growing trend of paying for multiple video services. According to the latest 451 Research market study, 19 percent of streaming video subscribers are paying for three or more services -- that's up 4 points over the previous year. These streaming enthusiasts are creating their own bundles of video services, starting with Netflix (95 percent) and Amazon Video (82 percent) then adding a combination of subscription and a-la-carte platforms such as Hulu, HBO Now and iTunes. Netflix and Amazon Lead the Market Among all survey respondents who pay for a streaming service, 79 percent say they subscribe to Netflix and 53 percent to Amazon Video. That said, Amazon Video continues to be the growth story, up 5 points over the past year. Access to movies (50 percent) is the top reason why consumers pay for streaming video services; viewing complete seasons of TV shows (45 perce...

Digital Business Transformation is at the center of new commercial growth strategies. Advances in IT technologies and associated accelerators are transforming whole industries and represent the largest driver of technology investment for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, most C-level business leaders agree that industry expertise matters, when choosing a strategic vendor partner that's capable of offering meaningful and substantive insights or guidance that will stand the tests of time. Introduction to the Digital Transformation Taxonomy Assisting decision makers to reach their goals, International Data Corporation ( IDC ) announced their "Digital Transformation (DX) Taxonomy" across industry verticals -- represented by 14 Digital Missions, 60 Strategic Priorities, 160 Programs, and over 450 specific Use Cases. IDC now estimates that the economic value of DX strategies to be $20 trillion -- or more than 20 percent of global GDP. IDC's DX maturity benchmark ...

Enterprise software is evolving and adapting to new requirements.  The worldwide application integration and middleware (AIM) software segment is growing faster than the overall infrastructure software market, with revenue reaching $27 billion in 2017 -- that's an increase of 7 percent over 2016, according to the latest market study by Gartner. "Established approaches to application infrastructure are too rigid, closed and cumbersome to support many digital transformation requirements," said Fabrizio Biscotti, research vice president at Gartner . AIM Software Market Development Trends Growth in mobile, big data, analytics, in-memory computing, cloud services and Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives requires application and integration professionals to invest in new AIM technologies. This drives innovative integration approaches with new AIM technologies at their core -- such as application programmable interface management and integration platform as a service. Th...

Worldwide revenues for big data and business analytics (BDA) will reach $150.8 billion in 2017, that's an increase of 12.4 percent over 2016, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Commercial purchases of BDA-related hardware, software, and related services are expected to maintain a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.9 percent through 2020 when revenues will be more than $210 billion. Big Data and Business Analytics Market Development "After years of traversing the adoption S-curve, big data and business analytics solutions have finally reached the mainstream," said Dan Vesset, group vice president at IDC . "BDA as an enabler of decision support and decision automation is now firmly on the radar of top executives. This category of solutions is also one of the key pillars of enabling digital transformation efforts across industries and business processes globally." According to the IDC assessment, the industri...

Yet another market study has explored the challenges that IT organizations encounter, as they pursue the adoption of DevOps practices. More than 2,000 IT industry executives participated in a survey online and at tech industry events during 2016. The survey was completed in the United States, with respondents drawn from engineering, managerial, architect and C-level executive roles. Here's the key findings from this DevOps survey results: Fully 54 percent of respondents indicated they had no access to self-service infrastructure. This meant that more than half of respondents took a ticket-based approach to infrastructure delivery, impacting productivity and increasing time to market. Of those surveyed, only 23 percent said infrastructure can be delivered in less than one day. Over 33 percent of respondents said it takes up to a month to deliver infrastructure with 26 percent saying it takes up to one month or more to deliver infrastructure. Lack of access to the right infrast...

The emerging market for Internet of Things (IoT) technology is expanding. In particular, industrial automation and industrial robotics -- a subset of industrial automation -- continue to evolve after decades of growth globally. According to the latest market study, new advancements are pointing to further upside potential. Several manufacturing technology trends are converging, forcing a change in how all kinds of products are made worldwide. Robotics, big data, cognitive computing and other elements of industrial automation are making Advanced Manufacturing a reality in 2017. Industrial Automation and Robotics Market Development ABI Research forecasts industrial automation control and field device shipments will surpass 55 million units in 2017, and grow to reach approximately 146 million units by 2025. This will translate to $298 billion in industrial automation device revenue by 2025, with $45 billion attributed alone to robotics. Industrial robot shipments -- a subset of in...

Digital disruption is a borderless phenomena that has reached all parts of the globe -- including the Asia-Pacific region. According to the latest worldwide study by IDC, digital transformation (DX) is a key growth driver of the services market, requiring business and IT organizations to work together toward shared goals. Transformation, as a part of an enterprise organization's digital growth journey, is emerging as the top theme requiring significant change across the board; including alteration of legacy business processes, IT infrastructure, applications, and the traditional enterprise data center environment. Furthermore, vendor DX deals are getting smaller in nature because they need to be agile and create opportunities for enterprises to strengthen their relationships with customers, flatten organizational structures, and redefine traditional industries. Cloud Services Market Development Business leaders are challenged to move their enterprises to the next level by e...

Mobile telecom service provider global infrastructure investment in 2016 was not what vendors had anticipated. But there were pockets of growth that in a few key markets where mobile internet demand had fueled local expansion. According to the latest worldwide market study by IHS Markit , during the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016, the global macrocell mobile infrastructure market totaled $11 billion, rising 7 percent sequentially, driven by strong activity in a few Asian countries such as India, Myanmar and Vietnam. Mobile Infrastructure Market Development On a year-over-year basis, the overall market declined 14 percent, dragged down by all regions -- essentially confirming that the mobile infrastructure market has entered the post-LTE-peak era. 4G LTE was somewhat of a bright spot -- up 6 percent quarter-over-quarter driven by E-UTRAN (evolved UMTS terrestrial radio access networks) -- but down 16 percent year-over-year. 2G or 3G infrastructure spending was up 10 percent seque...

The largest mobile Internet companies in China will derive over 30 percent of their total revenue from overseas markets. Moreover, Chinese in-country online retail transactions will reach around $1.5 trillion by 2019, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). "Entering 2017, China's Internet industry formally bids farewell to the fast growth of recent years, making an overall transition from an incremental market to a saturated market," said Xue Yu , senior analyst at IDC . However, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and AR/VR have yet to reach the stage of large-scale commercialization and thus hold huge growth potential. According to the IDC assessment, vendors and service providers should pay attention to the R&D and application of emerging technologies, and look to seize new opportunities for competition in this new era. Top 10 IDC predictions for Internet in China: Prediction 1: ...

Typically, VoIP is voice traffic that's carried over the public Internet. The launch of 4G LTE, and wireless hotspots in major cities around the globe, has brought about a downward trend in traditional switched telecom network activity. VoIP is more efficient than PSTN, and technology improvements in these areas have been instrumental in allowing VoIP to spread to the mobile environment. Market Development for VoIP Apps Juniper Research has revealed that the number of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) subscribers will rise from 488 million in 2016 to 3 billion in 2021, as network operators reap the benefits from widespread 4G infrastructure roll-outs. According to the Juniper assessment, there are now 165 operators in 73 countries investing in VoLTE, including 102 operators that have commercially launched an HD voice service using VoLTE in 54 countries. The market study found that the number of users adopting VoLTE services will likely overtake subscribers of Over-the-Top voice app ...

Telecom service providers have been seeking new, less capital-intensive, ways to deliver broadband Internet access to homes. Advances in fixed wireless communications will create opportunities to reach new subscribers. Exponential growth of 4G LTE coverage and capacity is driving wireless service growth for fixed broadband access, while fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), xDSL, and cable technologies reach nearly 50 percent of global households. As the 5G standardization process approaches completion, the technology will significantly accelerate global fixed wireless deployments. The results, so far, from new service tests and trials have been encouraging. Wireless Broadband Market Development ABI Research forecasts worldwide fixed wireless broadband subscribers will grow at a 30 percent CAGR to top 151 million in 2022. "The arrival of 5G technology will completely transform fixed wireless broadband network deployments," said Khin Sandi Lynn, analyst at ABI Research . Recen...

Vendor revenue in the overall worldwide computing server market declined 4.6 percent year-over-year to $14.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016 (4Q16), according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Server market growth has slowed in part due to maturity of the hyperscale data center growth, and from declining high-end server deployments. In addition, the enterprise refresh cycle of 2015 had created less demand in 2016. Worldwide server shipments decreased 3.5 percent to 2.55 million units in 4Q16 when compared with the same year-ago period. Computing Server Market Development On a year-over-year basis, volume and mid-range system revenue decreased 3.3 percent and 6.1 percent in 4Q16 to $11.2 billion and $1.4 billion, respectively. Server demand across the enterprise market was soft for the quarter. Meanwhile, 4Q16 demand for high-end systems experienced a year-over-year revenue decline of 10.7 percent to $2.0 billion. IDC expects continued l...

Worldwide smartphone shipments will rebound in 2017, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). While growth is expected to be consistent, IDC predicts shipment volumes to grow by 4.2 percent in 2017 and 4.4 percent in 2018 -- with a CAGR of 3.8 percent over the 2016-2021 forecast period. Furthermore, smartphone shipments are forecast to reach 1.53 billion units in 2017, and eventually grow to 1.77 billion units by 2021. From a platform perspective, IDC doesn't expect much change throughout the forecast with Google Android accounting for roughly 85 percent of all smartphone shipments, and Apple iOS making up the rest. That said, the outlook for Microsoft-based smartphones remains grim, given the lack of OEM partner support. Smartphone Market Developmen t Although IDC anticipates that Google Android growth will gradually decline, they do not yet see a point where shipments will contract year-over-year, given the demand for new features such...

Worldwide mobility revenues are forecast to reach $1.57 trillion in 2017 -- that's an increase of 2.6 percent over 2016, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Purchases of mobile hardware, software, and services will achieve a CAGR of 2.1 percent over the 2015-2020 forecast period -- eventually reaching $1.67 trillion in 2020. Connectivity services will represent the largest category of mobility spending in 2017. Combined, connectivity and hardware will deliver more than 95 percent of all mobility revenues this year, with roughly two thirds coming from the consumer market. Most of the remaining revenues will come from enterprise purchases of mobility services, applications, application development platforms, and security. Global Mobile Market Development Although hardware and services dominate mobility spending overall, apps and application development platforms represent the fastest growing areas of mobility with five-year CAGRs of 1...

Mobile World Congress is the world's largest gathering for the mobile industry. What's top-of-mind for many vendors this week -- as the economy in China evolves, where are the greatest growth opportunities? China is the largest digital media market, by far, due to the adoption of smartphones and the Mobile Internet. Canalys estimates that in 2016, China reached 476.5 million unit shipments, growing year-on-year at 11.4 percent. This was a dramatic improvement over the annual growth rate of just 1.9 percent in 2015. Moreover, shipments in China reached 131.6 million units in Q416, which is the highest single quarter total in history, accounting for nearly a third of worldwide smartphone shipments. Canalys research shows that, in 2016, Huawei took the top spot in the market with 76.2 million shipments, a small lead ahead of runner-up Oppo with 73.2 million units, followed by Vivo in third place at 63.2 million units. Smartphone Market Development The smartphone market rec...