Digital Lifescapes

Some technology sector M&A activity is relatively immune to market disruptions. The robotics industry received significant investment in 2019, reaching $46 billion. A total of $17.8 billion went to acquisitions and a further $29 billion went into investments, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. Most of the funding was focused on autonomous passenger vehicles (APV’s), surgical robotics, and warehouse automation, with significant new growth for field robotics and drone services. Robotics Technology Market Development "Despite not having commercialized their technology, autonomous passenger vehicle developers like Waymo, Cruise, Zoox and company have continued to amass enormous funding from the corporate and VC world," said Rian Whitton, senior analyst at ABI Research . Surgical robots also received significant new funding, and have already been commercialized to a considerable extent, with Intuitive Surgical selling over 5,000 Da Vinci ro...

The internet continues to fuel the Global Networked Economy as more innovators develop and deploy their digital business offerings. Global trade will be enhanced by trusted online entities that ensure their peer-to-peer network transactions are secure and verifiable. Frost & Sullivan has completed a worldwide market study of a blockchain-enabled world, laying out a long-range view of potential industry impacts as IT vendors race to build the foundations of the next-generation internet. Blockchain Applications Market Development "Existing IT systems are not fit-for-purpose when it comes to addressing the most pressing systemic problems of our time. Enterprises are being forced to adapt to complex structural change as the technology industry undergoes a paradigm shift that undermines long-held assumptions," said Maya Cotton, industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan . According to their assessment, all organizations and institutions will be challenged to keep track o...

Voice-enabled user interfaces have reached mainstream adoption. The value chain for voice assistants is rapidly expanding to include emerging applications. Device vendors, system integrators, software app developers and cloud providers will offer solutions for a growing list of voice assistant use cases. Juniper Research estimates that voice assistants will be in use on over 4 billion devices by the end of 2020. The mass adoption of artificial intelligence, and chatbots in particular, is fueling the rapid shift towards voice-activated services. Voice Assistant Market Development Internet of Things (IoT) devices and more practical applications are enabling voice assistants to deliver tangible value. Microphones are everywhere and access to voice assistants has become ubiquitous, with more technology companies eager to monetize this trend. Voice communication isn't the only method of interaction with artificial intelligence (AI) software. For example, Google Assistant also su...

When we look back throughout history, market disruptions to the status quo create challenges for the many unprepared executives and opportunities for the few leaders that are able to envision a new environment that's free from the limitations of the past. The Information Technology (IT) sector is essential to digital transformation within the enterprise. That said, we're about to witness the growing distinction between the visionary leaders and organizations, versus those that try to follow along and keep up with the trailblazers. Ongoing IT Investment Strategies Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.4 trillion in 2020 -- that's a decline of 8 percent from 2019, according to the latest global market study by Gartner. The coronavirus pandemic economic effects are causing traditional CIOs to prioritize spending on technology and services that are deemed 'mission-critical' over initiatives aimed at growth or transformation. Few will have the foresight ...

Given the current economic environment, all business and technology decision-makers must come together in support of a cohesive strategy for ongoing information technology (IT) investment. In order to deliver custom digital products and services, resilient organizations will pivot from an 'operational mindset' to a more 'market-driven mindset'. As IT and Operations Technology (OT) converge, companies will focus on using digital business capabilities to improve processes via better instrumentation, infrastructure, integration and insight. To help organizations expand to the OT buyer and become resilient decision-makers, International Data Corporation (IDC) has published a new 'Future of Operations' (FoO) framework. Digital Engineering Market Development By 2025, intelligent enterprises will see a 100 percent increase in productivity, resulting in half the response time of peers due to the ability to anticipate market and operational changes and 25 percent...

Forward-thinking wireless communications policy is essential to every nation's plan to fully participate in the rapidly expanding Global Networked Economy. Faster, more reliable, more efficient, and more widespread Wi-Fi coverage is becoming increasingly vital to progress. Wi-Fi-enabled devices will increase from 3.3 billion annual unit shipments in 2019 to more than 4.6 billion by 2024, a growth that underscores the need for a more robust Wi-Fi network, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. While the growing reach of Wi-Fi will be driven by several advancements -- such as Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi’s expansion into the 60 Gigahertz (GHz) and sub-1 GHz bands through WiGig and HaLow -- the most exciting change is the anticipated availability of 6 GHz spectrum over the next few years. Wi-Fi Innovation Market Development “It is hard to overstate the potential that 6 GHz and Wi-Fi 6E can bring to Wi-Fi networks,” says Andrew Zignani, principal analyst at ABI Re...

The Internet of Things (IoT) has moved into the mainstream by virtue of the rapidly evolving key benefits across a variety of industries. Due to developments in radio technology and falling component costs, the Internet is now being used for machines to communicate with each other and/or directly with humans. Juniper Research has identified private cellular wireless networks as a key driver of the growth of IoT adoption over the next five years. This trend has been slowly establishing itself as LTE networks can be leveraged to do so, offering a wireless data connection. With the introduction of fifth-generation (5G) wireless networking technologies, Juniper Research now anticipates that the infrastructure deployment will serve to accelerate the adoption of private cellular networks over the next five years. IoT Technology Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the total number of IoT connections will reach 83 billion by 2024 -- ri...

More informed healthcare executives will apply artificial intelligence (AI) strategies to leverage this new technology in five core areas that improve decision making during the current pandemic, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. "In the fight against COVID-19, AI offers an important arsenal of weapons," said Erick Brethenoux, research vice president at Gartner . "It allows predictions to be made about the spread of the virus, helps diagnose cases more quickly and accurately, measures the effectiveness of countermeasures to slow the spread, and optimizes emergency resources, to name a few." Early Detection and Epidemic Analysis AI techniques are used to understand, analyze and predict how and where the virus is spreading or slowing down. Automated contact tracing, for example, is used to build detailed social interaction graphs by analyzing a myriad of citizen data such as mobile phone locations and public facial recognition and back...

Total spending on IT infrastructure for cloud computing environments -- including public and private cloud -- recovered in the fourth quarter of 2019 (4Q19) after two consecutive quarters of decline, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). The 12.4 percent year-over-year growth in 4Q19 yielded $19.4 billion in spending. The results also brought the full year into positive territory with annual growth of 2.1 percent and total spending of $66.8 billion for 2019. Meanwhile, the overall IT infrastructure market results were mixed after a strong performance in 2018, up 3.3 percent to $38.1 billion in 4Q19 but declining 1.1 percent to $134.4 billion for the full year. In contrast, non-cloud IT infrastructure fell 4.6 percent to $18.7 billion for the quarter and declined 4.1 percent to $67.7 billion for the year. Cloud IT Infrastructure Market Development In 4Q19, growth in spending on cloud IT infrastructure was driven by the public clo...