Digital Lifescapes

The ongoing threat of cyber attacks on enterprise IT environments is driving new security-related investments. Worldwide spending on information security products and services will reach $81.6 billion in 2016 -- that's an increase of 7.9 percent over 2015, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Consulting and IT outsourcing are currently the largest categories of spending on information security. Until the end of 2020, the highest growth is expected to come from security testing, IT outsourcing and data loss prevention (DLP). Preventive security will continue to show strong growth, as many security practitioners continue to have a buying preference for preventive measures. However, solutions such as security information and event management (SIEM) and secure web gateways (SWGs) are evolving to support detection-and-response approaches. Gartner expects the SWG market will maintain its growth of 5 to 10 percent through 2020, as organizations focus on detecti...

Leading vendor revenue from sales of infrastructure products for cloud computing applications -- including public and private cloud -- grew by 3.9 percent year-over-year to $6.6 billion in the first quarter of 2016 (1Q16), according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). The ongoing transition to Hybrid IT infrastructure models continue to negatively impact some vendors. Meanwhile, total cloud computing infrastructure revenues climbed to a 32.3 percent share of overall IT revenues during 1Q16 -- that's up from 30.2 percent a year ago. Revenue from infrastructure sales to private cloud grew by 6.8 percent to $2.8 billion, and to public cloud by 1.9 percent to $3.9 billion on slowed demand from the hyperscale public cloud sector. Cloud App Market Development In comparison, revenue in the traditional (non-cloud) IT infrastructure segment decreased by 6.0 percent year over year in the first quarter, with declines in both storage and ser...

Cloud service brokerage market development is still in the early stages. A recent survey of enterprise cloud adopters showed a near even three-way split between adopting, considering or not planning to adopt brokerage services, according to the latest market study by Technology Business Research (TBR). TBR believes that as things stand today in the marketplace, there is a global lack of education pertaining to the solutions available and benefits or outcomes of cloud computing brokerage adoption by forward-looking IT organizations. Moreover, as vendors are still making decisions regarding their participation within the cloud brokerage market, TBR anticipates it will be a few years before the brokerage concept reaches mainstream status within the typical IT organization globally. "It seems enterprises are adopting brokerage services mostly to have a third-party perform their cloud integration and management tasks, either because they want their IT departments to focus on high...

We now live in a world where a flood of customer data is all around us. Extracting meaning from that data deluge is a strategic imperative for business leaders. Global spending on 'big data' applications by organizations will exceed $31 billion in 2013, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. The spending will grow at a CAGR of 29.6 percent over the next five years, reaching $114 billion in 2018. The latest ABI forecast includes the money spent on internal salaries, professional services, technology services, internal hardware, and internal software. "We estimate that in big data initiatives salaries account for about half of the current spending, with the other half allocated to vendor products and services. What we're now seeing is quite significant overspending on salaries, as organizations turn to data scientists and other specialists in order to leverage big data in the first place," said Aapo Markkanen, Senior analyst at ABI Research . Si...

There's a growing market for business use of mobile application storage and download servers or alternative cloud-based offerings. ABI Research predicts the number of large companies to adopt enterprise app stores will grow at double-digit rates through 2018. Globally, large enterprise app store adoption will grow at 30.4 percent YoY with the manufacturing and trade industries commanding the largest share of app deployments. North American and Western European enterprise app store adoption will grow at 20.7 percent and 21.5 percent, respectively. However, Asia-Pacific will have the most enterprises with enterprise app stores by 2018 -- growing at 59 percent YoY. "Mobile Application Management is growing in popularity among enterprises looking to deploy flexible mobile solutions to support Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) initiatives," said Jason McNicol, senior analyst at ABI Research . ABI believes that the problem is finding a scalable solution to deploy enterpris...

To what degree are business travelers using mobile device technology? What types of mobile offerings disrupt legacy corporate travel policies, and in what ways? How frequently are guidelines for mobile usage communicated? These were the key questions that eMarketer considered during their latest assessment. Granted, mobile devices have enabled more productive business travel, allowing people to stay in touch and adapt to changing schedule needs -- among the many other apparent benefits. The same devices can also create challenges for typical corporate travel managers trying to contain their organization's expenses. According to a new eMarketer study, many travel managers are therefore evolving their travel policies to address the current environment. Moreover, according to an AirPlus International study during 2012, 95 percent of travel managers worldwide said they were either making policies more stringent or keeping them the same going forward. Managed corporate trave...

Businesses smartphone users are moving away from BlackBerry, and the rise of the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon is making mobile device management (MDM) one of the hottest markets for enterprise IT, according to the latest market study by Ovum. The challenge for already busy CIOs is how to manage and secure data, while exploiting the innovation and productivity benefits that embracing the major smartphone platforms can deliver. In its latest Solutions Guide, Ovum reveals that no longer is MDM purely the domain of specialist enterprise mobility vendors. Vendors from a variety of backgrounds across the IT and telecoms space are looking to grab clients in this market -- as it becomes a gateway to a larger enterprise managed mobility sector. The guide also highlights strong support for remote device security capabilities across a range of mobile operating systems. However, limitations of the major operating system (OS) platforms are preventing vendors and enterprises from im...

Truly, a media tablet has been one of the most eagerly adopted new devices in the consumer electronics market since the Apple iPad launch in 2010. Moreover, during the past year, tablet use has begun to crossover from the consumer world into the workplace. Business use of tablets is expected to rise in 2012, as more people learn about the introduction of new BYOD workplace policies by their employer. According to the latest U.S. market study by NPD In-Stat, the most common business uses of tablets are email or calendar management, note taking, and presentations -- with 77 percent of survey respondents reporting that email as a common workplace use. "Email is by far the most dominant tablet application for business users," says Frank Dickson, VP Mobile Research at NPD In-Stat . However, when you dig into the data, you find a plethora of strong niche uses arising. When business tablet users are asked to list ALL the applications they use, note taking, for example, is li...

International Data Corporation ( IDC ) had already predicted that the next wave of business technologies would begin its transition into the mainstream during 2011. Today, spending on these technologies is growing at about 18 percent per year and is expected to account for at least 80 percent of business technology spending growth between now and 2020. "The industry's shift to the 3rd Platform will accelerate in 2012, forcing the industry's leaders to make bold investments and fateful decisions," said Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC. Overall, IDC now forecasts that worldwide IT spending will grow by 6.9 percent year over year to $1.8 trillion in 2012. As much as 20 percent of this total spending will be driven by five technologies that are reshaping the business landscape -- smartphones, media tablets, mobile networks, social networking, and big data analytics. Meanwhile, emerging markets (defined as all markets except North America,...

Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that mobile enterprise revenues are to reach $92.6bn with over 479 million subscribers by 2014, making this a strong growth area for vendors, service providers and content providers. According to Informa's latest market assessment, mobile enterprise is forecast to generate 24 percent of total mobile data service revenues by 2014, representing a potentially strong revenue generation opportunity for key players. Traditionally, cellular operators have tried but failed to capture this market and Informa's report highlights the importance of developing strategies to maximize these new revenue streams. "One of the key drivers of this growth, is cellular operator interest in new service segments including the SME and Soho sector, the opportunities created by mobile convergence, growth in end user outsourcing and software as services (SaaS). These factors will be magnified in the short term by the impact of the global economic downturn,...

Consumer social networks are mainstream applications, so people are now demanding similar applications in the workplace that provide personalized online experiences for creating, publishing, locating, and sharing content internally and externally with colleagues, customers, and partners. If these applications are not provided by an IT organization, IDC observes that employees are bringing them in through their own initiatives. This emerging business need has created a suddenly crowded market of online community software providers aiming to make the business world a more social place. IDC forecasts that the U.S. online community software market will grow from $278.4 million in 2008 to $1.6 billion in 2013 at a CAGR of 41.8 percent. While the U.S. online community software market was not immune to the recession, dominant vendors in this space reported double-digit growth rates in 2008 and higher-than-expected growth in the first half of 2009. Overall, the U.S. online community software ...

Worldwide revenue from Linux operating system software grew by 23.4 percent from 2007 to 2008, and that growth will be followed by a 2008-2013 compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.9 percent, according to the latest study by IDC. With this growth, worldwide Linux operating systems revenue will cross $1 billion for the first time in 2012, growing to $1.2 billion by 2013. By comparison, Linux server operating system subscriptions will exhibit a different profile, with a contraction of net new subscriptions expected in 2009, followed by a steady recovery through 2013. Meanwhile, non-paid Linux server operating system deployments are predicted to grow more quickly than new subscriptions through 2013, leading to a net increase of non-paid Linux server operating systems deployed compared to total worldwide Linux server operating systems being placed into service. The combined total of Linux server operating system subscriptions and non-paid deployments is expected to show a 2008-2013 CAGR...

Results from IDC's ongoing survey reveal that 59.1 percent of Singapore CIOs are increasing their investments in new business applications based on Web 2.0 technologies (Portals, Mashups). An amazing 59.1 percent are also actively revamping social media networking and collaboration services for employees in 2009. "We are at an interesting juncture", says Dr. Patrick Chan, Chief Technology Advisor for IDC's Asia-Pacific Emerging Technology Council. "As a result of the financial downturn, corporations are under mounting pressure to invest only in IT technology that can help their businesses save costs and grow at the same time." As a result, CIOs today have very challenging roles to play. They need to balance savings against IT investments in order to achieve optimal growth for their organizations. To date, 71 Singapore CIOs have responded to the survey which is ongoing. The current market study findings include: - In 2009, 62.1 percent of the Singapore CIOs s...

For the first time in its history, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is projecting a 3.1 percent decline in revenue for the overall global Information and Communications Technology (ICT) market in 2009 -- due to global economic conditions. In the U.S., revenue will suffer a 5.5 percent decline in 2009. While revenue will remain weak in 2010 -- with a modest 1.2 percent increase -- the longer-term outlook is apparently brighter. Globally, TIA projects a strong rebound for the ICT industry after 2010, citing a 6.4 percent revenue growth in 2011 and a 7.9 percent increase in 2012. For the U.S., telecommunications revenue is expected to decrease by 6.4 percent in the next two years, but rebound by 14.4 percent during 2011-12. The effects of the current Stimulus Package, which carves out investment dollars for broadband, will enable growth throughout the ICT industry and beyond. "Broadband will be a driver for recovery in all areas, from healthcare IT to smart grid te...

IDC investigated the adoption of IT virtualization in Europe and confirmed that this technology is significantly impacting the server market, and even more so the way that data centers will be built and managed. The market study showed that the number of server systems shipped with a virtualization platform on top has increased by 26.5 percent in 2008 compared to 2007, reaching 358,000 units in the Western European countries. "The accelerated adoption on the x86 side of the server market is making virtualization a crucial factor, changing the approach of suppliers and the deployment habits of customers throughout Europe," said Giorgio Nebuloni, research analyst at IDC. "In 2008, approximately 18.3 percent of all servers shipped in Western Europe were virtualized, against 14.6 percent in 2007, and we expect the percentage to grow to almost 21 percent in 2010. More importantly, last year, and for the first time ever, the number of virtual machine (VM) shipments exceeded th...

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the U.S. are using more diverse information sources to first learn about new IT products, services and suppliers. Despite the growing use of the Internet as a source of information, a trend that will continue, peer group word of mouth still receives high mentions by SMBs, according to a new IDC study. "A major challenge for providers of advanced technology products and services is how best to reach the 7.9 million SMBs in the United States," said Merle Sandler, research manager for SMB Programs at IDC. SMBs use multiple information sources, so technology providers need to develop an effective promotional portfolio to ensure visibility in the places where SMBs turn for IT information -- bearing in mind that their preferences vary by business size, vertical industry, and attitude cluster. Highlights of IDC's market study include: - Word of mouth is most often cited by small businesses (SBs) and medium-sized businesses (MBs) as how...

The sharp global economic meltdown which began in late 2007 is now affecting consumer and IT spending in a very significant way. The semiconductor market, which was one of the first industries to be affected, remains in a state of fluid turbulence. Semiconductors are an integral part of almost every electronic device and the broad base declines in units shipped resulting from deteriorating demand and expectations for continued weakness going forward has driven a lower outlook for the industry this year. Following a slight revenue decline of 2 percent in 2008, primarily due to a very weak fourth quarter, the worldwide semiconductor market will not recover until 2010. In fact, IDC expects a further revenue decline of 22 percent in 2009, due to double digit declines in unit shipments of key system markets, low utilization rates, and price erosion. This abrupt slowdown will not only affect the U.S. and Europe, but also Japan and the overall Asia/Pacific regions. IDC's Worldwide Semicon...

Marketing and sales executives in technology firms aspire to develop a meaningful relationship with the CIOs in their target enterprise accounts. But, according to a Forrester Research market study, most CIOs believe technology firms remain "just another vendor to deal with." Why, you may ask? Because the marketing messages and sales methodologies assume the CIO thinks just like a target buyer. Apparently, the very nature of the CIO position, and their views of success and failure, put vendors in a very different perspective. Forrester says that vendors can improve receptiveness to their CIO message if they understand how these executives measure a company's offering benefits, gauge its fit with their existing organization, and perceive how a relationship will benefit them. Clearly, this perspective raises questions about all those vendors who like to believe they're "trusted advisers" to their business technology customer base. Forrester believes a typical ...