Digital Lifescapes

There are moments in enterprise technology evolution when we reach an inflection point. The cloud computing industry has just produced one of those moments. According to the latest market study by Synergy Research Group, global enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure services crossed an annualized revenue run rate of over half a trillion dollars in the first quarter of 2026. To put that in perspective: a decade ago, this market did not even register at a tenth of that scale. We're witnessing the most sustained and consequential infrastructure build-outs in the history of enterprise technology. Cloud Computing Market Development What makes this cloud milestone particularly striking is not the absolute number, but the trajectory behind it. Growth is not leveling off the way mature technology markets typically do. Instead, it is accelerating. Quarterly cloud infrastructure revenues, covering IaaS, PaaS, and hosted private cloud, reached $128.6 billion in Q1, with trailing twelve-m...

The evolution of network APIs is one of the telecom sector’s most compelling growth opportunities. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have long connected disparate systems, but within telecommunications, their transformation holds a pivotal role in ushering networks from siloed infrastructure toward open, programmable platforms. Juniper Research’s latest market study underscores how global network operators can unlock new applications, reshaping digital connectivity and enterprise innovation. Network API Market Development Historically, telecommunication networks have operated under a closed model, restricting third-party access and fostering complexity for developers. The new paradigm, supported by initiatives such as GSMA Open Gateway and CAMARA, is shifting the narrative. Operators are now embracing standardized APIs, allowing developers to integrate advanced network capabilities directly into their applications, bypassing proprietary barriers and unlocking greater innovative...

The telecom sector is undertaking an update of its IT infrastructure. As demand for data continues to soar with the proliferation of 5G and new apps, network operators can't rely on their legacy hardware and network architectures. The process of "Cloudification" offers a path to reduce costs, improve efficiency and scalability, plus meet increasingly ambitious infrastructure sustainability goals. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, cloudification spending by telecom operators will see tremendous growth in the coming years, rising from $26.6 billion in 2024 to $64.9 billion by 2028 -- that's a 144 percent increase in just four years. Telecom Cloud Apps Market Development "Telecom networks are becoming more complex; requiring increasingly automated network management systems. However, operators must insulate mission-critical traffic when reducing power, to guarantee quality of service for enterprises," said Alex Webb, research analyst at ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating cloud-enabled transformation, but what if its true power lies at the network edge? Edge AI workloads, where processing happens on local devices, enable real-time decision-making, reduced latency, and enhanced privacy. From smart factories predicting equipment failure to autonomous vehicles analyzing road hazards, this is the exciting world of Edge AI. Explore the opportunities and challenges of running AI workloads at the edge, and discover how it's shaping the future of IT apps. Edge AI Market Development Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC)-V processor architectures are starting to address Edge AI workloads, and this trend is set to continue throughout the decade. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, while RISC-V's penetration into AI workloads is only just beginning, growth will be steady throughout the decade, pushing RISC-V chip shipments in Edge AI (excluding TinyML) to 129 million by 2030. "...

Most CIOs recognize the essential role that emerging technology has in enabling digital business transformation. However, what they often don't know is how prepared their employees, IT systems, and internal processes are to embrace change. Gartner has highlighted the six key trends that will have a significant impact on enterprise IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) organizations over the next 12 to 18 months. "I&O leaders have little time, skills and budget to track emerging trends and the full impact of those on I&O," said Jeffrey Hewitt, vice president at Gartner . Savvy leaders should apply the top trends within I&O for 2024 to identify which are most likely to impact their organization, and then implement effective actions in response. According to Gartner's research, the top trends in 2024 are as follows: Machine Customers Machine customers are non-human economic actors that obtain goods or services in exchange for payment, such as virtual per...

The evolution of mobile networks has witnessed a shift with the advent of Open RAN (Radio Access Network) solutions. Historically, traditional network architectures were characterized by proprietary, monolithic systems, and limiting flexibility. Open RAN represents a paradigm shift in the mobile sector with an extended and disaggregated approach to network infrastructure. The concept gained momentum as a response to the desire for greater interoperability, vendor diversity, and cost efficiency. This approach enables the decoupling of hardware and software components. Open RAN enables the deployment of adaptable systems that can keep pace with the advancements in wireless technology. Open RAN Market Development  Emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) innovations in Open RAN Massive MIMO (mMIMO) solutions will play a pivotal role in improving performance to match that of traditional RAN mMIMO, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. Wh...

A creative Open Innovation strategy promotes a mindset for collaboration that is counter to the 'closed silo' approach of most legacy organizations. That said, the benefits of increased openness are apparent. Open technology ecosystems have driven ongoing cooperation in the Global Networked Economy. Open source software (OSS), and to a lesser degree open source hardware, serves as the foundation of IT infrastructure worldwide. It enables many eCommerce platforms and innovative over the top (OTT) service providers to bring new offerings to market quickly. OSS is gradually driving the innovation agenda for communications service providers (CSPs), and by extension, it is now challenging the dominance of proprietary solutions in the telecommunications sector. Telco Open Innovation Market Development OSS holds the potential to play a key role in telco cloud deployments, a market that will potentially grow to $29 billion by 2025, according to the latest worldwide market study...

Open IT solutions are gaining momentum. Most savvy CIOs and CTOs already have plans to increase their applications for open-source software projects. While that software is an established component of on-premises enterprise data centers, the untapped opportunity is open IT hardware infrastructure. Worldwide revenue from the Open Compute Project (OCP) infrastructure market will reach $33.8 billion in 2024, according to the latest global market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). While year-over-year growth will slow slightly in 2020 due to capital preservation strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic, the market for OCP compute and storage infrastructure is forecast to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.6 percent over the 2020-2024 forecast period. Open IT Hardware Market Development The IDC forecast assumes a rapid improvement for this market in 2021-22, fueled by a robust economic recovery worldwide. However, a prolonged crisis and economic uncertainty co...

Factory automation is evolving, once again. Machine vision technology remains popular in the manufacturing environment, due to its proven track record of results. However, the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) technology and machine learning applications will transform many conventional factories. The emergence of deep learning apps creates expanded capabilities and flexibility, leading to more cost efficiency and higher production yield. Deep learning-based machine vision techniques within smart manufacturing will experience a CAGR of 20 percent between 2017 and 2023, with revenue that will reach $34 billion by 2023, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. Machine Vision Market Development  Manufacturers need to improve their production yields and workflow efficiency. Legacy machine vision is easy to implement but is somewhat limited. Current solutions that are widely deployed in quality control, safety inspection, predictive maintenance, and industr...

Within the telecom sector, the ongoing shift to software-defined infrastructure -- where IT workloads run virtualized or containerized on industry-standard hardware and software platforms -- is happening at an unprecedented pace. This transformation is visible across the whole communications industry, where entire data centers are now being converted from vertically integrated systems to software-defined IT infrastructure. Telecom IT Infrastructure Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), this trend will continue unabated as telecom service providers seek to expand their sphere of influence on initiatives such as mobile media delivery, edge computing, the Internet of Things and connected devices. In an industry where legacy business models and government regulations can no longer guarantee revenue growth, telecom service providers must address intense competition by advancing digital innovation and reducing their...

A blockchain acts as a digital distributed ledger of transactions or records. The ledger, which stores the information or data, exists across multiple participants in a peer-to-peer network. There's no single, central repository. Distributed ledgers technology (DLT) allows new transactions to be added to an existing chain of transactions using a secure cryptographic signature. Worldwide spending on blockchain solutions is forecast to reach $11.7 billion in 2022, according to the latest global market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Blockchain Market Development IDC expects blockchain spending to grow rapidly throughout the 2017-2022 forecast period, with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 73.2 percent. Moreover, worldwide blockchain spending will reach $1.5 billion in 2018 -- that's double the amount spent on the emerging technology during 2017. The United States will see the largest blockchain investments and deliver more than 36 percent of...

While most telecom service providers across the globe continue to invest in software-defined networking and open source software, a few are now investing in the new wave of technologies. In particular, technology leadership is a key component in China's strategic plan to stimulate new economic growth. In its latest benchmarking study to identify the leaders and laggards in telecom service provider innovation, ABI Research has concluded that Asian telcos are the recognized technology trailblazers, followed by U.S. tier-one service providers, AT&T and Verizon. 5G Wireless Market Development However, European telcos are perceived as laggards in the realm of telco innovation, with DT, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone distant followers of China Mobile, NTT Docomo, Softbank and KDDI -- which are collectively ramping up their efforts to foster technology-empowered innovation. ABI Research has assessed patent portfolios, standards contributions, open source involvement, acquisit...

Private cloud services are gaining new momentum, partly due to the demand for hybrid IT solutions on-premises. 451 Research predicts that IT vendors with OpenStack private cloud revenue will exceed revenue from service providers with OpenStack-based public cloud implementations in 2018. From a regional perspective, deployments in China and the Asia-Pacific region are now growing faster than in the rest of the world. While not the primary driver, a contributing factor is the Chinese government advocating for OpenStack deployments. Private Cloud Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by 451 Research, OpenStack revenue will exceed $6 billion by 2021, as it experiences a growth rate of 30 percent CAGR. Moreover, OpenStack is benefiting from the increase in hybrid cloud environments with 61 percent of the enterprises surveyed utilizing a hybrid IT approach. Certain industry verticals and regions that are less enthusiastic about exclusively using hyperscale...

Open source software adoption continues to disrupt the traditional IT markets, as enterprise CIOs and CTOs seek ways to evolve by working with progressive vendors and service providers who have a proven track record of Open Innovation. The growth of digital business transformation and the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to drive large investment in IT operations management (ITOM) through 2020, according to the latest global market study by Gartner. A primary driver for organizations moving to ITOM open-source software (OSS) is lower cost of ownership. OSS ITOM Market Development While acceptance of OSS ITOM is increasing, traditional closed-source ITOM software still has the biggest budget allocation today. Moreover, complexity and governance issues that face users of OSS ITOM tools cannot be ignored. "In fact, these issues open up opportunities for ITOM vendors. Even vendors that are late to market with ITOM functionality can compete in this area," said Laurie W...

Open source hardware and software projects continue to gain momentum in the global telecom sector. However, after a relatively slow start, the Network Function Virtualization (NFV) market will experience growth through ongoing technology investments by major telecommunication service providers. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, North America will lead global growth, accumulating $13 billion in NFV-related investments during 2022. Meanwhile, Europe will experience the highest growth rate, at an estimated 53 percent CAGR between 2017 and 2022. NFV Technology Market Development Early adopters of the technology claim several benefits to NFV-enabled systems -- which include reductions in network CAPEX and OPEX, service agility, and reduced deployment times for new network elements. "In 2015 and 2016, the market experienced some early successes but mostly reconsideration and failure with NFV," says Neha Pachade, senior analyst at ABI Research ....

Wireless communication technology is a key component of most Internet of Things (IoT) projects. Choosing the best-fit solution can be challenging, due to the use of competing technologies. Mobile network service providers prefer open standards-based technology. So, that's a key market driver. ABI Research forecasts that although proprietary Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs) using LoRa, RPMA, and SIGFOX dominate today, the imminent commercialization of cellular LPWANs using the LTE Cat-M1, NB-IoT, and EC-GSM-IoT technologies will quickly rival the proprietary footprint. Cellular LPWANs promise wide support from a large ecosystem, interoperability among vendors and mobile network operators, and the ability for existing cellular networks to rapidly scale up through a straightforward software upgrade with no new spectrum or hardware required. Market Development of IoT Infrastructure Telecom service providers throughout North America, Western Europe, and the Asia Pacific reg...

IT infrastructure vendors are hopeful that, one day, their investment in the support of OpenStack is proven worthwhile. According to the latest worldwide market study by 451 Research, revenue from OpenStack business models are forecast to exceed $5 billion by 2020 and grow at a 35 percent CAGR. So far, OpenStack revenue has come from cloud service providers offering multi-tenant IaaS, but the latest research indicates that private cloud revenue will exceed public cloud by 2019. Meanwhile, even though it's true that OpenStack has experienced new growth, the vendor revenue contribution is relatively small. That being said, based on their latest analysis, 451 Research believes that OpenStack profitability will likely be achieved in the private cloud space, and in providing the hybrid orchestration for public cloud integration with on-premises or hosted OpenStack environments. OpenStack Use Case Development "This year OpenStack has become a top priority and credible cloud ...

Many CIOs know they must respond to the growing demand for public cloud services within their organizations. Building a private cloud with on-premises infrastructure is a path to progress, and OpenStack is the software platform. The eighth User Survey conducted by the OpenStack Foundation demonstrates the maturity and broad adoption of the open source cloud platform, pointing to significant increases in the percentage of full production deployments. The results of the latest survey findings were released by the foundation leadership, along with a new survey dashboard , now in beta, and six global filter categories enabling anyone to perform their own analysis on the data. OpenStack Market Development Trends The market study is intended to enable a better understanding of user attitudes, organization profiles, use cases, and technology choices surrounding OpenStack deployments. Data is shared with the OpenStack community to help make design decisions and plan for the future dev...

Informed telecommunications service providers have reduced their infrastructure cost and improved their development agility by adopting open source software.  According to findings from a recent survey, 85.8 percent of telecom industry respondents consider OpenStack to be essential or important to their success. The survey, commissioned by the OpenStack Foundation, explores current usage and adoption plans of telecom service providers -- particularly with respect to Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), 5G cellular communications, Internet of Things (IoT) and enterprise cloud computing. Facing unprecedented traffic and rapidly evolving customer expectations, telecom providers worldwide are accelerating their adoption of NFV to increase network agility and mitigate costs, and OpenStack has emerged as the NFV infrastructure platform of choice. OpenStack Market Development Results The OpenStack survey included 113 responses from representatives of telecom companies around th...

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...