Digital Lifescapes

We're now witnessing a seismic shift, driven by the maturity and ubiquitous adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI). For years, AI was an application-layer phenomenon; a software challenge. Today, however, the focus has pivoted to the foundational, physical layer that powers it. The latest data from International Data Corporation (IDC) confirms what many in the business technology sector have observed firsthand: we are in the midst of an unprecedented infrastructure build-out, one that will redefine corporate IT investment strategy. The Applied-AI Initiative race is no longer merely to build an industry-leading AI model, but to possess the computational engine robust enough to train and deploy it at an exponential scale. AI Infrastructure Market Development The latest market study forecast is significant, painting a picture of an infrastructure gold rush defined by massive capital expenditure and rapid transformation. Firstly, the projected market spending on AI infrastructure wi...

The enterprise software market will transform, driven by the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence — especially agentic AI — and the global acceleration toward cloud-first strategies. According to IDC's latest market study, spending on agentic AI will account for more than 26 percent of worldwide IT investment by 2029, exceeding $1.3 trillion, and reshaping the core priorities and technologies fueling digital growth. Enterprise Software Market Development Recent IDC research projects that worldwide enterprise applications revenue will surpass $600 billion by 2028, up from $356 billion in 2023 — a clear sign of double-digit momentum in this sector. The enterprise applications market, including functional areas such as enterprise resource management (ERM), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), and production or engineering applications, delivered 12 percent year-over-year revenue growth in 2023. Equally notable, public cloud is forecasted to domin...

The global public cloud services market is continuing phenomenal growth, driven by digital transformation initiatives and a fundamental shift in how IT organizations function. This trend is fueled by several factors, including the increasing adoption of remote work models, the need for greater agility and scalability, and the ever-growing volume of data that organizations need to store and process. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), the public cloud services market will reach $800 billion in 2024, with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.5 percent. Public Cloud Services Market Development "Vendors are focused on being strategic partners to their customers by delivering highly performant, developer-friendly, trustworthy, and secure offerings that help users deliver intelligent applications more efficiently," said Adam Reeves, research director at IDC . This growth is being fueled by several key trends: IDC highlights ...

The business technology landscape is undergoing a continued shift in IT infrastructure. The public cloud, once a fringe player, has become the undisputed engine driving IT innovation and digital business growth. As executives grapple with their digital transformation initiatives, scalability, agility, and cost-efficiency remain paramount. The public cloud delivers on all these fronts, and Gartner's recent forecast underscores this reality. Worldwide public cloud end-user spending is projected to reach $675 billion in 2024, a significant increase from  $561 billion in 2023. This growth is driven by Generative AI (GenAI) and software application modernization. Public Cloud Computing Market Development Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This foundational layer, comprising compute, storage, and networking resources, is anticipated to reach $180 billion in 2024. This underscores the continued demand for core cloud infrastructure as organizations migrate workloads and application...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been steadily transforming business, now a new wave is poised to make a seismic impact: Generative AI (GenAI) tool adoption. In fact, we may have already reached the inflection point. Unlike traditional AI that analyzes data, GenAI goes a step further. It applies analysis to create entirely new content, be it realistic images, marketing copy, or innovative product designs. A recent Gartner study revealed that GenAI is the most frequently deployed AI solution in organizations. This is marking the dawn of a new global era in human-machine collaboration. "GenAI is acting as a catalyst for the expansion of AI in the enterprise," said Leinar Ramos, senior director analyst at Gartner . "This creates a window of opportunity for AI leaders, but also a test on whether they will be able to capitalize on this moment and deliver value at scale." Global Generative AI Market Development Gartner's survey found that, on average, only 48 percent...

The importance of data in today's business landscape fundamentally reshapes how CIOs invest in their IT infrastructure. A recent International Data Corporation ( IDC ) market study highlights this trend, revealing insights into spending patterns. The study indicates that structured database and data management workloads are the largest spending category within enterprise IT infrastructure. This is unsurprising, considering the foundational role these workloads play in managing digital business data. However, IDC's worldwide market study also sheds light on a noteworthy shift – spending in some categories witnessed a slight decline in 2023 compared to 2022. Data Workload Market Development This dip could be attributed to several factors. Organizations might optimize their existing data management processes, potentially leveraging more efficient storage solutions or cloud-based data management services. Additionally, the rise of alternative data sources, such as unstructured and ...

Most digital transformation is enabled by cloud solutions. Worldwide spending on public cloud services is forecast to reach $1.35 trillion in 2027, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Although annual spending growth is expected to slow slightly over the 2023-2027 forecast period, the market is forecast to achieve a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.9 percent. "Cloud now dominates tech spending across infrastructure, platforms, and applications," said Eileen Smith, vice president at IDC . Public Cloud Services Market Development IDC believes that most organizations have adopted the public cloud as a cost-effective platform for hosting enterprise applications, and for developing and deploying customer-facing solutions. Looking forward, the cloud computing model remains well positioned to serve customer needs for innovation in application development and deployment -- including as data, artificial intelligence ...

Global demand for public cloud computing services continue to grow. Worldwide revenue for the public cloud services market totaled $545.8 billion in 2022 -- that's an increase of 22.9 percent over 2021, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Software as a Service (SaaS) applications continued to be the largest source of public cloud services revenue by far, accounting for more than 45 percent of the total in 2022. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) was the second largest revenue category with 21.2 percent of the total, while Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service System Infrastructure Software (SaaS SIS) delivered 17 percent and 16.7 percent respectively. Public Cloud Services Market Development "Given the economic challenges of the past year, it's easy to conclude that we are in a period where a focus on constraining new expenditures and optimizing the use of existing cloud assets will dominate CIOs' pri...

Cloud computing adoption continues to gain momentum across the globe. The public cloud services (PCS) market in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) will reach $165.2 billion in 2026, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). IDC expects the Asia-Pacific market to grow at a higher year-over-year (YoY) rate in 2022 at 31.4 percent, in comparison to 30 percent in 2021, as cloud migration continues to accelerate. However, IDC expects the YoY growth rates to slow down beginning from 2023 with a YoY growth of 28.3 percent to 22.4 percent in 2026. Asia-Pacific Cloud Services Market Development "Majority of organizations have pivoted rapidly toward a digital-centric modus operandi to adapt to new ways of operating, working, and selling products and services amid various disruptions," said Estelle Quek, senior research manager at IDC . These organizations demand better business outcomes from their adoption of digital technologies to increase efficiency, ...

Across the globe, many enterprise CIOs and CTOs have already deployed several use cases that deliver effective customer care applications through cloud-based contact center solutions. Today's contact centers allow customers to interact online with service representatives within an organization. Historically, customers were only able to reach organizations via voice telephone calls. However, after legacy call centers developed into modern 'contact centers', this enabled customers to communicate via their preferred method online. As companies continue to develop contact centers and invest in prominent technologies such as cloud services, contact centers began to adapt their architecture from on-premises to cloud-based solutions due to their increased flexibility, reliability, scalability, and security. CCaaS Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the global Contact Center-as-a-Service (CCaaS) market revenue will reach $15.6 bill...

Across European nations, more CIOs and CTOs are investing in public cloud services that become the essential foundation for the design and delivery of innovative digital transformation projects. Public cloud computing spending in Europe will reach $113 billion in 2022 and will double to $239 billion by 2026, growing at a 22 percent 5-year CAGR, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Investments in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) will continue to lead most of the spending in Public Cloud in Europe in 2022, but Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) will be the fastest-growing segment. In fact, PaaS enables digital business deployment via the quick testing and production of new software applications. Public Cloud Market Development Professional services, banking, and discrete manufacturing will be among the top spenders in public cloud services, absorbing almost 60 percent of the overall public cloud services spend in 2022.  Human-centric industries are adju...

The global cloud computing market is driven by the belief that provisioning IT infrastructure is without differentiation. Cost reduction is often the key motivation. Moreover, in order to shift their human resources toward the enablement of digital business outcomes, IT leaders are reskilling their legacy IT staff. The total worldwide public cloud services market grew 29 percent year-over-year in 2021 with revenues totaling $408.6 billion, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Market consolidation continued in 2021 with the revenue of the top five public cloud service providers capturing nearly 40 percent of the worldwide total and growing 36.6 percent year-over-year. Public Cloud Computing Market Development With offerings in all four deployment categories, Microsoft captured the top position in the overall public cloud services market with 14.4 percent share in 2021, followed closely by Amazon Web Services with 13.7 percent share. "Organiz...

The leading organizations that create a digital transformation plan will gain the most from their use of public cloud computing. However, some CIO and CTO leaders still struggle with how to build a modern cloud migration strategy. The worldwide cloud computing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) market grew 41.4 percent in 2021, to a total of $90.9 billion -- that's up from $64.3 billion in 2020, according to the latest market study by Gartner. "The IaaS market continues to grow unabated as cloud-native becomes the primary architecture for modern workloads," said Sid Nag, vice president and analyst at Gartner . Cloud IaaS Market Development Cloud supports the scalability and composability that advanced technologies and applications require, while also enabling enterprise leaders to address emerging needs such as sovereignty, data integration, and enhanced customer experience. In 2021, the top five IaaS providers accounted for over 80 percent of the market. Amazon AWS conti...

Ongoing investments in Digital Transformation projects continue across the globe. Worldwide information technology (IT) and business services revenue is expected to grow by 5.6 percent in constant currency during 2022, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ). The 2022 market growth will increase by 160 basis points from IDC's October 2021 forecast. The improved market view reflects 2021 bookings and pipelines by several large services providers, an improved economic outlook, and an inflationary impact on the services market. IDC believes that the market will continue to expand throughout the next few years at a rate of 4-5 percent, representing an overall increase of 40 to 80 basis points each year, pushing the market's long-term growth rate to 4.6 percent -- that's up slightly from the previous forecast of 4.3 percent. IT and Business Services Market Development The Americas services market is forecast to grow by 5.3 percent in 2022 -...

Public cloud computing solutions are moving closer to the edge of networks where CIOs and CTOs are hosting new apps. The edge journey is well underway for forward-looking organizations as they seek to connect with customers, improve operational efficiency, and adopt digital business technologies to drive innovation. The latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC) found that three-quarters of organizations plan to increase their edge computing spending over the next two years with an average increase of 37 percent. A combination of factors is driving this increased spending at the edge. Cloud Edge Computing Market Development The performance requirements of expanding workloads and new use cases that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) demand greater compute capacity at the edge. In addition, the amount of data being stored in edge locations are rapidly expanding, and organizations plan to keep this data longer. As a result, the numbe...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed rule changes that would require climate-related disclosures and periodic reports -- including risks that are likely to have a material impact on a corporation. Business technologies might be a key component of responding to new SEC requirements. Cloud service sustainability, carbon footprint measurement, and advanced energy grid management software are three environmental technologies that could reach early mainstream adoption within one to three years. "Environmental sustainability cannot be the responsibility of just a few industries -- if our climate is to be protected, sustainable business must be a global priority," said Annette Zimmermann, vice president at Gartner . Sustainability Technology Market Development According to the Gartner assessment, the transition to a net-zero economy will be as disruptive as the industrial revolution or the digital revolution -- requiring new technologies, business models, leade...

More forward-thinking CIOs and CTOs are focused on the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT). Management challenges are top of mind for those who have already deployed a large number of sensors and associated network edge devices. Device management services are evolving in response to a greater breadth of new device technologies such as edge intelligence and related connectivity solutions, as well as the customer scalability and security of IoT deployments. But forward-looking suppliers are also preparing for a world where 41.3 percent of the connected devices will be using some form of Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) technologies by 2026. IoT Device Management Market Development Since IoT customers increasingly need to manage a larger fleet of connected devices, ABI Research now forecasts that IoT device management services will exceed $36.8 billion in revenues by 2026. Standardization is beginning to play a bigger role in device management services, as more connected devices use LPWA t...

Much has been written about the ongoing rise of public cloud computing across the globe, as more senior business leaders choose to deemphasize investment in on-premises IT infrastructure within traditional data centers. How did this happen, and what did enterprise CIOs and CTOs learn from this transition? Well, this transition was inevitable. Legacy IT organizations could have focused more on the Line of Business leader's desired business outcomes that investment makes possible, rather than the technical features and functions of IT solutions. Of course, the same could be said for legacy IT vendors. Some learned, the hard way, that terms like "Shadow IT" and "Rogue Users" were the wrong way to refer to and respond to the initial adoption of unsanctioned Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings. They also learned that upskilling IT staff to speak the language of business is now mandatory.  So, here we are at this point in time. What happens next is predictable (e.g...

Cloud computing gained additional momentum during 2021. More organizations modernized their IT applications and invested in new digital transformation projects. Multi-cloud strategies are now pervasive across global markets as CIOs and CTOs spread their apps across the cloud hyperscalers. The European public cloud market continues to grow at double digits, with European organizations investing in public cloud solutions to support their innovation strategies and digital business objectives, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). European Cloud Service Market Development "Over the past five years, the public cloud market has significantly changed the IT industry and grown like no other segment of the European IT market. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of cloud services in Europe as cloud computing is seen as a crucial enabler of business resilience, agility, innovation, and efficiency," said Filippo Vanara, research anal...

According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ), spending on compute and storage products for cloud computing infrastructure -- including dedicated and shared environments -- decreased 2.4 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2021 (2Q21) to $16.8 billion. This decrease comes after six quarters of year-over-year growth, and most notably compares to the 39.1 percent annual growth seen by the market in 2Q20, when the world just entered the pandemic with the first wave of business and country closures causing a spike in investments in cloud services and infrastructure. In contrast, investments in non-cloud infrastructure increased 3.4 percent year-over-year in 2Q21 to $13.4 billion recovering from a 7.2 percent decline in 2Q20. Proving, once again, that the demand for Hybrid IT infrastructure continues to fluctuate from quarter to quarter and year to year. Cloud Computing Infrastructure Market Development Spending on shared cloud infrastr...