Digital Lifescapes

The personal computing device market continues to demonstrate remarkable resilience despite recent fluctuations. According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), global PC shipments are projected to reach 273 million units in 2025—a modest but significant 3.7 percent increase over the previous year. This growth reflects the market's adaptation to post-pandemic realities and evolving technology needs across the globe. Personal Computing Market Development While COVID-19 initially triggered unprecedented demand for computing devices during the shift to remote work and online education, we now see a more measured growth pattern. IDC has slightly adjusted its projections downward, indicating a market growing steadily rather than explosively. "In light of so many challenges around the world, Japan is a much-needed source of double-digit growth this year. Enterprises there as well as SMBs have been quickly replacing PCs in advance of the Window...

The global marketing and sales landscape is evolving rapidly. New business technology is a game-changer, promising to automate tedious tasks and unlock new levels of optimization. But is the market truly ready to embrace this technology? IDC predicts that by 2026, half of medium-sized businesses in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan (APEJ) will be using Generative AI (GenAI) based applications to automate and optimize marketing and sales processes. According to their latest worldwide market study, 47 percent of the midmarket segment in APEJ is already either exploring potential use cases or investing in GenAI tools. SMB Generative AI Market Development Also, 43 percent of companies in the midmarket segment anticipate that the technology will have the most impact on commercial marketing applications. Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs) and midmarket segments in APEJ have taken notice of the GenAI potential to revolutionize workflow in various industries. However, companies ar...

Banks that adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enable better customer success and business experience are moving towards a Banking-as-a-Platform (BaaP) operating model to fuel new digital revenue growth. The main strategic goal of a Platform banking business model is to become involved in strategic Fintech partnerships which can improve their product offering for both retail and corporate clients. Each platform is largely self-contained in producing business and technology outcomes, and autonomous in prioritizing its work to meet growth goals and clearly defined areas of specialization. BaaP Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research , global revenue from BaaP services will increase to $49 billion globally in 2028 -- that's up from $4 billion in 2023. BaaP can help traditional banks regain their competitive edge against NeoBanks. Through collaboration with innovative vendors, traditional banks can offer new services from partners, includ...

Cybercrime is a growing threat to corporations and their customers, who are increasingly using online web services and mobile apps. Several regulatory mandates, including GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) to PSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2), all require high standards of cybersecurity. From a compliance perspective, secure IT systems and data storage is now a 'must-have' requirement. In the event of a data breach, there are significant fines for non-compliance with the appropriate data protection guidelines. Due to ongoing regulation enforcement, some companies are already facing fines for not disclosing data breaches. Furthermore, the lingering damage to their commercial reputation may be difficult to quantify. Cybersecurity Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, over 33 billion records will be stolen by cybercriminals in 2023 alone -- that's an increase of 175 percent over the 12 billion records expected t...

While we continue to see reports about the growing fear of job loss due to robotics in the workplace, more industry analyst reports shed light on the apparent upside opportunities for vendors. ABI Research identified 'collaborative robotics' as one of the fastest growing market segments. Small-to-Medium Businesses (SMBs) are driving the increased demand for these collaborative robots, as 'cobots' provide solutions that allow for a more flexible kind of manufacturing that makes no assumptions as to volume levels or types of products being manufactured. Robotics Technology Market Development From 2016 to 2025, the global revenue of collaborative robotics shipments is set to reach a compound average growth rate of 49.8 percent -- that's compared to 12.1 percent for Industrial robots and 23.2 percent for commercial robotics. The term ‘collaborative’ refers to human scale robotic systems that can share a workspace with humans, interact with humans while also mov...

Digital transformation projects have fueled the IT budgets of all business types. Total IT spending by small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) will approach $568 billion in 2017, and exceed $676 billion by 2021, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). With a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.5 percent, spending by businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees on IT hardware, software, and services, including business services, is expected to be slightly stronger than IDC's previous forecast. SMB IT Market Development "SMB IT spending growth continues to track about two percentage points higher than GDP growth across regions. But beneath that slowly rising tide are faster moving currents that reflect the changing ways SMBs are acquiring and deploying technology," said Ray Boggs, vice president at IDC . SMBs will spread their IT investments about equally across the three major categories -- hardware, softw...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have compelling reasons to invest in IT security solutions, and telecom service providers are able to offer these new services, according to findings from the latest market study by Analysys Mason. Their report of the study findings explore the opportunity for traditional telecom network operators to sell IT security services to their SME customers. The analyst believes that IT security services offer a way for these network operators to stem the decline in other service revenue. However, selling security to SMEs is not straightforward and telecom operators have a low share of this market. According to the Analysys Mason assessment, only 13 percent of SMEs that buy IT security solutions do so from a local communications service provider (CSP). Reported study findings include: strengths that operators can exploit to sell to SMEs. security portfolio design and the need to build awareness of cyber-security solutions. case studies of two...

This is the first in a series of reports that I will share about SXSWi 2012 related events. Once again, I'll be attending the Interactive conference and trade show in Austin, Texas. Forty British digital companies were selected to participate in the UK Trade and Investment ( UKTI ) Mission to South by Southwest 2012. Each of the companies joining the mission are listed below, in alphabetical order: Acknowledgement Ltd Acunu AMEE Analytics SEO Anywhere.me Codegent CultureLabel Ltd DAD Technology Ltd DeadSoci.al Eventless Ltd Foodsplore Fortune Cookie Gravity Thinking Hailo Happiest Ltd Harvest Digital Milky Tea MOFILM Ltd Musicmetric Net Communities Ltd Numiko Oil Productions Palringo PlayMob Portal Entertainment Psonar Ltd Realeyes Recite ShareMyPlaylists Shopcade Sign-Up.to Sohnar SoJoLife StickyWorld Ltd The Unit Thrive Software TWAds (Addiply) Ltd ustwo Yazino I look forward to the opportunity to connect with the UK Digital Mission del...

It has always been predicted that small business expenditures on wireless communication services would someday exceed that of wireline voice communication. That day will happen in 2012 -- as wireless service offerings becomes the largest category of telecommunications spending for small businesses, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . Wireline data spending and cloud computing services round out the four high-growth spending categories. "Connectivity has become the life blood of business efforts, but it is particularly crucial to small businesses as many operate without a brick-and-mortar presence to customers," says Greg Potter at In-Stat. One can already see the strength of wireless in the 5-9 and 10-19 employee sub-segments. It is the 20-99 sub-segment, however, that will maintain the dominance of wireline voice through the end of this year. Additional insights from the latest market study include: Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is set to gr...

Shipments of personal computers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) continued to decline in the second quarter of 2011 (2Q11) as sustained high levels of inventory inhibited stronger sell-in -- particularly in Western Europe -- and led to a decline of 8.9 percent in overall shipments across EMEA compared with the same quarter last year. A shift in interest toward other products continued to contribute to weak consumer demand and slow stock depletion across Western Europe, but other parts continued to expand and enjoy positive growth, performing even better than expected -- driven by robust demand for portable PCs. Western Europe shipment levels further decelerated, recording a decline of 20.9 percent, impacted by persisting high inventory levels and slow consumer demand across the region which prevented stronger sell-in from most vendors. The situation improved and stock depletion continued, but low retail traffic and a continued shift in budget and interest toward othe...

American small businesses are embracing current mobile phone technology to increase their productivity. The total Small Office and Home Office (SOHO) smartphone market will grow 18 percent in 2014 compared to 2010, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . The SOHO business category is comprised of U.S. businesses with one to four employees. In this category, the education and professional services sector will be the highest growth vertical market segment. "Smartphone purchases across all verticals and all U.S. business sizes will increase 14 percent in 2014 compared to 2010," says Frank Dickson, In-Stat Research Vice President. As both manufacturers and service providers increase the number of smartphone models and applications, In-Stat sees U.S. businesses finding greater utility from smartphones, thus enhancing worker productivity. The return on investment for providing smartphones is easily understood by these companies. The total U.S. business handset mar...

eMarketer reports that according to a market study performed by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland, small-business social media marketing use has apparently plateaued in the U.S. at 24 percent adoption. The study of American small to medium businesses (SMB) found that most primarily use Facebook (82 percent), and that common activities are maintaining a "company page" on a social network and posting status updates or links to interesting content. About half of those businesses that used social media also monitored social networks for mentions of their company and/or product names. As small business gains experience with social media, some have realized their expectations are not in tune with reality. As most begin to look at social media as a channel more for customer loyalty than for prospect acquisition, they're also finding that hopes for increased brand awareness and attracting new customers have not been fully met. However, while fewer small b...

eMarketer reports that U.S. small and medium businesses (SMBs) are adopting social media marketing in greater numbers, according to a market study by Network Solutions and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland. Social media usage increased to 24 percent, from 12 percent the year before. It's interesting to note that the most common usage of social media among small business was a company page on a social networking site, followed by posting status updates. SMB expectations of social media are in line with their experiences, although they are not quite as successful as they had hoped. Survey respondent's top accomplishments were customer acquisition and placing their own businesses within the market, but did not meet expectations fully. Social media's capabilities for staying engaged with consumers and collaborating with other businesses, however, were more in line with user expectations. Most SMBs say they are breaking even with their current u...

U.S. marketers are "willing" to start a conversation about their brands through social media -- some actually follow-through and do it. But, that's only the beginning of their digital marketing intent, according to a recent eMarketer assessment. In late 2008, MarketingSherpa surveyed social media marketers about the effectiveness of their practices. Large majorities rated social media marketing effective at influencing brand reputation, increasing awareness and improving search rankings and web site traffic. Social media was considered less effective, but still useful, for internal communications and driving online sales. Marketers thought the best specific tactics were user reviews, relationships with bloggers and discussion groups. But they also found those tactics difficult to measure -- only around 10 percent of respondents thought they were very accurately measured. While one-third of larger businesses had a written policy to manage brand communications, only 13 perc...

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...

Creating a video composition with a music soundtrack has its challenges. Using commercially published music is often the most troublesome approach, due to copyright limitations and licensing requirements. Besides, there are several alternatives for videographers that produce content -- even those on a small budget. Some non-linear video editing software packages include a few sample music tracks -- often referred to as license-free or royalty-free music. There are a variety of online sources that sell stock music , which is also royalty-free. And, there are a few sources that offer songs with creative commons music licenses that you can use at no cost, providing you give attribution to the creator. However, all those options require that the music still must be customized to fit your specific needs, and trimmed to the exact durations of each segment within your video. Instead, there's fully automated soundtrack creation software that enables customizing the score by actual...

Sometime late this year, the estimated number of mobile small-medium businesses (SMBs) in the world who use smartphones when travelling will pass 200 million. In some regions, 99 percent of all businesses are classed as small-medium. According to a new market study from ABI Research, this SMB market, which has not adopted 802.11 network solutions to a great degree, provides a golden opportunity for Wi-Fi vendors of both equipment and associated services. "Despite the present economic downturn, this is a growing market," says vice president Stan Schatt. "But SMBs have very particular needs and characteristics, and vendors wishing to serve this market need to pay close attention to them." Unlike large enterprises, small businesses tend to buy equipment out of current operating cash flow, not capital funds. This could be very important in the current economic doldrums. Where profits dwindle, so does the opportunity. Vendors must be creative in addressing this hurdle. P...

Large enterprise employers have highly mobile workforces driven by the global reach of their operations. They often have extensive IT support, which offers globetrotting employees assistance with mobile communication services. These characteristics bode well for adoption of mobile broadband services. However, a new study from ABI Research -- based on survey analysis of U.S. mobile business customers -- demonstrates that enterprises are not the highest adopters of cellular modems and mobile broadband access. According to principal analyst Dan Shey, "The survey data demonstrate that mobile broadband reaches across all sizes of company with greater adoption in small and medium businesses. Our research identifies two key drivers: first, all businesses are familiar with data access from a PC, and laptops and mobile broadband simply make this access portable. Second, there is no distribution favoritism towards business customers." Mobile broadband can be purchased from big box elec...

Demand for managed network service (MNS) providers is growing fast as enterprises of all sizes grapple with increasing network traffic and complexity. At the same time, enterprises are seeing their services budgets shrink. This has created an intensely competitive landscape among global MNS providers, and even the industry's bellwether providers face new and significant competitive threats. In a new report, independent market analyst firm Datamonitor ranks 13 of the world's leading MNS providers based on their network services, end-user sentiment and market impact. The global MNS market is extremely competitive, particularly among the large telecommunications providers and conglomerate systems integrators that dominate it -- AT&T, BT Global Services, HP Services and IBM Global Technology Services. Yet new threats are emerging in the form of smaller, more agile rivals, such as CSC, Orange Business Services, Verizon Business and Vanco, despite the latter's recent financi...

According to the latest In-Stat market study, the U.S. business market currently devotes the largest part of managed services spending to managed infrastructure in 2008 at 35 percent. Most of this current spending is done by the enterprise market -- firms with more than 1,000 employees. While enterprises devote the largest portions of their managed services budgets to managed infrastructure services, at the other end of the spectrum SOHO and small businesses (fewer than 100 employees per firm) spend the bulk of their managed services dollars on Web and application hosting. Managed network services is the biggest slice of the pie among mid-sized businesses (100 to 999 employees per firm). The leading trend in managed services is the quickly increasing spending on the out-tasking of Web and application hosting among enterprises and, to a lesser degree, mid-sized businesses. Spending on Web and application hosting is expected to experience strong increases and a CAGR of 20 percent through...