Digital Lifescapes

The worldwide external enterprise storage systems market reached a key point in the first quarter of 2026, and the implications for organizations running Applied-AI initiatives are impossible to ignore. IDC's latest market study reveals that systems grew 22.7 percent year-over-year to $9.2 billion, a dramatic acceleration from the 3.9 percent full-year 2025 growth rate. For enterprise leaders who have spent the past two years prioritizing GPU clusters and server infrastructure while treating storage as a secondary consideration, this data should serve as actionable guidance. The storage bottleneck in AI deployment is no longer theoretical, and the market dynamics now unfolding will directly shape the cost, timeline, and architectural viability of AI programs through at least 2027. Storage Systems Market Development The first quarter of 2026 produced several milestones that demand the attention of any organization with active or planned AI infrastructure investments. All Flash Array...

Battery power management is a critical technology for the evolution of Electric Vehicles (EVs). It's the process of optimizing the use of battery energy to maximize the range and performance of an EV.  A Battery Management System (BMS) can monitor the battery's state of health and use a variety of algorithms to control the charging and discharging of the battery. BMSs can also help to improve the efficiency of the EV by reducing energy loss. Advanced BMS software could save automakers $18 billion annually in 2030, equivalent to $76 billion cumulatively from 2024. ABI Research finds that intelligent BMS software can reduce the size of EV batteries without reducing their range. This performance efficiency helps to cut the cost of manufacturing EVs, enabling automakers to mitigate the effects of limited battery production and achieve greater profitability. Battery Management System Market Development "OEMs are struggling with two competing issues: the demand from customers fo...

As CIOs and CTOs shift their focus to digital transformation projects and the launch of new digital business offerings, demand for traditional IT services has evolved. Worldwide revenues for IT Services and Business Services totaled $506 billion in the first half of 2018 (1H18) -- that's an increase of 4 percent year over year, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). During 1H18, it was a mixed picture for tier-one global outsourcers and systems integrators headquartered in developed countries. Most remained flat or declined slightly. But this was partially offset by stronger performances by two large global vendors, who returned to double-digit growth. IT Services Market Development Indian IT services firms still outpace the U.S. and European counterparts, but their growth slowed from a year ago, continuing their 2H17 deceleration. While most large Indian vendors continued to grow at rates in the low single digits to high teens, it was o...

Connected Device Platforms (CDP) are software systems that help to facilitate the deployment and management of connected devices for machine-to-machine (M2M) applications over cellular wireless networks. With an expected market of $2.14 billion in 2017, CDPs are typically provisioned by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and delivered to M2M application deployment companies as a cloud service, according to the latest market study by ABI Research . While several large MNOs have built their own CDP, there is a clear trend in the market towards third-party-provided solutions. “Several vendors are active in the market, including Ericsson, NSN, and NEC, among others, but the clear leader, in terms of sheer number of operator partners and market traction, is pure-play provider Jasper Wireless,” says ABI research practice director Sam Lucero. As the M2M market becomes a more mainstream segment of the overall mobile industry, CDPs are increasingly becoming a required component of the MNOs...

While there's still a raging debate over the full upside potential of the Digital Signage market, particularly within the retail industry, pundits and insiders know that the most effective way to quantify the market is to follow the display technology outlook. NPD DisplaySearch will once again host a one-day Digital Signage Conference at InfoComm, providing in-depth insight into the projected growth and emerging trends of the digital signage industry. The fifth annual Digital Signage Conference is taking place on June 12, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Practitioners in the digital signage sector will address the key distribution channels, revenue opportunities, hot markets and new technologies throughout the entire supply chain. "Flat panel displays continue to be a major force in the digital signage industry, as new technologies come to market and existing technologies adapt to changing demands," said Chris Connery, Vice President of Large Format Commercial Displays for NP...

Infonetics Research released its 2010 third quarter market study of the Cable TV hardware systems and services industry. The results are mixed; there are several significant declines, and the future is somewhat uncertain -- with no sign of an imminent recovery. After four quarters of sequential growth, a decline in the cable aggregation systems market was inevitable, and it happened in the third quarter of 2010, with a 23 percent drop in worldwide revenue -- CMTS revenue was down 27 percent; edge QAM revenue was up slightly. "In North America, CMTS revenue was down 30 percent, as Comcast and other operators slowed their DOCSIS 3.0 rollouts because they've either reached their homes-passed goals or they are waiting on new line cards," notes Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access at Infonetics Research . The Infonetics market study included the following findings: - CMTS port shipments and revenue declined in all world regions in 3Q10, including double-...

According to the latest market projections from ABI Research , the number of subscribers to mobile WiMAX services will approach 59 million in 2015. That represents a positive forecast, given recent economic conditions. Although, ABI analyst Xavier Ortiz says "WiMAX growth has not been as early or as strong as many would have hoped several years ago." The factors impeding WiMAX's upside opportunities haven't been technological, he says, but economic and psychological. "The recession certainly played a role, making investors wary and delaying some deployments. On top of that, delays in the formation of the new Clearwire have constrained the rest of the ecosystem to some degree, from subscribers to devices and chipsets." Subscriber growth and base station shipments go hand in hand, and despite uncertainty among many operators as to which mobile 4G platform -- WiMAX or TD-LTE -- to choose, ABI's forecasts see WiMAX base station shipments continuing t...

Demand for broadband access to the Internet and digital video pay-TV services continues to drive new infrastructure investment. Infonetics Research released the fourth quarter (4Q09) edition of its cable modem termination system (CMTS) and Edge quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) hardware and subscribers report. "True to form, operators in North America, particularly in the U.S., spent what was left of their equipment budgets in the fourth quarter of 2009, giving a year-end boost to CMTS and edge QAM vendors," said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband and video at Infonetics Research. Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, and Charter all acquired more downstream capacity by adding more CMTS ports, and Time Warner Cable continued its major upgrade to switched digital video, which helped bolster edge QAM revenue. "Over the last 5 years, ARRIS grew its share of the worldwide CMTS market from 18.6 percent in 2005 to 42.9 percent in 2009, while Cisco's share declined from...

Infonetics Research released the routing and switching systems vendor market share results for the fourth quarter of 2009, based upon their latest global market study. These are the essential infrastructure building-block elements that enable the Global Networked Economy to flourish. The top two vendors in the service provider router space, Cisco and Juniper, together went from attaining 69 percent of the worldwide router market in 2008 to 59 percent in 2009 -- while Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, and others gained share. Tellabs pushed past Ericsson in 2009, putting them in the top five for the first time. Infonetics says that Tellabs had an especially strong year, based upon their focus on the mobile sector. "All six of the top router vendors posted strong double-digit revenue increases in the fourth quarter, and we expect modest growth in the router segment to continue in 2010 as carriers carry out fixed-mobile convergence strategies for their router networks," notes Michael How...

Based on data provided by Informa Telecoms & Media , 3G Americas reported that the Latin America and Caribbean region had over 447 million total GSM-HSPA subscriptions as of third quarter of 2009. There were 119 GSM operators serving every country in the region, with 73 million new GSM-HSPA subscriptions added in the year ending September 2009. The uptake of UMTS-HSPA mobile broadband technology is evidenced by its growth -- from fewer than 28,000 subscriptions in September 2007, up to 2.5 million by September 2008, and totaling nearly 12 million in September 2009 in Latin America and the Caribbean. Erasmo Rojas, Director of Latin America and the Caribbean for 3G Americas, says "The number of UMTS-HSPA subscriptions in Latin America grew by 9.4 million in 12 months -- an amazing 380 percent annual growth rate. Clearly, a strong HSPA footprint exists in the region today with 50 commercial networks in 23 countries." Eva Benguigui, Senior Research Analyst at Informa, added ...

Infonetics Research released the second edition of its 2009 telecom Service Provider Capex, Opex, ARPU, and Subscribers report, which features analysis on how current economic conditions are impacting telecommunications markets -- by region and equipment segment. "Global telecom service provider capital expenditures hit a plateau in 2008, marking the end of a 5-year investment cycle and the beginning of a 3-year disinvestment cycle, albeit a less dramatic one than what followed the great telecom crash of 2000," predicts Stephane Teral, principal analyst at Infonetics. Capex will bottom down in 2010 and a new investment cycle will start in 2011, driven by 3G rollouts in India and Central and Latin America, the start of 3G rollouts in Africa, and a ramp-up in LTE deployments in Australia, Brazil, Western Europe, Japan, and North America. Highlights of the Infonetics market study include: - Worldwide, service providers spent $305 billion in 2008 on capital expenditure projects,...

The number of worldwide mobile phone base stations has grown from the hundreds of thousands to the many millions, creating greenhouse gases and pollution from the power required to run them, according to the latest market study by In-Stat. Mobile base stations on an electric grid aren't the real problem, but as cellular spreads to billions of people in emerging countries, off-grid base stations, which are usually powered by diesel generators running 24/7, seem to proliferate. "While diesel pollution is an environmental issue, what bothers mobile operators the most is the real cost of powering and securing the generators," says Allen Nogee, In-Stat analyst. Diesel fuel has to be trucked to remote rural sites, and theft of diesel fuel and equipment can cost operators millions of dollars. The solution is for operators to at least partially power remote base stations with wind turbines, solar panels, or both. This is truly a case where it pays to be Green. In-Stat's marke...

Revenue from the global advertising server market will reach nearly $185 million in 2013. At $79 million North America represents, by a significant margin, the largest regional market for video ad servers with the runner-up, Asia-Pacific, expected to deliver about $55 million in the same year. The resulting data are part of new additions to the latest ABI Research video-on-demand market study. New to the report are sections dealing with ad servers and ad splicers. "Video-on-demand has always been a killer app," says industry analyst Zippy Aima. "But the new driver for this market is consumer desire for more interactivity and more flexibility in what they can do with their video content. Start-over TV, catch-up TV, and similar features are the new benchmarks for VOD uptake." Broadcast continues to dominate the overall market, followed by cable and telco offerings. Although slightly slowed by the recession, growth in all segments has continued at a relatively steady p...

Infonetics Research released the results of the first quarter (1Q09) edition of its Cable Broadband Aggregation Hardware and Subscribers market study. "On the heels of record-high revenue in 2008 ($1.23 billion), the cable broadband hardware market held steady in the first quarter of 2009, while the cable CPE segment dropped," said Jeff Heynen, Infonetics Research's Directing Analyst for Broadband and Video. This first quarter slowdown points to a challenging 2009, in which an ailing economy and aggressive telco competition will make adding new broadband subscribers difficult. Still, compared to the overall downturn in telecom equipment spending in 1Q09, the cable broadband market was somewhat of a bright spot, and proves that cable operators remain committed to expanding their DOCSIS 3.0 footprint -- transitioning from T-CMTS and I-CMTS to M-CMTS architectures, and introducing hybrid IP/QAM video services to support tru2way and DVB-MHP services. Highlights of the market ...

According to the latest market study by MRG, 2008 IPTV subscribers reached 1 million over its last forecast in late 2008, or 21.3 million, resulting in projected subscriber growth of 26.9 million in 2009 to over 81 million in 2013. Systems vendor combined CapEx revenue plus service revenue will grow from $9.7 billion in 2009 to $25.6 billion in 2013. Their new IPTV forecast for 2009-2013 is based on very detailed semi-annual analysis that MRG does on individual Service Providers and on a country-by-country basis -- including six IPTV CapEx products broken into 4 regions. "The relatively strong market in 2008 caused CapEx transactions to flourish through the end of 2008," says Jose Alvear, MRG Analyst. That anticipatory wave of orders kept vendor pipelines full all the way through 2008, but in Q1/2009, many IPTV vendors reported single-digit reduction in revenues, which is reflected in our flattened 2009 forecast. One indicator that new subscriptions will remain strong is the ...

Infonetics Research released its Service Delivery Platform (SDP) Software and Integration Services report, which tracks fixed-line and mobile SDP software and integration services. "While the service delivery platform market has not been immune to the current economic climate, operators continue to view SDPs as key investments to ensure continued growth by streamlining how they create and deliver new services," said Shira Levine, Infonetics Research's Directing Analyst. The primary impact of the economy on the SDP market is a more measured and incremental approach to investments, with large-scale multi-year projects being replaced by more focused solutions with shorter implementation intervals. Even so, the SDP market is much less affected by current economic conditions than other communications sectors. Highlights from the Infonetics market study include: - Worldwide sales of service delivery platform software and integration services are expected to double between 2008 ...

Infonetics Research released its microwave equipment market size, market share, and forecast report. The report tracks access and backhaul/transport PDH/SDH microwave equipment and Ethernet and dual Ethernet/TDM microwave equipment. "The big trend in the microwave equipment market is the transition from TDM to Ethernet. Microwave enables mobile operators to make phased upgrades of their backhaul networks from TDM-only to hybrid TDM/Ethernet systems to packet-based all-Ethernet solutions in the future, said Richard Webb, Infonetics Research analyst. This offers a scalable and cost-effective roadmap for managing the escalating bandwidth demands driven by the mobile broadband boom, and future 4G deployments. Typically, operators will keep legacy TDM microwave for another 5-10 years to support 2G/3G voice while deploying Ethernet for growing volumes of data traffic. The Infonetics market study highlights include: - Worldwide microwave equipment sales hit $4.9 billion in 2008, up 23 pe...

Vendors of home automation systems are expected to ship nearly 2.8 million units in 2011, according to the latest market study from ABI Research. Only one of the four segments of this market -- that for luxury systems -- will be significantly impacted by the recession, according to senior analyst Sam Lucero. The luxury home automation market for systems costing more than $50,000 is relatively mature, so it will feel the greatest impact from the recession. Two other segments -- standards-based mainstream home automation systems and home automation as a service -- are so new and have so much room for growth that they should expand rapidly starting in 2010 no matter the progress of the wider economic recovery. Likewise, the final segment -- DIY home automation -- is tied to a certain extent to these other newer segments and should also see healthy growth. Rather, the challenges to achieving that growth are related to creation of new market mechanisms: the development of distribution chann...

According to ABI Research, the worldwide combined savings from mobile service provider active infrastructure sharing could amount to as much as $60 billion over the next five year period. The study finds that operators could enjoy at least 40 percent cost savings in addition to those available from passive site sharing. The distinction between active and passive sharing is important. Passive sharing involves components such as the tower mast or pylons, cables, physical site or rooftop, shelter cabinets, power supply, air-conditioning, alarm systems, etc. Active sharing includes antennas, antenna systems, backhaul transmission systems and the base station equipment itself. Not surprisingly, passive sharing is seen as a safer alternative, but the cost-saving rewards of active sharing are much greater. According to senior analyst Aditya Kaul, "With most countries and regions of the world having more than one operator, network sharing is a logical way of pooling resources for common b...

Infonetics Research released the fourth quarter (4Q08) edition of its Mobile Infrastructure and Subscribers report this week. Infonetics' quarterly report provides worldwide and regional market size, market share, analysis, and forecasts through 2013. "The large majority of mobile operators have healthy balance sheets, so the global economic turmoil roiling many markets is not likely to have a significant impact on the mobile network infrastructure market, with a few exceptions in hard-hit regions mainly due to currency devaluation" said Stephane Teral, Infonetics Research. Traffic growth remains unabated and many networks are fairly loaded. China is in the midst of massive 3G rollouts, and India will soon follow, fueling the market in 2009. Infonetics market study found the following: - The worldwide mobile network infrastructure equipment market grew 6 percent to $50.8 billion in 2008 over 2007, and will continue to grow in 2009 and 2010. - Currency appreciation is havi...