Digital Lifescapes

How companies pay each other is important. All enterprises need access to effective B2B (Business to Business) payment systems in order to compete effectively. So, what's changed, given the current economic environment? The payments market has been the target of disruption. That said, despite the introduction of new innovations, traditional payment methods are still dominant in the B2B marketplace. It's a highly challenging financial system for many businesses, with a lack of transparency causing difficulties for decision-makers. Traditional commercial bank transfers are not fast enough to make B2B payments management a streamlined process. In the cross-border arena, these challenges are magnified due to high costs. Furthermore, the slow digital transformation of B2B payments means that established systems are unable to cope with the current global pandemic. Therefore, the B2B payments ecosystem must evolve. B2B Payments Market Development According to the latest wo...

The public cloud market has shown renewed enterprise IT investment. Meanwhile, converged systems' growth continues. Worldwide converged systems market revenue increased 4.5 percent year-over-year to $3.9 billion during the first quarter of 2020 (1Q20), according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). "The overall converged systems market showed resilience during a difficult macro environment in the first quarter of 2020," said Sebastian Lagana, research manager at IDC . While the hyper-converged system market expanded, the 'Certified Reference Systems & Integrated Infrastructure' segment posted its best quarter of growth since the second quarter of 2019 (2Q19) on the strength of sales for demanding workloads in industries such as healthcare and telecommunications. Converged Systems Market Development Regarding market segmentation, the IDC converged systems view includes three vendor segments: certified reference systems ...

The global pandemic has created many ongoing challenges for IT vendors and public cloud computing service providers. That said, there are also numerous opportunities for compelling new technology use cases and associated digital transformation solutions. Cloud computing and secure storage platforms should be as close to the source of customer data as possible. That's why 'edge computing' is gaining market momentum with fifth-generation (5G) wireless communications, which form a symbiotic association for infrastructure evolution. Edge computing will drive new revenue growth in the telecom sector. Revenue from cloud-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chipset sales will grow from $2.6 billion in 2020 to $12 billion in 2025, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36 percent, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. Edge Computing and 5G Market Development The synthesis of cloud-edge and 5G presents an opportunity for communications service prov...

Server virtualization was one of the key steps toward further IT infrastructure abstraction. Every enterprise CIO and CTO knows that managing a server farm is problematic. That's why the quest for container and serverless platforms is driving more organizations to reassess their data center. Cloud container management revenue will grow from a small base of $465.8 million in 2020, to reach $944 million in 2024, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Among the various sub-segments, public cloud container orchestration and serverless container offerings will experience the most significant growth. Here are the study findings. Container Management Market Development Container management provides software and related services that support the ongoing operation of containers, at scale, in production environments. But production applications are uncommon. "There has been considerable hype and a high level of interest in container technology, but a lower ...

Intelligent fleet tracking of commercial vehicles requires online connectivity tools and management software, which enables fleet managers to track driver behavior, as well as vehicle location and route. Asset tracking solutions enable enterprises to track cargo from dispatch to final destination -- with increased transparency and more accurate delivery dates. Commercial logistics is the activity of transporting those goods to customers and involves the tracking of related assets. The Fleet Tracking and Logistics market is now driven by the introduction of new technologies. Edge computing brings computation and some data storage closer to the location where it is needed, therefore improving response times and reducing communication network latency. Fleet Tracking and Logistics Market Development Edge computing is the fusion of cloud-based storage and local computing, where the cloud stores centralized data assets, while locally-connected devices can perform the real-time comput...

Across the globe, more CEOs and their leadership team now say that business process automation has become a key driver of their organization's digital growth. Moreover, a survey of more than 2,000 Information Technology (IT) and Line of Business (LoB) decision-makers confirms that the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is growing rapidly. Over a quarter of all AI initiatives are already in production and more than one third are in advanced development stages. Besides, organizations are reporting an increase in their AI technology investment this year, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Artificial Intelligence Market Development Delivering a better customer experience was identified as the leading driver for AI adoption by more than half the large companies surveyed. At the same time, a similar number of survey respondents indicated that the greatest impact of AI is helping employees to improve productivity. The stud...

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...

Data and analytics technology will help to accelerate renewal, drive innovation and rebuild society over the next three to five years. Savvy digital business leaders will leverage their ongoing IT investment that enables recovery and reinvention. Gartner has identified the key data and analytics trends that can help forward-looking CIOs and CTOs navigate their essential digital transformation and prepare for a post-pandemic marketplace. "To innovate their way beyond a post-COVID-19 world, data and analytics leaders require an ever-increasing velocity and scale of analysis in terms of processing and access to succeed in the face of unprecedented market shifts," said Rita Sallam, vice president at Gartner . Business leaders should examine the following trends to accelerate adoption: Smarter, Faster, More Responsible AI By the end of 2024, 75 percent of organizations will shift from piloting to operationalizing artificial intelligence (AI), driving a five times increas...

The concept of a Digital Twin is important within the industrial sector, as stakeholders throughout the supply chain ecosystem seek to harness technology to increase efficiency. Digital Twins are also essential elements of the evolving Internet of Things (IoT) platforms market. Examples of these virtual connected objects include connected cars, airplane turbines, smart cities, and commercial buildings. The objects are usually first created and modeled via computer-aided-design (CAD) software, which is used by engineers in the early stages of product development. Digital Twin Market Development IT innovations, such as Big Data analysis, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), software analytics and cloud solutions -- as well as the growing demand for sensors to capture and process data -- have been significant drivers for the adoption of Digital Twin use cases. According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the forecast total global spending on Digit...

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...

More CIOs and CTOs are seeking actionable insight from the new technologies that are driving digital transformation within the industrial and manufacturing sectors. Manufacturing plants generate mountains of data throughout the day, every day. That data is a valuable asset. Traditionally, data has been noted on paper or analyzed in spreadsheets. However, today it can be collected automatically via sensors and analyzed with tools that far exceed spreadsheet capabilities. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, manufacturers and industrial companies will be spending $19.8 billion on data management, data analytics, and associated professional services by 2026. Data Management and Analytics Market Development "For many manufacturers, there is an appreciation that operational decisions need to be based on empirical evidence rather than guesswork. The challenges are not necessarily capturing and analyzing data, rather what to analyze in the first place,...

Mobile messaging is evolving. Traditional services include offerings such as carrier SMS, as well as over-the-top software app-based services. Now new offerings based on the Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging standard, and in-application AI chatbots, may disrupt that legacy market. RCS is a next-generation mobile messaging standard supported by mobile network operators that enable media-rich content and payment services. Juniper Research has forecast that total revenues from RCS traffic in North America will reach $712.8 million during 2020. North America will drive 28 percent of total messaging revenue in 2020 -- due in part to the adoption of RCS messaging, and the supporting efforts of the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI) which is a joint venture between AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. While CCMI will initially focus on U.S. market deployment, the technology developed by the joint venture will eventually be available in the broader worldwide mobile co...

Even the most reluctant CEOs have discovered that supporting their remote workers was less disruptive than they anticipated. Moreover, productivity often increased as jubilant workers were freed from the noise and other distractions at their employer's poorly designed open-plan offices. Short audio or video conference meet-ups have replaced the typical 1-hour long mind-numbing in-person meetings that were common at many enterprises prior to the pandemic. Legacy business leaders that were not previously Agile converts have now embraced these online collaboration tools. It's amazing. Conferencing Solutions Market Development Global end-user investment on cloud-based web conferencing solutions will grow 24.3 percent in 2020, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Global workplace restrictions spurred by the coronavirus pandemic will expand the cloud conferencing user base throughout 2020, but growth may actually taper off in 2021 as the lasting effects...

Many senior executives are resolute in their commitment to increasing business technology investments. The C-suite continues to support the strategic projects that CIOs and CTOs are championing within their organization. Cloud and edge computing are still gaining momentum. Spending on the digital transformation (DX) of business practices, products, and organizations will continue at a solid pace despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Global spending on DX technologies and services is forecast to grow by 10.4 percent in 2020 to $1.3 trillion. While this is slower growth than the 17.9 percent in 2019, it remains one of the few bright spots in a year characterized by dramatic reductions in overall IT spending. Digital Transformation Market Development "COVID-19 has upended the global economy, with direct negative implications on the way businesses invest in IT," sa...

Mobile communication service providers have started to build out fifth-generation (5G) wireless network infrastructure. There are many use cases for this new technology. What benefits will 5G bring to the media and entertainment industry? One example: 5G will empower cloud-based entertainment on the go. While 2019 has seen the first deployments of 5G in the consumer domain, 2020 will be the year of large scale commercial 5G rollouts across the globe. As a result of this network investment, 5G generated revenues for cloud-based entertainment services are forecast to rise rapidly. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, 5G alone will contribute revenues of almost $1.9 billion to cloud gaming -- accounting for 42 percent of overall cloud gaming revenues, as well as $67.5 billion in cloud video -- accounting for 31 percent of cloud video revenues by 2024. 5G Edge Computing Market Development "These numbers underline the growing demand for cloud-based en...

Banking relationships are important to financial service providers. Traditionally, a banking relationship could reasonably be expected to last a customer's lifetime. However, the introduction of online and mobile banking has fundamentally altered expectations, disrupting the legacy banking business model. Measures to increase competition and make switching accounts easier have eroded friction, while the commoditization of services in the U.S. market has led to reductions in profit margins. Moreover, following the introduction of open technologies, APIs have begun to be a disruptive force in banking. APIs enable different systems to share data and initiate transactions, which can simplify the creation of new financial service offerings. This has helped to facilitate the Open Banking phenomenon. Open Banking Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the total number of Open Banking users -- who share data via Open Banking APIs to a...

Healthcare services in the United States are notoriously expensive when they are compared to other developed nations. Some of the high cost is due to inefficiency in the delivery of routine procedures. Like other industries, America's healthcare sector is exploring the application of new technology. Half of U.S. healthcare providers will invest in robotic process automation (RPA) in the next three years -- that's up from 5 percent this year according to the latest market study by Gartner. The need to optimize costs and scarce healthcare resources during the pandemic is advancing RPA adoption. Robotic Process Automation Market Development Healthcare providers are caught in a perfect storm of shrinking payments, improving outcomes, enhancing the patient experience and bolstering innovation credentials. However, many Americans are very sick. And, treating and managing chronic conditions and mental health consumes nearly 90 percent of the $3.3 trillion in U.S. healthcare spen...

Digital data growth is already an ongoing challenge for many enterprise organizations across the globe. That said, the global pandemic has accelerated the digital data deluge, with a surge in video-based content, and other emerging trends that will fuel additional growth in 2020 and 2021. More than 59 zettabytes (ZB) of data will be created, captured, copied, and consumed in the world this year, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). The COVID-19 pandemic is contributing to this growth by causing an increase in the number of remote employees, and that's fueled more adoption of video conferencing applications and a significant increase in streaming video webcasts or events. Digital Data Analytics Market Development IDC measures the amount of data created and consumed in the world each year. The ratio of unique data (created and captured) to replicated data (copied and consumed) is roughly 1:9 -- but the trend is a slow migrati...

Some technology sector M&A activity is relatively immune to market disruptions. The robotics industry received significant investment in 2019, reaching $46 billion. A total of $17.8 billion went to acquisitions and a further $29 billion went into investments, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research. Most of the funding was focused on autonomous passenger vehicles (APV’s), surgical robotics, and warehouse automation, with significant new growth for field robotics and drone services. Robotics Technology Market Development "Despite not having commercialized their technology, autonomous passenger vehicle developers like Waymo, Cruise, Zoox and company have continued to amass enormous funding from the corporate and VC world," said Rian Whitton, senior analyst at ABI Research . Surgical robots also received significant new funding, and have already been commercialized to a considerable extent, with Intuitive Surgical selling over 5,000 Da Vinci ro...

The internet continues to fuel the Global Networked Economy as more innovators develop and deploy their digital business offerings. Global trade will be enhanced by trusted online entities that ensure their peer-to-peer network transactions are secure and verifiable. Frost & Sullivan has completed a worldwide market study of a blockchain-enabled world, laying out a long-range view of potential industry impacts as IT vendors race to build the foundations of the next-generation internet. Blockchain Applications Market Development "Existing IT systems are not fit-for-purpose when it comes to addressing the most pressing systemic problems of our time. Enterprises are being forced to adapt to complex structural change as the technology industry undergoes a paradigm shift that undermines long-held assumptions," said Maya Cotton, industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan . According to their assessment, all organizations and institutions will be challenged to keep track o...