The consumer Internet of Things (IoT) market is crowded and complex, with several market segments that organizations must consider when…
My colleagues and I spend a great deal of time thinking about the Edge, and how it will influence developments in the IT industry over then next few years. Several of my colleagues just published a great IDC Market Perspective, making it clear that we believe the edge represents a new frontier in the convergence of infrastructure such as computing and data to deliver much faster time to value.
A little more than a year ago I was gifted a smart speaker by a friend for Christmas. At the time I was suspicious of installing an always-listening device in my home and had no streaming subscriptions or other smart home devices. Fast forward 12 months and I’m excited to say that I now have several smart speakers throughout my house that allow me to stream my favorite music on demand. Best of all, since they allow me to control other devices with just my voice, I also have a host of smart home devices ranging from robot vacuums to lights and cameras and streaming sticks to name just a few.
It’s my favorite time of the year – the moment when our Global IoT Decision Maker results come back from the field. We’ve been fielding this primary research study for 6 consecutive years, and this year we captured feedback from our biggest sample yet. This year we have inputs from almost 5,000 IoT decision makers in more than 25 countries. The dataset is rich with perspective on deployments, including the challenges and successes these organizations are experiencing. But this year, we are diving deeper into the key metrics they are using to measure success as well as their perspectives on how to truly monetize the IoT.
With Halloween now firmly in the rear view mirror, I – along with numerous retailers – am turning my attention to holiday shopping. Naturally, the tech fan in me expects all number of smart compute devices to make it on many consumers’ lists from tablets to smartphones, from PC’s to smart speakers, and even some of the emerging products like AR/VR and drones.
IDC has been tracking technology spending in the Worldwide Black Book since the 1980s, and you’d be forgiven for thinking there are fewer surprises and unexpected statistics today. The technology industry is now a much more mature sector of the global economy, even compared to as recently as the early 2000s.
Overall IT spending may be more predictable than in the past, as an increasing share of end-user tech spend moves from volatile Capex to relatively stable Opex thanks partly to the growth of cloud and mobile, but the key to gaining competitive advantage still lies in being first to recognise significant shifts, anomalies and surprising trends. Here are just five of them.
Today, enterprises are outsourcing their logistics business process services primarily to lower operating costs and transportation costs, which is not an atypical benefit sought after when outsourcing any business function. Beyond the main driver of cost savings, enterprises are challenged to manage customer expectations by improving product delivery and order visibility, managing risk and compliance, and continuously meeting SLA’s.
Seven years ago, I embarked on my smart home journey, although I didn’t know it at the time. Being an avid gamer and student in college, I subscribed to a broadband internet service and setup my wireless home network. This allowed me to compete in online video games through my gaming console, connect my laptop to the internet, and stream movies on my tablet. What I didn’t realize back then was that I had just laid the necessary infrastructure in my home to support a lifestyle of comfort, convenience, security, and cost savings that I would come to enjoy seven years later.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly revolutionizing how enterprise organizations work, and technology budgets are increasingly reflecting the need for IoT investment. At least $3.1 billion of IT consulting services and $11.2 billion of systems integration services will be consumed building and implementing IoT solutions worldwide in the next three years. Organizations recognize that today’s faster pace of business and their desire for digitally enhanced business transformation means a bigger technology budget.