NEEDHAM, Mass.—The International Data Corporation is predicting that worldwide spending on telecom services and pay TV services will increase by 1.4% in 2024 to a total of $1,530 billion, a slower rate of growth than 2023, when spending grew by 2.1% to $1,509 billion. 

IDC Worldwide Semiannual Telecom Services Tracker found that in terms of value, the progress of the global market slowed during the latter half of 2023 as the growth rate recorded for the full year was approximately one percentage point lower than IDC's previous forecast. 

This deceleration primarily resulted from slower-than-anticipated progress in the Americas, where a combination of sluggish economic growth, relatively high inflation, and saturated markets created an unfavorable environment for market development, the researchers explained. 

However, in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region, which faced similar economic issues but where telecom operators were allowed by the regulators to increase their tariffs in line with inflation using a Consumer Price Index (CPI) model, the market grew somewhat faster than expected.

More specifically, the Tracker found that in the Americas spending increased by only 0.5% from $571 billion in 2022 to $574 billion in 2023. 

Overall, the IDC is predicting that the five-year outlook for the global connectivity services market remains positive, albeit slightly less optimistic than the previous forecast. 

The study explained the outlook as follows: Key central banks in the U.S. and Europe have repeatedly postponed decisions to decrease reference interest rates, impacting the potential for a more robust economic recovery. Consequently, the market environment is expected to remain relatively unfavorable for several more years. Persistent inflation will continue to affect the purchasing power of end users but will also prompt many telcos to implement upward tariff adjustments. However, as inflation will continue to gradually decrease, the positive impact of these future tariff increases should diminish over time. The unstable political situation, fueled by conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, adds further uncertainty and is likely to dampen growth rates. In the Asia/Pacific region, slower growth can be attributed to the cooling down of the Chinese economy. Nevertheless, positive trends are anticipated due to expected healthy growth in India and other developing markets.

An analysis by service type confirms that well-established trends persist, even in the face of changes in top-line forecasts, the researchers added.The mobile segment continues to be the largest, driven by the growth in mobile data usage and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) applications. This growth offsets declines in spending on mobile voice and messaging services. Additionally, the fixed data services segment continues to grow due to the increasing demand for higher-bandwidth services. However, spending on fixed voice services is projected to deteriorate over the forecast period as the decline in traditional voice revenues is not fully compensated for by the increase in IP voice. 

Despite a slight decline in the Pay TV market due to the rising popularity of Video on Demand (VoD) and Over-The-Top (OTT) services, these offerings will remain an essential part of telecom providers’ multiplay services, the study found. 

"With the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics, the telecom operators have obtained a new powerful ally that should help them modernize their business operations and improve efficiencies," said Kresimir Alic, research director, Worldwide Telecom Services at IDC. "Our research has already identified a huge number of use cases including customer service chatbots, virtual assistants, and field technicians, as well as the usage of AI for network modernization and predictive maintenance, network traffic management, personalized marketing, fraud detection and prevention, churn predictions, and revenue assurance. These enhancements, together with many others that will be invented soon, should undoubtedly help telecom operators to streamline operations, enhance customer experiences, and stay competitive in this rapidly evolving industry."

NEEDHAM, Mass.—After more than two years of decline, worldwide tablet shipments posted modest year-over-year growth of 0.5% in the first quarter of 2024 (1Q24), totaling 30.8 million units, according to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. 

The IDC reported that the last time the market recorded growth was in the second quarter of 2021, after which shipments began to slow due to saturation. 

While macroeconomic issues persist, the researchers said, the rebound in shipments this quarter was driven by the start of a refresh cycle. Although long-term volumes are unlikely to match the surge seen during the pandemic, the shift towards premium tablets is a silver lining for the industry as consumers seek productivity-oriented devices.

"The tablet market started showing signs of recovery in the first quarter. The real gains will come from the next refresh cycle, followed by growth within commercial segments as more tablets are used in the education sector and the gig economy," said Anuroopa Nataraj, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. "However, these factors won't suffice as the attrition driven by competition from PCs and smartphones will contribute to a lackluster outlook for the tablet market. That said, there is potential upside driven by AI capabilities similar to what's expected in other device types."

In terms of individual companies, IDC reported that Apple faced a bit of a lull last year due to the poor economy and the absence of new models and declined 8.5% year over year. The company has focused on clearing out inventory of older models prior to the expected launch of new models in 2Q24. Apple managed to hold the number 1 position with 9.9 million units shipped in 1Q24.

Samsung ranked second with shipments of 6.7 million units in 1Q24, which was a year-over-year decline of 5.8%. Promotions from competing brands in Europe and Asia/Pacific and the lack of new products held back Samsung's growth. However, the company is focused on improving its user experience by including AI capabilities in its latest products and focusing on premium products to capitalize on this year's replacement cycle, the study noted. 

Huawei retained the third position this quarter with year-over-year growth of 43.6% and shipments of 2.9 million units. The Chinese tech giant likely benefitted from the resurgence of its smartphone business and managed to grow its market share by 2.8 basis points compared to 1Q23.

Lenovo ranked fourth this quarter with year-over-year growth of 13.2%. Like many other vendors, Lenovo has been able to grow its detachable portfolio since the pandemic, with its Tab P series models driving shipments. However, slate tablets still represent nearly 80% of Lenovo's shipments.

Xiaomi retained its spot in the top 5 with impressive growth of 92.6% year over year and shipments reaching 1.8 million units. Outside of China, which is its largest market, Xiaomi grew by triple digits across almost all regions where it ships, the IDC found. 

NEEDHAM, Mass.—While augmented reality and virtual reality gear has generally been a disappointing consumer category, the International Data Corporation (IDC) is reporting that as macroeconomic pressures eased and new products launched, the global market for augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets grew 130.4% year over year during the fourth quarter of 2023 (4Q23). 

The new data from the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Augmented and Virtual Reality Headset Tracker predates the launch of Apple Vision Pro, making it a particularly hopeful sign for the future of the category. 

But for the full year of 2023, shipments of AR/VR headsets were down 23.5% from 2022 levels. Macroeconomic uncertainty put downward pressure on demand during the first half of the year and most companies relied on legacy products that had already been available for at least a year, leading to double-digit declines. It was not until key regions began seeing economic recovery and new products were launched that the market started to rebound, but not enough to offset the first half declines, the researchers reported. 

"After losing share to Pico and later Sony a few quarters ago, Meta's share has been on a steady climb thanks to its ongoing subsidization of hardware and the launch of the Quest 3," said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager, Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers at IDC. "While Apple's entrance as well as newer devices from other vendors in this space certainly adds pressure, Meta's lead will likely remain unchallenged during the year as the company's low-cost, high-volume strategy will separate it from the rest of the pack."

NEEDHAM, Mass.—Worldwide tablet shipments declined 17.4% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2023 (Q4 2023), totaling 36.8 million units, according to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. 

This is the largest decline in fourth quarter tablet shipments since 2016. For calendar year 2023, worldwide tablet shipments totaled 128.5 million units, a decline of 20.5% compared to 2022 and the lowest annual volume since 2011.

Worldwide tablet shipments declined 20.5% year over year in 2023, totaling 128.5 million units, the lowest annual volume since 2011 according to preliminary data from the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker.

"With no significant improvements to the economy and consumers allocating their money to things beyond consumer electronics, tablets may not be very high on the priority list. Project delays and spending freezes have also led to purchase postponement through much of 2023," said Anuroopa Nataraj, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. "2024 is expected to show some rebound opportunities, provided the year is more economically sound. However, overall challenges remain in the tablet market, and technological advances around AI will likely focus more on the PC and smartphone for the next two years, but tablets will increasingly become part of that conversation."

Apple managed to retain its top spot in the tablet market, despite a notable decline in shipments for both the fourth quarter (-29.3%) and the full year (-19.8%). While this caused some erosion in Apple's 4Q23 market share, its full-year share was stable at more than 37% of the market.

Samsung remained in second place with somewhat better results and little change in its market share for the quarter and the year. Xiaomi and Huawei both saw solid growth in the fourth quarter – 35.0% and 21.2% respectively. Xiaomi’s aggressive marketing and expanding footprint worldwide helped the company to displace Amazon from the top 5 in 4Q23 while Huawei posted the best results among the top 5 companies for the full year, with shipments declining just 4.0% year over year.

NEEDHAM, Mass.—A recent forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC) highlights the growing tech importance of artificial intelligence by predicting that the worldwide AI software market will grow from $64 billion in 2022 to nearly $251 billion in 2027. That represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.4%. 

The new forecast is a notably upward revision from the IDC forecast of $279 billion in global 2027 revenue on October 31, 2023. 

The forecast for AI-centric software* includes Artificial Intelligence Platforms, AI Applications, AI System Infrastructure Software (SIS), and AI Application Development and Deployment (AD&D) software (excluding AI platforms). However, it does not include Generative AI platforms and applications, which IDC recently forecast will generate revenues of $55.7 billion in 2027.

A recent IDC survey found that, in the next 12 months, roughly a third of respondents believe that organizations will prefer to buy AI software from a vendor or use in-house support alongside vendor-supplied AI software for specific use cases or application areas. This indicates a growing demand for AI solutions and highlights the need for customized approaches based on individual business requirements.

"The momentum behind investments in AI and automation technologies remains unwavering despite economic uncertainty and shifting market dynamics. Businesses are realizing that utilizing cutting-edge technology is not only a strategic necessity but also a crucial factor in achieving long-term success. Despite potential challenges and risks, organizations are confident that adopting AI will continue to be crucial for future proofing their business operations and remaining ahead of the competition," said Raghunandhan Kuppuswamy, research manager, Artificial Intelligence and Automation Research at IDC.

AI Applications is currently the largest category of AI software, accounting for roughly one third of the market's overall revenue in 2023, the study found. 

The category includes collaborative, content workflow and management, enterprise resource management (ERM), supply chain management, production and operations, engineering, and customer relationship management (CRM) applications. Revenue growth in the AI Applications category will trail the overall market with a five-year CAGR of 21.1%.

The second largest category in terms of 2023 revenue is Artificial Intelligence Platforms. With the second fastest growth rate over the 2023-2027 forecast period (a 35.8% CAGR), AI Platforms will be the largest revenue category for most of the forecast. AI Platforms facilitate the development of artificial intelligence models and applications, such as intelligent assistants that can mimic human cognitive abilities, IDC reported. 

The two smallest categories – AI Systems Infrastructure Software (AI SIS) and AI Application Development and Deployment (AI AD&D) software – will both grow revenues faster than the overall market with five-year CAGRs of 32.6% and 38.7%, respectively. 

The IDC reported that the AI SIS category benefits from its integration with existing software systems, allowing organizations to derive valuable insights from vast amounts of data to make informed decisions and optimize operations. The category includes analytics, business intelligence software, data management, integration, orchestration, application development, software quality, life-cycle software, and application platforms. The AI AD&D category includes analytics and business intelligence software, data management, integration and orchestration, application development, software quality and life-cycle software, and application platforms.

"The AI landscape is changing rapidly. Convergence of traditional AI with Generative AI will lead to cutting-edge solutions that combine decision efficacy with creative ingenuity," said Ritu Jyoti, group vice president, Worldwide Artificial Intelligence and Automation market research and advisory services at IDC. "As businesses continue to invest in AI, they should be prepared to address challenges and prioritize ethical considerations to maximize the long-term ROI."

IDC defines artificial intelligence (AI) software as AI-centric software. AI-centric applications must have an AI component that is crucial to the application – without this AI component the application will not function. IDC also recognizes a second type of AI software – AI noncentric software. In AI noncentric applications, the AI component is not crucial or fundamental to the application. In other words, the application will function without the inclusion of the AI component. This enables the inclusion of applications that are enhanced by AI capabilities but not exclusively used for AI functions.

The IDC report, Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Software Forecast, 2023–2027 (IDC #US50027023), presents a forecast of the worldwide artificial intelligence (AI) software market for 2023–2027. The forecast provides forecast details for AI-centric and AI non-centric software as well as by technology category. The AI Applications category is further broken down into four sub-categories: content management and workflow, customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource management (ERM), and other AI applications. Revenue for three geographic regions and two deployment types is also provided.

More information is available at www.idc.com.  

NEEDHAM, Mass.—After reporting declining smartphone shipments for most of 2023, the International Data Corporation (IDC) is predicting that worldwide smartphone shipments are forecast to see 7.3% year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2023 (4Q23). 

IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker forecast for the holiday quarter follows the modest improvement in 3Q23 without further inventory buildup, which has led some channels and major OEMs to ramp up their business plans for the months ahead. 

IDC is also predicting that the market recovery will continue in 2024 with 3.8% growth expected, followed by low single-digit growth for the rest of the forecast period, resulting in a five-year compound annual growth rate of 1.4%.

Despite improved expectations for 4Q23, worldwide smartphone shipments are forecast to decline 3.5% year over year in 2023 to 1.16 billion units. The revised forecast for 2023 is an improvement over the decline of 4.7% forecast earlier in the year.

"The tide has finally turned and it feels safe to say the worst is behind us," said Nabila Popal, research director with IDC's Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. "While the rate of recovery varies across regions, the changed sentiment is most apparent in China, where consumers are finally coming out of their shells and spending on devices, fueled by the excitement from Huawei's resurgence, which is in turn expected to have a positive impact on the larger Android market in the long-term. More importantly, as we enter the new era of low single-digit growth and lengthened refresh cycles, it is clear the market is maturing. While the total available market will remain below pre-pandemic shipment levels throughout the forecast, the bright side is that average selling prices (ASPs) and market value will remain notably higher than before."

Smartphone average sale price (ASP) is also expected to rise by 5.5% in 2023 to $438, marking a fourth consecutive year of growth as the premium market continues to grow across all regions. However, ASP growth is expected to taper off and gradually decline to $396 by 2027, which remains higher than prior forecasts. 

From an operating systems (OS) perspective, iOS remains more resilient to macro challenges with 0.6% growth, achieving a record share of 19.6% this year, while Android is forecast to decline 4.4%. Over the long term, Android will grow slightly faster than iOS, increasing its share of the market to 81.3% by the end of the forecast period.

"Despite another lackluster year for smartphones, 5G adoption continues to be a bright spot in the overall market," said Anthony Scarsella, research director with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. "With 5G devices becoming less relevant in most developed markets, the growth of 5G in emerging markets will play a crucial part in the rebound next year and throughout the forecast period. Global 5G shipments are expected to grow 11% in 2023 and 20% in 2024. Moreover, the share of 5G smartphones will jump from 61% in 2023 to 83% by 2027. While the smartphone will witness a small 1.4% CAGR from 2022-2027, 5G shipments will demonstrate an impressive 11.1% growth rate for the same period."

NEEDHAM, Mass.—All the hype around artificial intelligence should translate into massive growth over the next few years according to a new forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC) that is predicting the worldwide artificial intelligence (AI) software market will grow from $64 billion in 2022 to nearly $251 billion in 2027. 

That amounts to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.4%. 

The IDC forecast for AI-centric software includes Artificial Intelligence Platforms, AI Applications, AI System Infrastructure Software (SIS), and AI Application Development and Deployment (AD&D) software (excluding AI platforms). 

Notably, however, it does not include Generative AI platforms and applications, which IDC recently forecast will generate revenues of $28.3 billion in 2027.

That separate IDC prediction for GenAI estimated that that enterprises will invest nearly $16 billion worldwide on generative AI (GenAI) solutions in 2023 and that spending on GenAI software as well as related infrastructure hardware and IT/business services will hit $143 billion in 2027.

A recent IDC survey also found that, in the next 12 months, roughly a third of respondents believe that organizations will prefer to buy AI software from a vendor or use in-house support alongside vendor-supplied AI software for specific use cases or application areas. This indicates a growing demand for AI solutions and highlights the need for customized approaches based on individual business requirements.

"The momentum behind investments in AI and automation technologies remains unwavering despite economic uncertainty and shifting market dynamics. Businesses are realizing that utilizing cutting-edge technology is not only a strategic necessity but also a crucial factor in achieving long-term success. Despite potential challenges and risks, organizations are confident that adopting AI will continue to be crucial for future proofing their business operations and remaining ahead of the competition," said Raghunandhan Kuppuswamy, research manager, Artificial Intelligence and Automation Research at IDC.

AI Applications is currently the largest category of AI software, accounting for roughly one third of the market's overall revenue in 2023. The category includes collaborative, content workflow and management, enterprise resource management (ERM), supply chain management, production and operations, engineering, and customer relationship management (CRM) applications. Revenue growth in the AI Applications category will trail the overall market with a five-year CAGR of 21.1%.

The second largest category in terms of 2023 revenue is Artificial Intelligence Platforms. With the second fastest growth rate over the 2023-2027 forecast period (a 35.8% CAGR), AI Platforms will be the largest revenue category for most of the forecast. AI Platforms facilitate the development of artificial intelligence models and applications, such as intelligent assistants that can mimic human cognitive abilities, the researchers reported. 

The two smallest categories – AI Systems Infrastructure Software (AI SIS) and AI Application Development and Deployment (AI AD&D) software – will both grow revenues faster than the overall market with five-year CAGRs of 32.6% and 38.7%, respectively. The AI SIS category benefits from its integration with existing software systems, allowing organizations to derive valuable insights from vast amounts of data to make informed decisions and optimize operations. The category includes analytics, business intelligence software, data management, integration, orchestration, application development, software quality, life-cycle software, and application platforms. The AI AD&D category includes analytics and business intelligence software, data management, integration and orchestration, application development, software quality and life-cycle software, and application platforms.

"The AI landscape is changing rapidly. Convergence of traditional AI with Generative AI will lead to cutting-edge solutions that combine decision efficacy with creative ingenuity," said Ritu Jyoti, group vice president, Worldwide Artificial Intelligence and Automation market research and advisory services at IDC. "As businesses continue to invest in AI, they should be prepared to address challenges and prioritize ethical considerations to maximize the long-term ROI."

IDC defines artificial intelligence (AI) software as AI-centric software. AI-centric applications must have an AI component that is crucial to the application – without this AI component the application will not function. 

IDC also recognizes a second type of AI software – AI noncentric software. In AI noncentric applications, the AI component is not crucial or fundamental to the application. In other words, the application will function without the inclusion of the AI component. This enables the inclusion of applications that are enhanced by AI capabilities but not exclusively used for AI functions.

NEEDHAM, Mass.—A new forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC) is predicting that enterprises will invest nearly $16 billion worldwide on generative AI (GenAI) solutions in 2023 and that spending on GenAI software as well as related infrastructure hardware and IT/business services will hit $143 billion in 2027.

The five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 73.3% over the 2023-2027 forecast period is more than twice the rate of growth in overall AI spending and almost 13 times greater than the CAGR for worldwide IT spending over the same period, the researchers said. 

"Generative AI is more than a fleeting trend or mere hype. It is a transformative technology with far-reaching implications and business impact," says Ritu Jyoti, group vice president, Worldwide Artificial Intelligence and Automation market research and advisory services at IDC. "With ethical and responsible implementation, GenAI is poised to reshape industries, changing the way we work, play, and interact with the world."

IDC expects GenAI investments to follow a natural progression over the next several years as organizations transition from early experimentation to aggressive build out with targeted use cases to widespread adoption across business activities with an extension of GenAI use to the edge, the report explained. 

"The rate of GenAI spending will be somewhat constrained through 2025 due to turbulence in workload shifts and resource allocation, not just in silicon but also in networking, facilities, model confidence, and AI skills," noted Rick Villars, group vice president, Worldwide Research at IDC. "Other factors that might constrain the expected rate of investment include pricing, concerns about privacy and security, and the possibility of an existential crisis that triggers major consumer antipathy or government interventions."

By the end of the forecast, GenAI spending will account for 28.1% of overall AI spending, up significantly from 9.0% in 2023. GenAI spending will remain strong well beyond the build out phase as these solutions become a foundational element in enterprises' digital business control platforms, the researchers reported. 

GenAI infrastructure, including hardware, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and system infrastructure software (SIS), will represent the largest area of investment during the build out phase, the IDC forecast predicted. 

But GenAI services will gradually overtake infrastructure by the end of the forecast with a five-year CAGR of 76.8%, the researchers predicted. The GenAI software segments will see the fastest growth over the 2023-2027 forecast with GenAI platforms/models delivering a CAGR of 96.4% followed by GenAI application development & deployment (AD&D) and applications software with an 82.7% CAGR.

More information is available here.  

When an organization has the ability to bounce back from a disruption, e.g., a power outage, natural disaster, or a cyberattack or ransomware attack, that ability to recover is referred to as being “data resilient.” Typically, data resiliency is framed within a disaster recovery (DR) plan and is best protected when its data is backed up regularly and stored in multiple locations.

Examples of data center (or private cloud) resiliency might include having server power supply redundancy, where each server’s power supply is duplicated to protect from failure of its primary supply; or at the extreme where there is a duplicated server (i.e., a “secondary” server) that is active or in a hot-standby mode and automatically takes over should the primary server fail.  

On a larger scale, data center redundancy is another resiliency option, with the same redundancy concept holding true at the level of the data center facility itself—that is, a portion (or all) of the data center is replicated on site or at an alternative location including the cloud.

Co-Lo Options
Colocation (also called “co-lo”), whereby organizations that support “hot sites” (readily primed to take over in the event the primary site is compromised), is another methodology for digital data resiliency.  

Data center colocation, aka “future-proof” allows your digital footprint to be replicated. In turn, this concept serves multiple purposes but most importantly, it allows the organization to scale faster and easier while providing flexibility and the ability to adapt quickly. It further enables you to take advantage of new opportunities without depending upon other “non-controlled” means (as in a short-term application using the cloud). 

Critically Safe
Your IT infrastructure is everything. Keeping it safe from natural disasters, threats and bad actors falls into the category of “critical services.” Modernizing a hybrid IT infrastructure not only improves performance (as in applications and services) but it allows the organization to unlock innovation, efficiency and cost savings. When critical services are finetuned through practices associated with resiliency, then connectivity is improved, reliability increases and faster responsiveness is achieved.

No matter where the data center is located, where you are or where you’re going, colocation can enable you to adapt to an ever-changing digital landscape. Flexibility constraints are reduced while resiliency is enhanced. Services become instantly scalable, enabling a flexible infrastructure with high-speed connectivity and proximity to partners and carriers.

International Data Corp. has identified some rationale as to why organizations should store more of the data it creates.

First, data is essential to any organization’s efforts to establish digital resiliency. Defined as “the ability for an organization to rapidly adapt to business disruptions by leveraging digital capabilities,” this applies not only to the restoration of operations, but it allows the organization to capitalize on changing conditions. Sometimes framed in part as a “digital operating model”—having an efficient environment enables digital resiliency because businesses are dependent on their data.

Second, digitally transformed companies (those who have adopted a digital operating model) use their data to develop innovative solutions for their future. Companies are quickly discovering that having more data not only helps affirm the direction they are heading, but also creates opportunities to launch new revenue streams.

Today, there are needs in the organization to monitor the pulse of their employees, customers and partners in order to retain a high level of trust and empathy that ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty. Data is the source for this pulse and those entities believe there is latent, potentially unmined value from analyzing both current and older data. 

However, the flip side is that the cost to store more (or all) data holds organizations back from modifying their data retention policies. Media is certainly a part of that “video hording” model, especially news organizations that never know when that one lone, exclusive story content would propel them forward. A deep “glacial” archive that could take hours to days to access is not the answer as the news mandate demands accessibility, given that no one knows when that “special clip” might need to be recovered, fast!

Never Enough Storage
There is a cost to pay for these capabilities, as IDC reported in a May 2022 forecast, which stated: “worldwide, the (circa 2021) global StorageSphere forecast for 2022–2026 would produce a base of 7.9 zettabytes (1 zettabyte=1 trillion gigabytes) of storage capacity at a base install cost of $370 billion.” However you read this, IDC sees total storage in excess of 175 ZB by 2025. Predictors speculated in 2021 that having this much storage “may still not be enough.” Furthermore, there may never be a known ending point for storage to stop growing, and no one knows what those numbers may really be.

Organizations are just now beginning to show a positive ROI on data analytics initiatives, especially with older data—lending to the need for a well-protected and resilient data management agenda. In support of this, a proven ROI (on analytics initiatives) would only amplify the need for storing more data or retaining data longer. Leveraging AI for active search and recovery of older information will certainly depend on the ability to access this older data—the question looming being: “How does this get paid for?” But that is a topic for another time…

The summation of all this data, whether it is created, captured or replicated, is called the “Global Datasphere,” and it is experiencing tremendous growth. IDC predicts that the Global Datasphere will grow from 33 ZB in 2018 to 175 ZB by 2025. Ironically, it is estimated that >30% of the 175 ZB of global data in 2025 will be generated in real time. In 2017, about 15% of that DataSphere was already real-time data. 

To keep up with the storage demands stemming from all this data creation, IDC forecasts that over 22 ZB of storage capacity must ship across all media types from 2018 to 2025, with nearly 59% of that capacity supplied from the hard disk drive (HDD) industry.

Equivalency is mathematically stated as 1,024 ZB = 1 Yottabyte (YB) with a yottabyte of storage taking up a data center the size of the states of Delaware and Rhode Island. A yottabyte is the largest unit approved as a standard size by the International System of Units (SI).

Enterprise Renaissance
The enterprise is fast becoming the world’s data steward… again. In the recent past, consumers were responsible for much of their own data, but their reliance on and trust of today’s cloud services, especially from connectivity, performance and convenience perspectives, continues to increase while the need to store and manage data locally continues to decrease. 

Moreover, businesses are looking to centralize data management and delivery (e.g., online video streaming, data analytics, data security and privacy) as well as to leverage data to control their businesses and the user experience (e.g., machine-learning, machine-to-machine only communication, IoT, persistent personalization profiling). The responsibility to maintain and manage all this consumer and business data supports the growth in provider cloud datacenters. 

As a result, the enterprise’s role as a data steward continues to grow, and consumers are not just allowing this, but expecting it. 

As recent as 2019, more data would be stored in the enterprise core than in all the world’s existing endpoints. (Reference: “The Digitization of the World – from edge to core”: an IDC white paper in November 2018). The diagram above shows the Data Hierarchy, adapted from the SNIA Dictionary 2023.

M&E Jump Start
According to IDC, “mankind is on a quest to digitize the world,” and one of the key drivers of growth in the core is the shift to the cloud from traditional datacenters. As companies continue to pursue the cloud (both public and private) for data processing needs, cloud datacenters are becoming the new enterprise data repository. In essence, the cloud is becoming the new core. In 2025 IDC predicts that 49% of the world’s stored data will reside in public cloud environments.

Not all industries are prepared for their digitally transformed future. So, to help companies understand their level of data readiness, IDC developed a DATCON (DATa readiness CONdition) index, designed to analyze various industries regarding their own Datasphere, level of data management, usage, leadership and monetization capabilities.

It examined four industries as part of its DATCON analysis: financial services, manufacturing, healthcare and media and entertainment.

Manufacturing’s Datasphere is by far the largest—given its maturity, investment in IoT and 24×7 operations, manufacturing and financial services are the leading industries in terms of maturity, with media and entertainment most in need of a jump start.

A Data Explosion
Every geographic region has its own Datasphere size and trajectories that are impacted by population, digital transformation progress, IT spend and maturity, and many other metrics. China’s Datasphere is on pace to becoming the largest in the world and is expected to grow 30% on average over the next seven years; by 2025, it will be the largest Datasphere of all regions (compared to EMEA, APJxC, U.S., and the rest of world) as its connected population grows and its video surveillance infrastructure proliferates. (APJxC includes AsiaPac countries, including Japan, but not China.)

Consumers are addicted to data, and more of it in real time, i.e., active or stored video from entities such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and more.  

You cannot hide from the data. More than 5 billion consumers interact with data every day; and by 2025, that number may be 6 billion or more. That equates to 75% of the world’s population. So, by 2025, each connected person will have at least one data interaction every 18 seconds. Many of these interactions are because of the billions of IoT devices connected across the globe, which by themselves, are expected to create over 90 ZB of data in 2025.

NEEDHAM, Mass.—International Data Corporation (IDC) has reduced its forecasts for the worldwide quantum computing market and is now projecting customer spend for quantum computing to grow from $1.1 billion in 2022 to $7.6 billion in 2027. This represents a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 48.1%. The forecast includes base quantum computing as a service as well as enabling and adjacent quantum computing as a service.

Quantum computing is in its early stages and represents a tiny slice of the overall computer market. The new lowered IDC projections reflect ongoing problems with developing the technology. 

"There has been much hype around quantum computing and when quantum computing will be able to deliver a quantum advantage, for which use cases, and when," said Heather West, Ph.D., research manager, research manager within IDC's Enterprise Infrastructure Practice. "Today's quantum computing systems may only be suitable for small-scale experimentation, but advances continue to be made like a drumbeat over time. Organizations should not be deterred from investing in quantum initiatives now to be quantum ready in the future."

If the technology can live up to expectations and costs can be reduced, quantum computing could have a number of applications in the broadcasting and entertainment industry, particularly for things like VFX and virtual production as well as AI, automation and network management that require a lot of processing power. 

The rollout of the technology would also pose problems for broadcasters and others, however, in the area of cybersecurity because current encryption technologies won’t be effective against hackers using the enhanced power of quantum computers. 

While the potential of the technology remains huge, the the new forecast is considerably lower than IDC's previous quantum computing forecast, which was published in 2021. 

IDC reported that customer spend for quantum computing has been negatively impacted by several factors, including: slower than expected advances in quantum hardware development, which have delayed potential return on investment; the emergence of other technologies such as generative AI, which are expected to offer greater near-term value for end users; and an array of macroeconomic factors, such as higher interest and inflation rates and the prospect of an economic recession.

IDC expects the quantum computing market will continue to experience slower growth until a major quantum hardware development that leads to a quantum advantage is announced. Until then, most of the growth will be driven by maturation in quantum computing as a service infrastructure and platforms and the growth of performance intensive computing workloads suitable for quantum technology.

IDC also expects investments in the quantum computing market will grow at a CAGR of 11.5% over the 2023-2027 forecast period, reaching nearly $16.4 billion by the end of 2027. This includes investments made by public and privately funded institutions, internal allocation (R&D spend) from technology and services vendors, and external funding from venture capitalists and private equity firms. 

Of particular note is the growing interest in quantum computing by global government agencies of which 14 (13 countries plus the European Union) have announced quantum initiatives that span multiple years and will generate billions of dollars for quantum computing research, the IDC said. 

The billions of dollars being allocated to the research and development of quantum computing have led to recent advancements in quantum computing hardware and software, as well as new error mitigation and suppression techniques. These advancements fuel speculation that achieving a near-term quantum advantage may be possible using today's noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) systems. Over the long term, these investments are expected to result in the delivery of large-scale quantum systems capable of solving some of the most complex problems that challenge today’s scientists and engineers, causing a surge in customer spend towards the end of the forecast period, the IDC. 

IDC also reported that 2022 was an eventful year in the quantum computing industry. 

Strategic approaches implemented to reach a near-term quantum advantage using NISQ systems became more defined as vendors published quantum computing road maps emphasizing methods for improving qubit scaling, as well as new techniques for error mitigation and suppression. To improve the accessibility and usability of quantum systems, previously inaccessible quantum modalities became accessible for end-user experimentation, while other quantum hardware vendors announced partnerships for on-premises quantum deployments and quantum software vendors provided frictionless software offerings for nonquantum specialists. Finally, quantum hardware and software vendors announced the anticipated launch of new scientific accelerator platforms that will help with the integration of quantum, AI, and HPC.

More information about the IDC report, IDC’s Worldwide Quantum Computing Forecast: 2023-2027: Surfing the Next Wave of Quantum Innovation (IDC #US49198322), is available here. 

NEEDHAM, Mass.—Spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud deployments, including dedicated and shared IT environments, increased 14.9% year over year in the first quarter of 2023 (1Q23) to $21.5 billion, according to the International Data Corporation. 

IDC’s “Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker: Buyer and Cloud Deployment” found that spending on cloud infrastructure continues to outpace the non-cloud segment with the latter declining 0.9% in 1Q23 to $13.8 billion. 

The cloud infrastructure segment saw unit demand down 11.4%, but average selling prices (ASPs) grew 29.7%, driven by inflationary pressure as well as a higher concentration of GPU-accelerated systems being deployed by cloud service providers.

Long term, IDC predicts spending on cloud infrastructure to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.2% over the 2022-2027 forecast period, reaching $153.0 billion in 2027 and accounting for 69.0% of total compute and storage infrastructure spend. 

According to IDC, spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud deployments, including dedicated and shared IT environments, increased 14.9% year over year in Q1 2023 to $21.5 billion.

The IDC tracker also reported that spending on shared cloud infrastructure reached $15.7 billion in the quarter, increasing 22.5% compared to a year ago. IDC expects to see continuous strong demand for shared cloud infrastructure, which is expected to surpass non-cloud infrastructure in spending in 2023. The dedicated cloud infrastructure segment declined 1.5% year over year in 1Q23 to $5.8 billion. Of the total dedicated cloud infrastructure, 44.5% was deployed on customer premises during the quarter.

For 2023, IDC forecasts cloud infrastructure spending to grow 7.3% compared to 2022 to $96.4 billion – a slight improvement from the prior outlook for the year of 6.9%. 

Non-cloud infrastructure is expected to decline 6.3% to $60.4 billion. Shared cloud infrastructure is expected to grow 8.4% year over year to $68.0 billion for the full year, while spending on dedicated cloud infrastructure is expected to grow 4.8% to $28.4 billion for the full year. The subdued growth forecast reflects the expectation that the market will face significant macroeconomic headwinds and curbed demand with cloud staying positive due to the drive for modernization, opex focus, and continued growth in digital consumer services demand, while non-cloud contracts as enterprise customers shift towards capital preservation.

"Cloud infrastructure spending remains resilient in the face of macroeconomic challenges," said Kuba Stolarski, research vice president for IDC's Infrastructure Systems, Platforms, and Technologies Group. "However, the segment is grappling with substantial price hikes and Q1 marked the second consecutive quarter of declining system unit demand. Although the overall outlook for the year remains positive, its growth hinges on the expectation that volume will drive it. Prolonged stagnation in demand could pose a significant obstacle to growth for the remainder of this year."

On a geographic basis, year-over-year spending on cloud infrastructure in 1Q23 increased in all regions except Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) (impacted by the Russia-Ukraine war), China, and Canada. Spending in CEE declined 27.1% year over year, while China was down 20.4%, and Canada declined 4.9%. 

Latin America, the United States, the Middle East & Africa (MEA), Japan, and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan and China) (APeJC) grew the most at 39.2%, 34.3%, 33.5%, 17.1% and 16.4% year over year, respectively, the IDC said. Western Europe grew at 7.4% year over year. For 2023, cloud infrastructure spending is expected to grow in all regions except CEE and Canada, with Latin America expected to grow fastest at 16.1%. All other regions (APeJC, Canada, Japan, Latin America, USA, and Western Europe) are expected to post annual growth in the 0-15% range.

Shared cloud infrastructure will account for 72.0% of the total cloud amount with an 11.9% CAGR and reaching $110.1 billion in 2027. Spending on dedicated cloud infrastructure will grow at a CAGR of 9.6% to $42.9 billion. Spending on non-cloud infrastructure will grow at a 1.3% CAGR, reaching $68.6 billion in 2027. Spending by service providers on compute and storage infrastructure is expected to grow at a 10.6% CAGR, reaching $148.2 billion in 2027.

More information is available here. 

NEEDHAM, Mass.—New data suggests that worldwide spending on the Internet of Things (IoT) is continuing to see rapid growth, with IoT spending set to jump by 10.6% in 2023 to $805.7 billion in 2023, according to a new International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Internet of Things Spending Guide. 

Investments in the IoT ecosystem are expected to surpass $1 trillion in 2026 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.4% over the 2023-2027 forecast period.

"The last few years have shown that connecting with a digital infrastructure is no longer a luxury, but a necessity," said Carlos M. González, research manager for the Internet of Things at IDC. "For organizations to excel in data-driven operations, investing in IoT projects is essential. Connecting devices to data networks to gather insight, expand operations, and increase performance are the hallmarks of executing an IoT ecosystem."

IoT investment is a key building block to supporting an increasingly digital and distributed organizational footprint and in recent years has been a focus of telco and cable operators seeking to offer smart home and security services to their broadband customers. 

The IoT Spending Guide explores spending for Video Analytics, which involved the use of of artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced algorithms to recognize, detect and analyze live or stored video feeds in a variety of uses, including business analytics, security surveillance, and other rapidly evolving adaptations of this technology. 

Video analytics requires IP networked capable cameras to support the advanced software whether embedded in hardware or provided by third party vendors, the IDC said.

IDC expects spending on Video Analytics solutions across all industries to be more than $23.5 billion this year. Future releases of the IoT Spending Guide will include additional broadly adopted use cases, such as smart buildings.

The IDC report notes that the largest use cases, however, are for Manufacturing Operations ($73.0 billion), Production Asset Management ($68.2 billion), Inventory Intelligence ($37.6 billion), Smart Grid (Electricity) ($36.9 billion), and Supply Chain Resilience ($31.6 billion). 

The IDC added that the use cases that will experience the fastest spending growth include: Electric Vehicle Charging (30.9% CAGR), Next Generation Loss Prevention (14.5% CAGR), Agriculture Field Monitoring (13.9% CAGR), and Connected Vending and Lockers (13.8% CAGR).

From a technology perspective, IoT services will be the largest area of spending in 2023 and through the end of the forecast, accounting for nearly 40% of all IoT spending worldwide, the researchers said. 

Hardware spending is the second largest technology category, dominated by module/sensor purchases. Software will be the fastest growing technology category with a five-year CAGR of 11.0% and a focus on application and analytics software purchases.

Western Europe, the United States, and China will account for more than half of all IoT spending throughout the forecast. Although Western Europe and the United States currently have similar levels of spending, Western Europe will expand its lead with an 11.0% CAGR over the 2023-2027 forecast, compared to an 8.0% CAGR for the United States. China's IoT spending is forecast to surpass the United States by the end of the forecast due to its 13.2% CAGR.

NEEDHAM, Mass.—International Data Corporation (IDC) has once again lowered its 2023 forecast for worldwide IT spending as technology investments continue to show the impact of a weakening economy. In its new monthly forecast for worldwide IT spending growth, IDC projects overall growth this year in constant currency of 4.4% to $3.25 trillion. This is slightly down from 4.5% in the previous month's forecast and represents a sharper decline from a 6.0% growth forecast in October 2022, the researchers said. 

"Since the fourth quarter of last year, we have seen clear and measurable signs of a moderate pullback in some areas of IT spending," said Stephen Minton, vice president in IDC's Data & Analytics research group. "Tech spending remains resilient compared to historical economic downturns and other types of business spending, but rising interest rates are now impacting capital spending."

After reductions to PC forecasts a month ago, IDC has now scaled back its expectations for some additional hardware categories including servers, wearable devices, and peripherals. Forecasts have been reduced for on-premise infrastructure investments by enterprise buyers, while cloud and service provider deployments remain more resilient overall, the researchers reported. 

Service provider spending is still weakening from last year's highs as the industry adjusts to slower post-COVID growth, but planned investments by cloud and hyperscale providers have broadly held up since last month, the IDC reported. Strong demand for cloud services continues to drive growth despite inflationary pressures but non-cloud spending is set to decline.

"The most significant impact remains concentrated in consumer markets with consumer IT spending now forecast to decline by 2% this year," said Minton. "This will be a second consecutive year of declining consumer tech spending, a huge change in fortunes from consumer growth of 18% in 2021. On the other hand, enterprise demand for cloud and digital transformation remains strong despite economic headwinds."

For the first time, this month's Worldwide Black Book forecast includes channel splits in the March 2023 update. This shows that while direct IT spending is expected to grow by 6.4% overall in 2023, indirect spending through channel providers will increase by just 2.5% as credit tightening affects smaller businesses and consumers in their ability to fund technology investments.

"Resellers that still derive much of their revenue from on-premise infrastructure and PCs are facing difficult market conditions this year," said Minton. "Meanwhile, cloud infrastructure, software, and services are growing more slowly than a year ago but continue to account for a larger share of total IT spending and are reinforcing the general sense of resilience which the industry still enjoys."

NEEDHAM, Mass.—A new forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Spending Guide highlights the growing importance of artificial intelligence technologies, particularly in the media industry. 

The IDC is forecasting that global spending on AI, including software, hardware, and services for AI-centric systems, will reach $154 billion in 2023, an increase of 26.9% over the amount spent in 2022. 

While other industries will have much larger investments in AI, IDC is forecasting that the fastest growth in AI spending will come from the Media industry with a five-year CAGR of 30.2%. 

Overall, IDC believes that the ongoing incorporation of AI into a wide range of products will result in a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.0% over the 2022-2026 forecast with spending on AI-centric systems expected to surpass $300 billion in 2026.

From a geographic perspective, the United States will be the largest market for AI-centric systems, accounting for more than 50% of all AI spending worldwide throughout the forecast. Western Europe will account for more than 20% of worldwide IT spending accompanied by a five-year CAGR of 30.0%, one of the fastest growth rates over the forecast period. The People's Republic of China will be the third largest AI market with the slowest growth rate (20.6% CAGR), the study found. 

"Companies that are slow to adopt AI will be left behind – large and small. AI is best used in these companies to augment human abilities, automate repetitive tasks, provide personalized recommendations, and make data-driven decisions with speed and accuracy," said Mike Glennon, senior market research analyst with IDC's Customer Insights & Analysis team. "Suppliers of AI technologies need to know which are the largest and fastest growing opportunities, but without data they become just another opinion. IDC's AI Spending Guide provides the foundation for marketing strategy through its comprehensive coverage of AI opportunities and gives a robust basis for a market focus that ties with companies' capabilities."

One indicator of how broad spending on AI-centric systems will be over the next five years is that only one of the 36 AI use cases identified by IDC will have a CAGR of less than 24% over the forecast period, the study noted. 

Three of the leading AI use cases in terms of spending focus on sales and customer service functions: Augmented Customer Service Agents, Sales Process Recommendation and Augmentation, and Program Advisors and Recommendation Systems. These three use cases will see investment from nearly every industry and combined will account for more than a quarter of all AI spending in 2023. 

The other use cases that will see the largest spending this year support a more diverse set of tasks: IT Optimization, Augmented Threat Intelligence and Prevention Systems, and Fraud Analysis and Investigation, the researchers reported. 

The two industries that will deliver the largest AI investments in 2023 and throughout the forecast are Banking and Retail. The next largest industry for AI spending will be Professional Services followed by Discrete and Process Manufacturing. Together, these five industries will account for more than half of all spending on AI-centric systems this year. 

NEEDHAM, Mass.—With the smartphone business recovering slower than expected, International Data Corporation (IDC) has revised its worldwide smartphone forecast downward and is now predicting that global shipments of smartphones will decline 1.1% in 2023 to 1.19 billion units. Previously it had forecast 2.8% growth for 2023. 

IDC’s latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker forecast noted that the market continues to suffer from weak demand and ongoing macroeconomic challenges. Real market recovery is not expected to occur until 2024, when IDC expects 5.9% year-over-year growth followed by low single-digit growth leading to a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.6%. 

"With increasing costs and ongoing challenges in consumer demand, OEMs are quite cautious about 2023,” said Nabila Popal research director with IDC's Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. “While there is finally some good news coming out of China with the recent reopening, there is still a lot of uncertainty and lack of trust, which results in a cautious outlook. However, we remain convinced the global market will return to growth in 2024 once we are past these short-term challenges as there is a significant pent up refresh cycle in developed markets as well as room for smartphone penetration in emerging markets to fuel stable long-term growth."

The researchers noted that 5G continues to grow and will account for 62% of smartphones shipped worldwide in 2023, rising to 83% by 2027. Market momentum also continues to build around foldable phones as the segment is expected to grow to nearly 22 million units this year – a 50% increase while the overall market contracts. This segment will continue to grow as costs decrease and more OEMs launch this form factor, as we have seen this week with multiple Android foldable launches at Mobile World Congress. 

Finally, smartphone average selling price (ASP) that saw rapid growth over the last few years (from $334 in 2019 to $415 in 2022) will begin to decline starting in 2023 and is expected to reach $376 by end of the forecast period.

"2023 is set to be a year of two halves with the first half piggybacking off the downhill slide from the fourth quarter of 2022," said Anthony Scarsella, research director with IDC's Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. "Most regions will face double-digit declines in the first half of the year, make a turn into positive territory in the third quarter, and then boost into double-digit growth in the last quarter of the year. We expect the influx of premium flagships that typically launch in the third and fourth quarters will keep the full year decline from being worse."

More details and data are available here.  

NEEDHAM, Mass.—An updated forecast for the worldwide smartphone market from International Data Corporation (IDC) is showing a larger decline in global smartphone shipments, with IDC projecting that global shipments will decline by 9.1% in 2022, a reduction of 2.6 percentage points from the previous forecast, to about 1.24 billion units in 2022. 

While a recovery of 2.8% is still anticipated in 2023, IDC did reduce its 2023 smartphone forecast by roughly 70 million units, given the ongoing economic worries and their impact on demand, the researchers said. 

"We believe the global smartphone market will remain challenged through the first half of 2023, with hopes that recovery will improve around the middle of next year and growth across most regions in the second half," said Ryan Reith, group vice president with IDC's Worldwide Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. "Rising costs are an obvious concern for the smartphone market and adjacent consumer technology categories, but we believe most of this reduced demand will be pushed forward and will support global growth in late 2023 and beyond. A device refresh cycle continues to build in many challenged emerging markets while developed markets have offset rising costs with increased promotional activity, more attractive trade-in offers, and extended financing plans. This has supported growth in the high-end of the market despite the economic headwinds."

5G continues to build out globally and will account for just over half of smartphones shipped worldwide in 2022, rising to 80% by 2026.

In addition, market momentum continues to build around foldable phones. While this category is only about 1-2% of the global market in 2022, it still accounts for roughly 15-16 million smartphones. This number will only grow as costs decrease and more OEMs get behind the form factor transition, IDC said. 

IDC is also predicting that global shipments of Android phones will grow by 3.1% to 1,036.9 million units in 2023 and hit 1,145.7 million by 2026.

Shipments of phones using Apple iOS will increase by 1.3% to 233.5 million units in 2023 and grow to 247.5 million by 2026

"Despite the market slowdown, average selling prices (ASPs) continue to grow as consumers opt for premium devices that can last three to four years as refresh rates elongate in both developed and emerging markets," said Anthony Scarsella, research director with IDC's Worldwide Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. "Smartphone ASPs are expected to grow for the third consecutive year as average selling prices will reach $413, up 6.4% from $388 in 2021. The last time the market witnessed ASPs surpass $400 was in 2011 ($425), when the market displayed over 60% shipment growth. Moreover, iOS unit share will reach 18.7% (the highest of any forecast year), which is a driving force behind the high ASP growth we currently see in 2022."

NEEDHAM, Mass.—Despite growing fears of a worldwide recession, the International Data Corporation has issued new forecasts predicting that the worldwide IT and business services market will weather the storm with 5.7% growth this year and 5.2% growth in 2023. 

Those figures are measured in constant currency, with lower growth rates of only 2% in 2022 in nominal dollar denominated revenue based on today's exchange rate.

Recently, a new forecast from Gartner also predicted growth in the IT sector in the face of a global slowdown. 

The 2022 market growth represents a slight increase of 12 basis points from IDC's April 2022 forecast. The five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is now projected to be 5.2%, compared to the previous forecast of 4.9%, the researchers reported. 

The growth projection for growth in the worldwide services market is notable against the backdrop of a global recession. 

Worldwide GDP growth has worsened since March/April and is now expected to grow by only 2.7% this year and 2.4% in 2023, based on August's figures, the IDC noted. 

After adjusting certain geographic and market segments accordingly, IDC researchers said they remain cautiously optimistic based on stronger than expected reported results from vendors in the first two quarters of this year (including revenues, bookings, and pipelines) and larger residual effects from the pandemic on the IT industry (i.e., hybrid workplace, cloud adoption, etc.).

This was coupled with healthy bookings and pipelines and the fact that firms have not yet lowered their revenue guidance significantly, the IDC reported. 

"While economic conditions for major economies around the world worsened in the last few months, given the services vendors' strong revenues, bookings, and other leading indicators, the worldwide services market will likely continue on its current growth trajectory," said Xiao-Fei Zhang, program director, IDC Worldwide Services Tracker program. "Also, the real threat to vendors may be from the supply side: with book-to-bill ratios above 1.1 or 1.15, attrition 25% plus, and utilization rate pushing close to 90%, something has to give. A cooler economy may actually help vendors to convert bookings to revenue faster by easing the labor market."

On a geographic basis, IDC has largely maintained its outlook for the Americas. Canada's long-term forecast remains intact, and the short-term growth rate was adjusted to reflect the speed of recovery among Canada's major vendors. Latin America's near-and-mid-term market outlook improved markedly this cycle: while still challenged by economic uncertainties and soaring inflation, major Latin American markets' economic conditions improved, thanks to rising commodity and energy prices. 

This is offset by a slightly weaker outlook for the U.S. market, where a recession will primarily impact business consulting – its five-year CAGR was adjusted down by almost 110 basepoints (from 6.2% to 5.1%). Overall, the U.S. market is still expected to grow 4% to 5% year over year in the coming years.

 NEEDHAM, Mass.—As broadcasters and media companies join many other industries embracing cloud-based technologies, the worldwide public cloud services market spiked by 29% in 2021 to $408.6 billion according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Tracker.

IDC defines those services as including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service – System Infrastructure Software (SaaS – SIS), and Software as a Service. 

Spending also continued to consolidate in 2021 with the combined revenue of the top 5 public cloud service providers (Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Salesforce Inc., Google, and SAP) capturing nearly 40% of the worldwide total and growing 36.6% year over year, the IDC said. 

With offerings in all four deployment categories, Microsoft captured the top position in the overall public cloud services market with 14.4% share in 2021, followed closely by Amazon Web Services with 13.7% share.

"Organizations continued their strong adoption of shared public cloud services in 2021 to align IT investments more closely with business outcomes and ensure rapid access to the innovations required to be a digital-first business," said Rick Villars, group vice president, Worldwide Research at IDC. "For the next several years, leading cloud providers will play a critical role in helping enterprises navigate the current storms of disruption (inflation, supply chain, and geopolitical tensions), but IT teams will also focus more on bringing greater financial accountability to the variable spend models of public cloud services."

SaaS Applications were the largest category in 2021, growing 23.5% to $177.8 billion. It was followed by IaaS, up 35.6% to $91.3 billion, SaaS System Infrastructure software, up 26.4% to $71.2 billion and PaaS, up 39.1% to 68.2%. 

"SaaS applications remain the largest and most mature segment of public cloud, with 2021 revenues that have now reached $177 billion,” said Eric Newmark, group vice president and general manager of IDC's SaaS, Enterprise Software, and Worldwide Services division. “The tailwinds of the pandemic continued to fuel expedited upgrades and replacements of older systems in 2021, though company goals haven't changed. Companies seek applications that will help increase enterprise intelligence, improve operational efficiency, and drive better decision making. Ease of use, ease of implementation and integration, streamlined workflows, data and analytical accessibility, and time to value are the key criteria driving purchasing decisions, though verticalization has also steadily increased as a key priority," 

NEEDHAM, Mass.—Despite uncertainty about inflation, global supply chain issues, Covid 19 and the war in Ukraine, the International Data Corporation (IDC) has released new forecasts showing that worldwide IT and business services revenue is expected to grow by 5.6% (in constant currency) in 2022.

IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Services Tracker reports that the 2022 market growth represents an increase of 160 basis points (or 1.6%) from IDC's October 2021 forecast. 

The improved market view reflects robust 2021 bookings and pipelines by several large services providers, an improved economic outlook (compared to the previous forecast cycle), and inflationary impact on the services market, offset slightly by the negative impact of the Ukraine/Russia conflict, the researchers said. 

IDC also is predicting that the market will continue to expand throughout the next few years at a rate of 4-5%, representing an overall increase of 40 to 80 basis points each year, pushing the market's long-term growth rate to 4.6%, up slightly from the previous forecast of 4.3%.

"In this forecast cycle, IDC services analysts have looked at short-term impacts, such as pent-up demand and the Ukraine/Russia conflict, as well as more structural ones, such as adoption of public cloud, the talent crunch, inflation, data security/residency/sovereignty, and more," said Xiao-Fei Zhang, program director, IDC Worldwide Services Tracker program. "Based on our analysis, we adjusted our outlook accordingly at the market level."

"However, at the individual vendor level, services providers will need to brace for more volatility," Zhang continued. "On the heels of a global pandemic, enterprise buyers face another black swan event in 2022, which will accelerate large global trends, such as remaking the global supply chain and value chain and exacerbating the talent crunch by changing demographics. We should expect more of 'the unexpected' in the years to come. During the last two years, the services providers who succeeded were the ones who have proven to be resilient partners helping their clients thrive in change. This has always been the constant force to drive growth in the services market."

Within the IT and business services markets and across all regions, cloud-related services spending has been the main growth accelerator since 2020, the researchers said. IDC forecasts it to continue to grow close to 20% year over year in 2022 and between 15% to 20% over the next three years.

The Americas services market is forecast to grow by 5.3% in 2022, up 150 basis points from the October 2021 forecast (in constant currency.) 

The IDC attributes this to a faster economic rebound and the impact of inflation. IDC believes that the trend will continue in the short-term: 2022 and 2023 growth rates were adjusted up by 150 and 100 basis points, or around 4% year-over-year growth for the next five years.

The outlook for the U.S. market has also been also adjusted up by 160 and 80 basis points for 2022 and 2023, respectively, the IDC reported but the long-term U.S. growth prospect remains largely unchanged.

The IDC's mid- to long-term growth prospects for Canada and Latin America improved marginally. Both regions will continue to see recovery well into 2022 and 2023. Latin America's near-term growth outlook is further lifted by the commodity price rally since March.

The 2022 growth forecast for EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) was raised by more than 220 basis points.

IDC has reduced the Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) forecast significantly due to the conflict in the Ukraine. It expects the CEE services market to grow only by 5.5% and 7.3% in 2022 and 2023, respectively, down from our previous forecast of 9-10% growth. Russian and Ukraine markets will shrink significantly this year.

But, Western Europe's near-term growth forecast has been adjusted up: IDC now forecasts the region to grow by more than 6% in 2022, up by 280 basis points from our last forecast. The improved outlook is largely due to the EU's revised 2022 GDP outlook at the end of the end of 2021 (prior to the Ukraine/Russian crisis). IDC continues to see EU-funded investments driving services spending. Inflation also contributed to nominal growth, although to a smaller degree.

This was partially offset by the Ukraine/Russia conflict. IDC believes that the crisis will dampen Western Europe's mid-term market growth but will be offset by other drivers. 

The Middle East & Africa's (MEA) growth prospects for 2022 and 2023 have also been raised by 250 and 100 basis points, respectively. 

Asia/Pacific's growth outlook improved by 0.9 percentage points in 2022, largely due to PRC (China) and other developed Asian markets (i.e., Australia, Japan, Singapore, Korea, etc.). 

The forecast for China's market growth has been adjusted up to 6.4% and 8% for 2022 and 2023. While China's GDP growth is expected to cool down, IDC believes that digital transformation remains central to the country's long-term "new infrastructure" initiatives, which will further drive services spending in both the public sector and strategic industries such as BFSI, manufacturing, and energy.

NEEDHAM, Mass.—A new report from IDC is predicting massive growth in spending on artificial intelligence in the U.S., with outlays for AI tech spending doubling to $120 billion by 2025, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.0% over the 2021-2025 forecast period. 

The researchers also believe that all 19 U.S. industries profiled in the latest Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Spending Guide from International Data Corporation (IDC) will deliver AI spending growth of 20% or more. 

The U.S. accounts for more than half of all AI spending worldwide.

The media sector was one of the industries forecasted to have the fastest growth, with professional services, media, and securities and investment services, all forecast to have CAGRs greater than 30%.

"The greatest potential benefit for the use of AI remains its use in developing new business, and building new business models," said Mike Glennon, senior research manager with IDC's Customer Insights & Analysis team. "However, existing businesses are hesitant to embrace this potential, leaving the greatest opportunities to new market entrants that have no fear of change and can adapt easily to new ways of conducting business. The future for business is AI and those companies that can seize this opportunity could easily become the new giants."

Retail will remain the largest U.S. industry for AI spending throughout the forecast while Banking will be the second largest industry, the IDC said. Together, these two industries will represent nearly 28% of all AI spending in the United States in 2025 and will account for nearly $20 billion of the amount added to the U.S. total over the forecast.

NEEDHAM, Mass.—The booming demand for artificial intelligence is expected to continue in 2022 and 2023, with a new IDC forecast predicting that worldwide revenues for the artificial intelligence (AI) market, including software, hardware, and services, will grow 19.6% year over year in 2022 to $432.8 billion and break the $500 billion mark in 2023. 

“AI has emerged as the next major wave of innovation," explained Ritu Jyoti, group vice president, Worldwide Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation Research at IDC. "AI solutions are currently focused on business process problems and range from human augmentation to process improvement to planning and forecasting, empowering superior decisioning and outcomes. Advancements in language, voice and vision technologies, and multi-modal AI solutions are revolutionizing human efficiencies. Overall, AI plus human ingenuity is the differentiator for enterprises to scale and thrive in the era of compressed digital transformation."

The IDC Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker is predicting that AI Services will deliver a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22% while the CAGR for AI Hardware will be 20.5%.

In the AI Software category, AI Applications accounted for 47% of spending in the first half of 2021, followed by AI System Infrastructure Software with around 35% share.

In terms of growth within the Software category, AI Platforms are expected to perform the best with a five-year CAGR of 34.6%. The slowest growing segment will be AI System Infrastructure Software with a five-year CAGR of 14.1%.

Within the AI Applications segment, AI ERM is forecast to grow the fastest over the next several years relative to AI CRM and the rest of AI Applications. Among all the named software markets published in the Tracker, AI Lifecycle Software is forecast to see the fastest growth with a five-year CAGR of 38.9%.

In the AI Services category, AI IT Services enjoyed 20.4% year-over-year growth in the first half of 2021 with worldwide spending reaching $18.4 billion. This growth is forecast to improve to 22% in 2022 and remain there through the end of the forecast period. AI Business Services are not far behind in terms of growth with a five-year CAGR of 21.9%. 

By 2025, IDC expects overall AI Services spending to reach $52.6 billion. 

"AI remains a key driver of IT investment, which in turn boosts spending on related services to ensure sustainable adoption at scale," said Jennifer Hamel, research manager, Analytics and Intelligent Automation Services. "Client demand for expertise in developing production-grade AI solutions drives IT services expansion, while the need to establish the right organization, governance, business process, and talent strategies spurs spending on business services."

Relative to Software and Services, the AI Hardware category grew the most in terms of market share in the first half of 2021 with a jump of 0.5% share. It is forecast to reach 5% market share in 2022 with year-over-year growth of 24.9%. AI Storage saw stronger growth relative to AI Server during the first half of 2021. However, this trend will be reversed in 2022 with AI Server expected to see 26.1% growth compared to 19.7% growth for AI Storage. In terms of spending share, AI Server holds the lion's share of the category at over 80%. 

"Of all the spending in the various AI market segments, AI Hardware is by far the smallest," said Peter Rutten, research vice president, Performance Intensive Computing at IDC. "What this should tell organizations is that nickel-and-diming purpose-built hardware for AI is absolutely counterproductive, especially given the fast-growing compute demand from increasing AI model sizes and complexities."

The IDC Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker provides spending data and vendor share for the global AI solutions market on a semi-annual basis. AI revenues for over 750 companies are included in the Tracker and the data is available for 27 countries and five rest-of regions. 

NEEDHAM, Mass.—Spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud infrastructure, including dedicated and shared environments, increased 6.6% year over year in the third quarter of 2021 to $18.6 billion, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) “Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker: Buyer and Cloud Deployment.”

The growth resumes the trend of net positive year-over-year spending growth per quarter, which saw a pause in Q2 2021 when spending decreased 1.9%. 

That slight decline followed seven quarters of year-over-year spending growth that started in Q3, 2019 and included 38.4% growth in Q2 2020 as the first global pandemic wave prompted a spike in investments in cloud services and infrastructure. 

The IDC also reported that spending on shared cloud infrastructure reached $13 billion, an increase of 8.6% compared to Q3 2021, and a 6.6% increase from the previous quarter. 

This returned the sector to a trend of year-over-year growth since 4Q 2019 that was interrupted in Q2. In contrast, an exceptionally strong 2Q 2020 that saw spending increase 55.1% driven by the spike in demand for public cloud services in the first months of the pandemic, IDC said. 

IDC expects to see continuously strong demand for shared cloud infrastructure with spending surpassing non-cloud infrastructure spending in 2022. 

The IDC also reported that spending on dedicated cloud infrastructure increased 13.4% year over year in Q3 2021 to $5.6 billion, the highest year-over-year increase since Q1 2019 with 45.5% of this amount deployed on customer premises. IDC expects that spending on cloud environments will continue to outpace non-cloud spending throughout its forecast.

For the full year 2021, IDC forecasts cloud infrastructure spending to grow 8.3% compared to 2020 to $71.8 billion, while non-cloud infrastructure is expected to grow 1.9% to $58.4 billion after two years of declines. 

Shared cloud infrastructure is expected to grow by 7.2% year over year to $49.7 billion for the full year. Spending on dedicated cloud infrastructure is expected to grow 10.7% to $22.2 billion for the full year.

Long term, IDC expects spending on compute and storage cloud infrastructure to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.4% over the 2020-2025 forecast period, reaching $118.8 billion in 2025 and accounting for 67.0% of total compute and storage infrastructure spend. 

Shared cloud infrastructure will account for 70.9% of this amount, growing at a 12.7% CAGR. Spending on dedicated cloud infrastructure will grow at a CAGR of 11.5%. 

Spending on non-cloud infrastructure will rebound in 2021 but will flatten out at a CAGR of 0.5%, reaching $58.6 billion in 2025. 

Spending by service providers on compute and storage infrastructure is expected to grow at a 1.3% CAGR, reaching $115.4 billion in 2025.

NEEDHAM, Mass.—The global market for artificial intelligence (AI) software, hardware, and services is estimated to grow 15.2% in 2021 to $341.8 billion, according to the latest release of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker.

IDC is also predicting massive 18.8% growth in 2022, with the sector on track to break the $500 billion mark by 2024. 

Software is by far the largest of the AI tech categories, accounting for 88% of the market. 

Within the AI Software category, AI Applications has the lion's share at nearly 50% of revenues, IDC reported. 

In terms of growth, however, AI Platforms has the strongest with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33.2%. 

The slowest will be AI System Infrastructure Software with a five-year CAGR of 14.4% while accounting for roughly 35% of all AI Software revenues. 

"Disruption is unsettling, but it can also serve as a catalyst for innovation and transformation,” said Ritu Jyoti, group vice president for AI and Automation Research at IDC. “2020 was the year that accelerated digital transformation and strengthened the value of enterprise AI. We have now entered the domain of AI-augmented work and decision across all the functional areas of a business. Responsible creation and use of AI solutions that can sense, predict, respond, and adapt at speed is an important business imperative."

The AI Services market was estimated at $19.4 billion in 2020, representing the fastest growth relative to hardware and software. For 2021, it is forecast to grow at 19.3%. Over the next five years, it is expected to enjoy the best CAGR at 21%. Overall, AI Services is expected to be a $50 billion market by 2025, the research company said. 

"AI has emerged as an essential component of the future enterprise, fueling demand for services partners to help organizations clear the many hurdles standing between pilot projects and enterprise AI," said Jennifer Hamel, research manager, Analytics and Intelligent Automation Services at IDC. "Client demand for expertise in developing production-grade AI solutions and establishing the right organization, platform, governance, business process, and talent strategies to ensure sustainable AI adoption at scale drives expansion across both IT services and business services segments."

AI Hardware is the smallest category with 5% share of the overall AI market. Nonetheless, it is forecast to grow the fastest in 2021 at 29.6% year over year. It is also expected to hold the best growth spot in 2022. Over the next five years, its CAGR is estimated at 19.4%. 

"The market for AI servers and storage was less impacted than anticipated by the COVID-19 pandemic and is now rapidly picking up steam again, especially at the edge," said Peter Rutten, research director, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and Technologies at IDC. "The infrastructure of choice is coalescing around massively parallel compute using co-processors and server clusters with fast interconnects and networks."

The IDC Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker publishes AI vendor share and market forecast data on a semi-annual basis. For more information about IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker, visit www.idc.com.  

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.—Augmented and virtual reality are expected to get a shot in the arm in 2020 to the tune of $18.8 billion in global spending.

That forecast comes from a report by International Data Corporation and its “Worldwide Augmented and Virtual Reality Spending Guide.” If the $18.8 billion figure comes true, it would represent a 78.5% growth over the $10.5 billion IDC projects as the final figure for 2019. This would be the start of what IDC sees as growing spending habits until 2023, as the organization is projecting a five-year compound annual growth rate of 77%.

A key for the growth of the AR/VR market, per IDC, is the declining cost of entry. Commercial industries are expected to use the technology primarily for training (projected $2.6 billion in spending) and industrial maintenance ($914 million). On the consumer side, it will be VR gaming ($3.3 billion) and VR feature viewing ($1.4 billion). Public fields are also expected to see significant growth in spending, especially in post-secondary and K-12 education and onsite assembly and safety.

“Across enterprise industries, we are seeing a strong outlook for standalone viewers play out in use case adoption,” said Marcus Torchia, research director, Customer Insights & Analysis. “Enterprises will drive much of these high-end headset adoption trends. In the consumer segment, more affordable viewer models for gaming and entertainment purposes will see the broadest industry adoption.”

In terms of what these companies will be buying, hardware is expected to account for nearly two-thirds of AR/VR spending over the five-year period, followed by software and services. Services will include systems integration, consulting services and custom application development.

U.S. projected spending ($5.1 billion) in 2020 is expected to trail only China ($5.8 billion). The U.S. and Western Europe are the two regions expected to see the fastest growth—104.2% CAGR for the Western Europe and 96.1% for the U.S.

More information on the report can be found on IDC’s website.

Dateline 2014—at the time, the “digital universe” was growing at a phenomenal 40 percent annually and expected to continue “on into the next decade.” At the time, that growth rate reflected conglomerate sets of data that not only included people and enterprise, but included the relatively new term “Internet of Things (IoT).”

To a broadcast engineer, the term IoT used to mean “inductive output tube”—an alternative to the klystron, and both referencing transmitting tubes used in high-power TV transmitters, the latter in analog television and the former a most cost-effective device, which emerged full strength during the ATSC transition.

The modern day IoT may have equally as broad an impact for society as it did for the digital TV broadcast marketplace. The Internet of Things has propelled storage demands and solutions (including the object store) into the next universe, aiding and changing the perspective and dimensions of “big data” forever.

COMPREHENDING THE ZETTABYTE ERA

When the IDC conducted its study in 2014, they predicted the volume of unstructured data created and copied all over the world would reach 44 zettabytes (1 zettabyte = 2 to the 70th power bytes), i.e., 44 trillion GB, annually, by 2020. By perspective, just a year before that 2014 IDC prognostication, the amount of data created and stored in 2013 sat at a mere 4.4 trillion GB per year. If correct, the amount of data growth is outpacing Moore’s Law, and will increase tenfold in six years.

Ironically, according to that IDC report, the amount of useful data (if tagged and analyzed) grew by a much lesser amount. In 2013, only 22 percent of the data accumulated in the digital universe was considered “useful”—that is, it was relevant because it was meaningfully tagged or categorized and was searchable and retrievable.

By the year 2020, the IDC prediction reported in April 2014 stated that only 37 percent of the data collected will be useful because of that same criteria.

USELESS DATA RETENTION

So why do we continue to store data that isn’t useful? The simple answer: “Because we can.”

Irrespective of how, where, when or why we create this mass of data, we find that most companies, enterprises or individuals collect and save literally everything because, fundamentally, there isn’t the time to sort, catalog or even physically hit the delete key once the data is collected. On the personal level, think of how many VHS tapes or compact discs or DVDs you still have in boxes or on shelves in the basement or the attic.

Putting those collections into today’s perspective, all those memories are essentially just another set of data. If we digitized all those analog VHS tapes into compressed ones and zeros, we’d still have enormous sets of data that would likely remain unmanageable, ignored and probably lost in the digital quagmire of never-never land.

At least while in a tape format there was a storage container (the wrapper), information about the content (the metadata) and an easy methodology to catalog the content by orderly arrangements on shelves, boxes or with a 3x5 card catalog or even a digital picture of the box.

EXPONENTIAL EXPANSION

Production companies, news organizations, broadcasters all generate enormous amounts of data. The volumes continue to expand exponentially and will likely end up in the “no-where’s-land” of the digital landfill. For today, this enterprise digital repository is now an ambiguous, unknown depot that might be one of many ubiquitous “clouds”—some on premises, some in that atomic number 26 mountain place, some in a public cloud, and a lot more of it ending up in privately managed datacenters scattered around the globe.

For how long and what purpose do organizations intend to keep that data? It’s relatively inexpensive to hide those bits in a cloud and nearly zero cost to keep it there—until you want to retrieve it. However, to get meaningful use out of those bits, you needed to catalog it. Otherwise, you must pull it all down from the cloud, store it again (locally) and then search through it to find something usable.

For an enterprise of any size, this takes labor—which costs money. And that’s a resource that doesn’t grow automatically, like the data you and your friends and their friends are generating every second of the day.

INTELLIGENT DATA STORAGE

When you consider the daily couple of billion pieces of data “about” you, your friends and their friends, too, you can see the storage challenges which entities like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and the other social media or shopping platforms have on their hands. The difference is these companies have figured out how to intelligently collect the data, identifying each piece using artificial intelligence algorithms that are, incidentally, developed either by their own organization or acquired by buying another company with that expertise. Across each social group, they will cross-relationship every piece of their data and then store it in one-to-many of their “private” clouds—which are liberally dispersed data centers interconnected by networks based upon volumetric accessibility per region.

Their data is never stored just once. Instead, it is replicated multiple times for accessibility, protection and resiliency. How each organization diagnostically and dynamically protects that information and makes it nearly instantly retrievable is their secret sauce.

Yet today, some of the concepts and principles which social media companies have developed for their own applications are now becoming available to individuals and organizations. The goal in these products is to start diminishing the “uselessness” of the data by applying intelligent metadata that can then utilize more conventional search engine approaches for cataloging and retrieving those assets. These new AI-based approaches now differentiate the future from the more traditional legacy media asset management methodologies.

STRUCTURING THE UNSTRUCTURED

What we’ve learned by collecting huge sets of information about known places around the world is now supporting machine learning techniques that create accurate metadata tagged not just to a single image, but to an entire generation of data sets grouped as objects. Such information may use the angle of a shadow which then identifies a time of day, which, when coupled to a geographic (GPS) location, gives more information about the season or the atmospheric conditions. People in images can now be related to their siblings or parents, based upon data sets generated from favorites or albums. Road signs, window lettering on buildings, and other distinguishing characteristics add to the databases about the actual surroundings where that image, and those of others, were collected. What was heretofore considered useless information is now branded and repurposed by machines which “look” for this data and then catalog it without any direct human intervention.

Using these new autonomous techniques, every time a new piece of content (still image, sound or video) enters a system equipped with these technologies, the system turns that previously “unstructured” data into “structured” data that is then cataloged not just as a single image, but as collections of data sets bound into a global storage platform.

These are the roots of where we’re headed as the future of storage becomes an indirect, unsuspecting model that makes potentially useless data valuable again, for all.

Karl Paulsen is CTO at Diversified (www.diversifiedus.com) and a SMPTE Fellow. Read more about this and other storage topics in his book “Moving Media Storage Technologies.” Contact Karl atkpaulsen@diversifiedus.com.