Type of Article: MacTech Blog

Technology Business Research Inc.’s (TBR) 2H14 cloud customer research reports found end users globally are engaging cloud professional services vendors at twice the rate of private and public cloud vendors, indicating cloud professional services are typically the entry point as enterprises make the decision to migrate to cloud and consultants provide guidance and education to prospective cloud customers.

According to new data from the IDC (www.idc.com), the large format printer (LFP) market recorded year-over-year growth of 0.6% in the third quarter of 2014 (3Q14) with more than 78,000 units shipped. This marks the fifth consecutive quarter of worldwide shipment growth. Shipment value declined -4.0% year over year to nearly $782 million.

Video and visual technologies are becoming increasingly important for interacting with customers and each other, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). The research group predicts that by 2017, live video broadcasting will be the new “selfie” and recommends that product managers start creating a “visual” strategy straight away to accommodate this trend.

The total market for powered smart cards will rapidly expand from slightly under US$300 million today to more than $1.5 billion by 2017, $4.6 billion by 2019, and more than $13 billion by 2021, according to a new report from industry analyst firm NanoMarkets (www.nanomarkets.net).

In the third quarter of 2014, worldwide server shipments grew 1 percent year-over-year, while revenue moved upward 1.7% from the third quarter of 2013, according to Gartner (www.gartner.com).

“The third quarter of 2014 produced modest growth on a global level, highlighting positive but constrained demand,” says Errol Rasit, research director at Gartner. “Only North America and Asia Pacific exhibited shipments growth, largely driven by demand from hyperscale organizations located there. These results support the continued bifurcation of enterprise and consumer services server demand.”