Type of Article: MacTech Blog

From artificial intelligence to the Internet of Things (IoT), far-reaching innovations are unfolding in virtually every technology sector around the globe, continuing to change the way consumers, businesses and machines interact while also spurring the next revolution in tech market growth, according to a new white paper from IHS Markit (www.ihsmarkit.com), which specializes in critical information, analytics and solutions for the major industries and markets that drive economies worldwide.

Advances in various technologies will drive users to interact with their smartphones in more intuitive ways, said Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). The research group predicts that, by 2019, 20% of all user interactions with the smartphone will take place via virtual personal assistants (VPAs).
“The role of interactions will intensify through the growing popularity of VPAs among smartphone users and conversations made with smart machines,” said Annette Zimmermann, research director at Gartner.

A new study from International Data Corporation (IDC) highlights IT spending trends by size class in Western Europe. The study shows that IT spending in Western European SMBs will exceed $130 billion by 2020.

The SMB segment represents a third of the total IT market, despite the relative fragility of smaller companies and their relatively small IT budgets. There will be a downward trend at the start of the forecast period that will bottom out in 2017, but then IT spending will start to increase, albeit slowly.

Smartphones offering resistance against water damage (and other liquids) grew 45.2% year on year in the first nine months of 2016 in Western Europe, while shipments of non-water–resistant smartphones declined 17% in the same period, acc. Water resistant smartphones reached 22.5 million units in the period to represent 23% of the total number of smartphones shipped in 2016 to date, according to IDC (www.idc.com).

The rapid pace of technological and societal change has given government CIOs a new sense of urgency and a willingness to experiment with smart city and open data initiatives, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). If managed effectively, this shift will position governments at the core of technological innovation in society, adds the research group.