Of eBay’s 114 million registered users, roughly 90% are buyers, auction industry officials said. Standard & Poor’s said that the auction dropoff industry would sell about $14 million worth of items on eBay in 2004, but that figure was expected to grow.
Gartner says 440K of Windows XP-powered Tablet PCs shipped in 2003, 600K will ship in 2004 and roughly 900K in 2005.
IDC found that 14.3% of medium to large Australian organisations already have an IP telephony system deployed, with another 47% planning to implement one in the next three years. Cisco and Telstra have the biggest mindshare as equipment vendors, according to the survey, with 86% and 38% respectively.
India is likely to lose market share in offshore business process outsourcing (BPO), from its current 80% to about 55% by 2007, according to research firm Gartner Inc.
U.S. technology spending is projected to rise 7% in 2004 and continue at about the same rate through 2008, according to results of a survey released Monday that also showed improved optimism on outlays in the sector. Over the next four years, Forrester projects spending on computer hardware will post a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 9%. Growth in computer hardware will peak at 14% next year and then level off, the researcher predicted.
Yankee Group predicts dramatic growth in broadband and digital TV, driving the global consumer services market to more than $475 billion by 2008. The forecast demonstrates that global broadband household penetration, 3.4% in 2002, will rise to an impressive 16% by 2008. The survey summary notes the great variability of what is deemed ?broadband? across the globe - the average customer in Europe getting 512 Kbps, while in Japan or Korea, 6 Mbps is not unusual. In the United States, where most customers are accessing broadband via cable modem, 1.5 Mbps is the typical speed.
Just 8.9% of tech workers willingly left their jobs last year, says an Aon Consulting survey of 595 of the world’s best-known tech firms, including Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Intel. The numbers do not include workers who are laid off. In 2003 11.2% of the workforce left jobs involuntarily, compared with 20.3% in 2001, when the tech bubble burst. Only 1.6% of the companies Aon surveyed have a hiring freeze; 29% are hiring normally - a big change from the tight years. Salaries and bonuses are up for every category of employee.
According to the Yankee Group VoIP will have close to 1 million subscribers by year-end 2004, and serve 17.5 million U.S. households by year-end 2008, growing from 131,000 at year-end 2003. Although Vonage dominates the market, cable MSOs will take the lead quickly. Cable MSOs will capture 56% of the U.S. local VoIP market by year-end 2005, while market share for the alternative voice provider category will decrease from 66% in 2003 to 19% in 2005. VoIP will drive cable telephony efforts and surpass circuit-switched cable telephony in 2006; by 2008, cable MSOs? share of the local telephony market will reach nearly 10%.
Techtarget.com conducted an annual survey of salaries in the information technology field. The results are published in TechTarget’s SearchStorage magazine, so the editors discuss the repercussions for the database and storage experts, proudly noting that their reprensentatives are earning more money. Meanwhile, here’re the highest-paid technical jobs in IT.
The Open eBook Forum trade group tallied e-book sales of $3.23 mln for Q1 2004 - a mere rounding error compared to the multibillion-dollar market for paper books. But that figure marks a 28% jump YTY, suggesting that e-books are on track to meet optimistic forecasts for the year.
Revenues for automatic identification and data collection (AIDC) manufacturing shop-floor application software will approach $135 million by 2007. The Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for global shipments of manufacturing/shop floor control AIDC application software (Percent of Dollars, 2002-2007) includes Pharmaceuticals (12.4%), Electronics (9.1%), Food and Beverage Products (9.0%), and Automotive (8.9%).
VDC survey of retail IT execs found Linux in barely 2% of the POS (point of sale) systems, compared with 43% for Windows, 19% for various proprietary/in-house customized operating systems, 17% for IBM (primarily AS/400), 9% for various Unix flavors and 10% that didn’t answer. VDC found that bar-code label generation software sales hit $76 mln last year, with an 11% annual growth rate projected through 2007. It also found that the breakdown between off-the-shelf bar-code software and customized in-house versions remains fairly evenly split (53% were off-the-shelf and 47% custom).
More than 140,000 call center jobs will vanish from the United States over the next four years as companies seek to lower customer service costs by shipping work to Canada and other countries with lower labor costs, according to Datamonitor. The number of American call centers will decline 6% by 2008, from 50,600 today to 47,500. At the same time, Canada will sprout 800 new ones, along with 93,000 new call center agent jobs, the report says.
The Ziff Davis Digital Gaming in America survey found that 26% of gamers had cut their TV watching over the last year, and a further 20% expect to do so this year. Television ratings provider Nielsen Media ignited a storm of controversy among network executives last fall when it reported a 7.7% decline in prime-time viewing by men aged 18 to 34. Nielsen cited growing competition from video games and DVDs. Studies have shown that the average game player is 29 years old. The research also found that game players are not just sitting in their living rooms. Half said they play games on their cell phones, for an average of 4.4 hours a week. They also spent an average of $19 in the last 60 days on phone games, the study found.
IDC claims Ukraine is one of the most dynamic markets in EMEA region, that managed to grow 82.4% in 2003. The growth by market segments comprised 82.5% for desktops, 99.9% for laptops and 52.6% for servers. Five leading manufacturers produced 50% of all the PCs sold in Ukraine in 2003. Market share leaders are e.Verest (13.1%), Kvazar-Micro (11.6%), Navigator (10.0%), Versiya (6.7%) and Diawest (6.7%). Ukraine is very different from the other EMEA countries, since the Gartner report names such global brands as HP, Dell and Fujitsu-Siemens to be the leaders in EMEA PC market.
Despite rampant piracy, the packaged software market in China will more than double in the next five years to $5.81 billion, according to IDC. Packaged software market in China will grow at CAGR of 22.4% from 2004 to 2008.
As better devices and lower prices combine with other factors to fuel growth and meet demand, smartphone shipments are set to rise dramatically over the next five years, reports In-Stat/MDR. According to the high-tech market research firm, smartphone shipments will experience a 44% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) over the next five years.
However, the big breakout period for these products is still about 12 to 18 months away. Yet, according to Neil Strother, a Senior Analyst with In-Stat/MDR, “This doesn?t mean that this year is not an important one. As this segment builds there are many things worth knowing in order to take advantage of these business opportunities.” Some of the reasons why smartphones are taking off include smaller form factors, falling prices on select devices, better integration of voice, e-mail and Personal Information Manager functionality, a growing variety of devices, and increasing demand from business users looking for integrated voice and data devices.
However, this segment does face some hurdles, such as price, size, lack of 3G networks, battery life, and security concerns. But, Strother is optimistic, “Most of these hurdles can, and will, be solved, and the smartphone’s best days are just around the corner.”
In a recent survey of users, only 9% had a smartphone. In the same survey, Sprint PCS respondents showed the greatest willingness to pay more for a smartphone as their next wireless phone. Symbian-based smartphones will dominate over the next 5 years. Microsoft’s platform will be second by 2006.
Worldwide revenue for service provider routers and switches topped $1.43 bln in Q2 2004, up 2% from Q1 2004 and 31% from Q2 2003, according to Infonetics Research. The analysts project worldwide revenue to reach $8.5 bln in 2007, a CAGR of 15% from 2003.