A recent Vanson Bourne research finds two-thirds of UK IT directors seeing little alternative to going offshore. 67% of UK IT Directors are ignorant of any alternative solutions to offshoring, Vanson Bourne says.

Between the Lines reports on Merriam-Webster’s most popular words for 2004. The report is based on the number of lookups for specific word definition on Merriam-Webster Web site.

1. blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration

A September study by the Online Publishers Association found that 18- to 34-year-olds are far more apt to log on to the Internet (46%) than watch TV (35%), read a book (7%), turn on a radio (3%), read a newspaper (also 3%) or flip through a magazine (less than 1%).

Kelsey Group researched local businesses ad buying habits. Only 3.8% of local business survey respondents reported buying paid inclusion in online business directories, 2.1% reported vertical online directory inclusion buys, 1.9% utilized pay-per-click, and 1.7% used search engine optimization. By comparison, 31.7% purchased listings in the print Yellow Pages, 14% purchased inventory in print newspapers, 10.9% said they maintain a Web site, and 9.4% utilized direct mail. JupiterResearch predicts that local search spending will remain below $1 bln through 2009, while paid search is expected to hit $5.5 bln by then.

The top categories of investment for US corporations were: 36% money markets, 21% bonds and notes, 15% commercial paper, repos and certificates of deposit, and 9% fixed income and bond funds, according to Treasury Strategies.

The disk storage market in Central and Eastern Europe (Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Slovakia) grew by 22.5% in revenue to $418.10 mln in 2003 and is expected to expand a further 17.5% in 2004. According to IDC, unit shipments rose by 12.8%, while terabyte capacity surged by 27.7% last year. As storage technology continues to improve, the rate of memory growth will exceed that of shipment growth. This year, while IDC expects shipments to increase by just under 21%, terabyte capacity will rise 31.5%.

Direct attached storage (DAS) dominated the disk storage market in Central and Eastern Europe last year, accounting for more than 55% of total disk storage revenue and over 74% of capacity. This figure includes DAS for both internal and external systems, with internal DAS accounting for more than three times as much capacity but only around 19% more revenue. In contrast, external storage systems - such as storage area networks (SANs), network attached storage (NAS), and external DAS - represented 69.2% of disk storage revenue in 2003 but only 41.4% of capacity in 2003.

The Media Audit surveyed the senior population in 80 urban markets and found out that the percentage of population that is aged over 50 is on the increase. Moreover, the affluent income groups experienced growth as well, with 11.4% of the survey respondents earning over $100,000 a year.

Increase in Wealth Among the 50 Plus Age Group (% of Group)

Source: The Media Audit

The IT market in Russia reached 5.4 bln euros in 2003 and is expected to grow by 26% in 2004, according to IDC. By 2008, Russian spending on IT is expected to exceed 13 bln euros. In 2003, Russia enjoyed a period of unprecedented economic growth that fueled spending in both the business and consumer segments of the IT market. The government sector accounted for the largest share of IT spending in Russia. Process manufacturing and agriculture, construction and mining tied for second, with the home vertical a close fourth. Altogether, these verticals represented almost 48% of IT spending in Russia in 2003.

Mobile gaming is emerging as one of the fastest-growing and most popular applications in India’s digital consumer economy, reports In-Stat/MDR. Gaming is quickly expanding beyond traditional devices, such as PCs and handhelds, and an increasing number of Indian consumers are taking advantage of wireless mobility to enjoy entertainment on the go. As a result, the high-tech market research firm expects that the Indian mobile gaming market will generate $26 mln in revenue in 2004, and will increase to $336 mln in annual revenue by 2009.

Currently, the Indian mobile gaming business represents approximately 5% of the world mobile gaming market. The Indian mobile gaming industry is presently in its infancy, with half a dozen major game developer companies, and four service providers, actively providing games to their subscriber bases. While gaming services are only one part of carriers’ portfolios of value-added services, today’s CDMA and GSM networks clock, on average, 220,000 downloads per month.

Flat-panel TVs represent less than 10% of the 29 mln TV sets to be sold to dealers in 2004. Of the flat-panel sales, 73% are LCD TV sets and 27% are plasma models.

According to October data from comScore Media Metrix, AOL and AOL.com together saw 85 mln visitors; Mapquest snared 35 mln; AIM racked up 27 mln; CNN nabbed 23 mln; Netscape scored 17.5 mln, and Moviefone had 8 mln.

Instat-MDR estimates total worldwide sales revenues for network-based IP VPN equipment in 2003 to be $267 mln. Edge routers accounted for 51% of total sales of network-based IP VPN equipment in 2003, and multiservice switches and IP services switches had quite similar market shares. Network-based IP VPN services move VPN intelligence to the edge of the network, as opposed to initiating tunneling at the CPE, as with CPE-based VPN services. Most leading service providers offer at least one network-based IP VPN service for their business customers.

To meet the growing demand from businesses to outsource security, edge router, IP services switch and other vendors are layering on more security services into their products, in addition to supporting IP VPN services. Some equipment vendors are also offering gateway services to connect remote users with IPSec and SSL clients to corporate sites on layer 3 or layer 2 VPN services.

NPD Group reports that consumers likely to buy a cell phone in the next 12 months will be looking for features such as longer battery life, caller ID, changeable ringtone, color screen, voice-activated dialing, a built-in still camera, short text messaging, and email. The analysts say some 28% of likely buyers also want Internet access or web browsing capabilities, and 18% want a built-in PDA organizer. 74% of Americans now use a cell phone on a daily basis. However, lest manufacturers think handset usage is ubiquitous, 26% of Americans still do not use a handset today, indicating there is still a significant market for first-time buyers, as reported by Tekrati.

Children between the ages of 2 and 11 viewed 36% more Web pages in October 2004 than October 2003, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Girls in that age group increasingly turned to instant messaging sites, while boys were drawn to entertainment sites. All Internet users also viewed more Web pages this year than last, but only by 2%.

Sony delivered 1 mln consumer digital cameras in Q3, only 10,000 more than Kodak, IDC said. Canon ranked third with 800,000 shipments, followed by Olympus with 585,000. Other major camera makers include Fuji, HP and Nikon. IDC estimates that 24 mln digital cameras will be sold in the United States in 2004, up from nearly 17 mln in 2003, and sales could jump to $8 bln from $5.7 bln.

In October, 40.2% of online time was spent on content sites. Although that figure represented more time spent than in any other category, it was down slightly from a 40.8% share in September. After content, users spent the most time at communications sites, which garnered a 39.8% share–followed by e-commerce, with 15.8%, and search, with 4.3%.

Nielsen/NetRatings ranked top online properties for current events and news.

Top Online Current Events & Global News Destinations

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