Spending on enterprise application software (EAS) in Slovakia soared more than 33% in 2005 to over $35 mln and is expected to rise by almost 18% in 2006 as the country’s economy continues to grow. SAP again dominated the Slovak EAS market, holding on to first place with more than 50% share of total market revenue, IDC says.

Automotive telematics and navigation (including both hardware and services) will experience strong growth in several world regions, generating in total revenues of $38.3 bln in 2011, according to ABI Research.

Western European mobile phone market, consisting of traditional mobile phones and converged devices, grew by 7% YTY in Q2 2006 as shipments reached 41.4 mln units compared to 38.5 in Q2 2005.

51% of US consumers are interested in acquiring backup generation for their primary residence in the next two years, and almost the same fraction (47%) express interest in baseload generation (i.e., on-site generation equipment to provide all of the power for the home on a regular basis), Energy Insights reports. US households purchased a record 1.7 mln backup generators from April 2005 through March 2006 for their primary residences. When asked to identify the top three reasons for interest in acquiring baseload generation equipment, survey respondents cite “worries about outages or blackouts” (72%) as number one. “Saving money on energy bills” (67%) and “independence from electric utility” (40%) rank second and third respectively. Despite consumers’ outage anxiety, findings reveal only 7% of US households currently have an on-site generator, most of which are portable models that are exclusively used during power outages and need to be manually started.

80% of insiders who launched attacks on their companies had exhibited negative behaviors before the incident, United States Secret Service reported. 92% had experienced a negative work-related event, such as a demotion, transfer, warning or termination. At the time of the incident, 59% were former employees or contractors, while 41% were still on the company clock. Of the former employees, 48% had been fired, 38% had resigned and 7% had been laid off. 86% were employed in a technical position, of them, 38% were system administrators. 21% were programmers, 14% were engineers and 14% were IT specialists. 96% of the inside attackers were male. Just under one-third of the insiders had an arrest history. 57% of insiders were perceived by others to be disgruntled.

China, India, and Korea accounted for 78% of total mobile subscribers in the Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) or APEJ region in 2005, up from 76% in 2004. The total mobile equipment capital expenditure (capex) in the three markets of China, India and Korea increased 17% in 2005 to reach $14.93 bln from $12.76 bln in 2004. IDC forecasts that total mobile network equipment capex for the three countries will increase to $14.7 bln in 2010, but that could be larger depending on the outcome of licensing of 3G in China.

Mobile connections in Western Europe rose by just under 2% in Q2 2006, to 417.8 mln. Italy again registered the most additions and the highest penetration (132%). Portugal showed the fastest growth in connections, at 4.5%, Gartner reports.

Worldwide end-user spending on IT services will grow at a 5.8% compound annual growth rate through 2010 to reach $828.1 bln, with positive growth in nearly all market segments, Gartner says.

Q1 2006 server revenue grew in Asia-Pacific by 7% from Q1 2005, to $1.47 billion. Shipments increased by 21%, to over 290,000 units, in their 16th consecutive quarter of year on year growth, Gartner says.

IDC estimated that the Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) business intelligence market size for 2005 was nearly $340 mln. This represented a healthy annual growth rate of 22.5%. The market is expected to remain on the fast growth track with a 5-year CAGR of 13.5%, reaching $639 mln by 2010. In 2005, the Singapore BI and BPM market was valued at $19.54 mln and is anticipated to enjoy a 5-year CAGR of 12.7%. The Hong Kong market was estimated at $16.43 mln in 2005 and predicted to breach the $25 mln dollar mark before the end of the decade.

The Asia/Pacific electronic design automation market continued to grow in 2005. EDA revenue rose 11.1%, from $472.4 mln in 2004 to $524.7 mln in 2005, Gartner said.

According to IDC, the global and US markets for offshore IT services continue to grow at a remarkable rate, driven primarily by US customer demand. IDC predicts that offshore IT services vendors will capture $29.4 bln in worldwide customer spending by 2010, with little sign of a market slowdown.

The market for flexible displays will grow from $16 mln in 2007 to almost $2 bln by 2015, with low-cost, low information content applications likely to dominate at the outset, according to DisplaySearch.

Revenue from application-specific radio frequency and baseband semiconductor devices for digital mobile and cordless phones rose by 5% in 2005, to $20.5 billion. Texas Instruments was the top vendor, with 21% of the total.

Through 2010, North America will continue to be the largest contributor of small-and-midsize-business application license revenue, rising from $3.5 bln in 2005 to $6.0 bln in 2010 with a compound annual growth rate of 11.3%, Gartner reported.

Vendor revenue in Q1 2006 for external controller-based storage in India totaled $39 mln for impressive 59% growth compared with Q1 2005. IBM beat HP and EMC to lead the market with a 21.5% share of revenue, Gartner says.

Of those UK households which have told Point Topic they share files and download items and which have broadband, 73% regularly download music files (which can include ring tones). Some 36% and 34% of households also engage in downloading games and files that contain information relating to their hobbies or personal business.

Global semiconductor equipment bookings totaled $5.83 bln in July 2006 while billings reached $5.18 bln, resulting in a book-to-bill ratio of 1.13, according to VLSI Research.