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Tag: research

  • 2011 Peak For SD DTT STB semiconductors


    High-definition Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT) set top boxes (STBs) offer semiconductor makers a short term spike in opportunity.

    But standard definition (SD) DTT STBs will be a more sustainable market for manufacturers, according to In-Stat.

    The researchers forecast that the semiconductor opportunity in SD DTT boxes will peak at nearly USD $500 million by 2011.

    Gerry Kaufhold, In-Stat analyst, said the US analog shut off has driven a surge of HD converter boxes in 2008 and 2009.

    "However, this bubble will wane, while the SD DTT market continues to grow across a broader set of geographic markets," he said.

    Other findings from In-Stat include:

    • The European DTT STB Market Value will peak in 2011 at $1.6 billion.
    • On a European country basis, UK leads the market, followed by Spain, France, Germany, and then Italy.
    • Total DTT STB unit shipments will peak at 44 million in 2009.
    • Key component categories include the Demux/CPU/AV decoder and the MPEG-2 MP@HL/Graphics IC

  • Mobile App Revenues To Reach $25bn By 2014


    Mobile app revenues are expected to climb to more than USD $25bn by 2014 – fuelled by the launch of a raft of new application stores.

    But while one-off downloads currently account for the majority of revenues, that will change with the increasing utilization of in-app billing, according to Juniper Research.

    Its Mobile Applications & Apps Stores report suggests that rising revenues from additional mobile content will see value-added services (VAS) providing the dominant revenue stream by 2011.

    It also notes that many Tier 1 operators will seek to deploy their own app stores in a bid to maintain content revenue share.

    However, the report’s author, Dr Windsor Holden, said that in the longer term, the greatest benefits to operators would be derived from data revenues associated with app usage rather than from the retail price of apps and content.

    She said this was providing that the operators rejected the walled garden approach.

    "Data revenue growth is dependent upon operators embracing policies which enable open access – a policy which also involves facilitating app stores which compete with their on-portal offerings," she said.

    The report also noted that, given the fact that app stores currently cater exclusively for smartphones, then operators, developers and content providers would be unwise to ignore opportunities from traditional app and content distribution and monetization channels.

    Other findings from the Juniper report include:

    • Games will remain the largest category in terms of overall app downloads and revenues, although Multimedia & Entertainment apps will attract the greatest share of VAS revenues from 2009 onwards
    • App stores present a significant challenge to traditional content aggregators who may be obliged both to expand the range of their content portfolios and to amend their business models to remain viable

  • Report Aims To Demystify "Hype and Rhetoric" Around Green Data Storage


    Storage vendors worldwide have jumped on the "green" bandwagon in their marketing campaigns, but it’s often hard to determine which technologies move beyond hype and rhetoric to have a real positive impact.

    A new report from Forrester Research suggests, however, that adopting an environmentally responsible approach to storage can help to make it more efficient, reducing capital and operating costs at the same time.

    Entitled Align Green Storage With Overall Efficiency it says that poor measurement capabilities, high switching costs, and overall buyer conservatism have limited green considerations from having significant influence on purchase decisions.

    Its author, Andrew Reichman, says the report is intended to highlight the approaches that make the most economic sense.

    "In a gloomy economy, initiatives that sound good but have little measurable influence on the bottom line are unlikely to receive funding, so sorting through the claims and identifying benefits that are achievable in the near term is key to a successful green strategy in storage."

    He goes on to say that given the current economic climate, there are green storage approaches that are likely to see higher adoption. Among them:

    • Dense drives, such as SATA and FATA, are the greenest storage technology going and can have a tremendous impact on the green and financial bottom line
    • Thin provisioning can reduce the overall footprint of usable data and dramatically increase storage utilization, which is often low because of large upfront allocations that often sit idle
    • Deduplication eliminates redundant copies of data. Forrester expects significant focus on these capabilities, which significantly reduce the amount of disk space required to save a given amount of data, from vendors in the near term.

    An abstract of the report is available here.

  • Handset Shipments Expected To Drop 20% in 2009


    While cellphone shipments and subscription numbers have held up relatively well during the global recession, the outlook is more tumultuous for the mobile industry.

    In-Stat forecasts that both handset sales and subscriptions will take a hit this year.

    Allen Nogee, In-Stat analyst, said that subscriptions, however, are expected to weather the financial crisis better than handset shipments.

    "People that are unemployed are less likely to replace their cellphones, and businesses will not pay for cellphone subscriptions for employees they’ve let go," he said.

    "Even those with existing subscriptions are more willing to ‘make do’ with their existing handsets.

    "As the wireless industry matures, replacement handsets make up three-quarters of handset sales; handset sales are now particularly vulnerable to economic contraction."

    Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

    • After experiencing a 19.3 per cent growth in subscriptions in 2008, subscription growth will fall by more than half to 8.9 per cent in 2009 and by 6.3 per cent in 2010.
    • Worldwide, In-Stat is forecasting a 20.5 per cent drop in handset shipments for 2009 compared to 2008.
    • It will take until 2011 for shipments to regain robust growth, a forecasted 9.6 per cent increase.
    • Middle East and Africa will have 75.2 million WCDMA/HSPA/HSPA+ subscriptions by 2013.
    • SC-SCDMA subscriptions in Asia Pacific will rise more than ten-fold between 2009 and 2013.

  • Handset Names Key To US Smartphone Market Share?


    Forget a stylish smartphone packed with cutting edge features – if you want it to sell give it a cool name.

    At least that’s what research by Strategic Name Development (SND) claims in a report that links higher market share with cell phones having names that consumers prefer.

    The study suggests that Nokia’s "clinical-sounding alphanumeric names" are why the Finnish phone giant fails to connect with US consumers.

    Equally, Motorola’s succesful use of 4LTR names – RAZR, ROKR, SLVR, PEBL – eventually became jaded with KRZR and consumers stopped buying.

    The study by SND argues that its claims on the importance of a phone’s name are borne out by both companies’ experiencing a falling market share.

    Between 2004 and 2006, Motorola’s market share peaked at 35 per cent but after it introduced the KRZR in late 2006, this fell to 21 per cent by the second quarter of 2008.

    William Lozito, president of SND, a brand naming consultancy, said names created a distinct sense of identity and personality.

    He said thay also offered a way for people to connect with the product on an emotional level.

    "Names matter," he said.

    Lozito said it was no coincidence that LG and Samsung had identical US market shares of 16 per cent in Q3 2005, and 20 per cent in 2008.

    He said this was because they introduced very similar product naming strategies.

    The researchers praised LG and Samsung’s choices – LG’s Chocolate, Shine and Vu "appeal to the senses", while Samsung’s BlackJack, Juke and Glyde brought "fresh naming innovation" to the category.

    “Conversely, during the same period, Nokia continued a less popular naming convention and its US market share dropped from 16 per cent to 9 per cent," said Lozito.

    For some unexplained reason, the survey only looked at Motorola, LG, Samsung and Nokia – and was limited to the US market.

    And while a great name undoubtedly sets the tone for a phone, can it really condemn a handset to failure?

    We would be really interested to hear how important you think a name is to a smartphone’s success.

  • Will GPS-enabled Smartphones Avoid Handset Slowdown?


    Demand for GPS-enabled mobile phones will slow in 2009 but will avoid the fall in shipments expected to affect handsets generally.

    At least that’s what ABI Research is predicting. It forecasts that feature-rich smartphones will post year-to-year unit growth through the current economic downturn.

    For 2009 that translates into a climb in shipments GPS-enabled phones to 240 million units, an increase of 6.4 per cent over 2008.

    This contrasts with a drop of 4—5 per cent for global handset shipments generally in 2009, according to a study by the researchers.

    For the period through to 2014, the analysts suggest demand for smartphones will increase at an average annual unit shipment rate of 19 per cent.

    ABI says this "surprising performance" will be driven by the ongoing demand for feature-rich smartphones, including the Apple iPhone 3G, RIM’s BlackBerry devices and Nokia N series phones among a growing list.

    During the period, the report says GPS chipsets will continue to penetrate this segment; nine of every ten smartphones will contain GPS ICs in 2014, compared with one in three in 2008.

    George Perros, senior analyst with ABI Research, said that falling component prices and increasing consumer awareness of handset locationcapabilities will keep demand for GPS-enabled phones healthy, in spite of the slumping global economic picture.

    Other factors that will continue the trend toward the inclusion of GPS functionality in handsets include the spread of open source operating systems such as Google’s Android.

    It provides application specific interfaces (APIs) that allow software developers to create location-based content for mobile devices.
    The report also highlights the continuing emergence of navigation and map-based applications for handsets.

    "As the quality of positioning technology in handsets improves and the cost of including it declines, GPS location technology will approach the status of a standard device feature," said Perros.

    "We are approaching the point where location awareness will be synonymous with smart devices, a point where personal navigation, social spatial knowledge, and location-specific contextual information will be assumed handset capabilities."

    If accurate, the report’s predictions will certainly be welcomed by smartphone manufacturers.

    We’d be interested in hearing your view on the figures.

  • Slower Growth Expected In IP Contact Center Market


    Global economic problems will cause a slowdown in spending in the IP contact center (IPCC) market in 2009, according to Infonetics Research.

    The communications market research firm reports that while the overall Unified Communications and IPCC markets will experience a downturn, the IPCC and communicator segments will weather the economic downturn better than others.

    Infonetics said sales of UC products ended mixed in 2008, with unified messaging platform sales up and communicator software sales flat.

    Matthias Machowinski, analyst, Infonetics Research

    Overall, the IPCC market finished 2008 up 37 per cent over 2007, with many vendors reporting robust sales, particularly in Asia Pacific.

    Worldwide, businesses bought USD $851 million in IP contact center equipment in 2008, up 37 per cent from USD $622 million in 2007, based on the report.

    The 2008 numbers are based on actual sales numbers for the first half of the year and projections for the second half.

    Current economic conditions make repeating this level of activity virtually impossible.

    Matthias Machowinski, Infonetics Research’s directing analyst for enterprise voice and data, said the communicator market continues to be fluid.

    He said growth was not yet following established patterns and market share positions were shifting one period to the next as PBX vendors battle each other and Microsoft.

    "It’s an exciting market to watch, and one that should thrive in 2009, even as the overall enterprise telephony market declines due to the economic environment," he said.

    "Similarly, the IPCC market will slow down in 2009, but should do relatively well as customers find IP contact centers, self service, and automation cost effective ways to deliver on customer service."

    Other report highlights:

    • In 1H08, over a million IPCC seats were sold worldwide
    • Avaya still leads the IPCC market by far in 1H08, but lost share to Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent
    • Nortel takes the lead in unified messaging license market share in 1H08, while Avaya maintains its lead in revenue market share; Cisco is now a close 3rd for both

  • HDTV Now In Over A Third Of US Households


    HDTV penetration has doubled in the past two years with 34 per cent of US households having at least one high definition television (HDTV) set.

    Representing about 40 million households, this figure is set to double again over the next two years, according to consumer research from the Leichtman Research Group.

    The findings also showed that 22 per cent of all households purchased a new TV set in the past 12 months.

    Of these, 43 per cent of this group spent over USD $1,000 on a new TV.

    The results are based on a survey of 1,302 households throughout the US, and are part of a new LRG study, HDTV 2008: Consumer Awareness, Interest and Ownership.

    Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, said while more people than ever before have HDTV sets, educating consumers on HD programming remains an issue.

    The survey found that about 18 per cent of individuals with an HDTV continue think that they are watching HD programming, but are not.

    “About 40 million US households now have at least one HDTV set, and LRG forecasts that this number will double over the next four years,” he said.

    Other findings include:

    • Combined, 38% of HD owners say that replacing an old/broken set or wanting to buy a new TV set was the most important reason for getting their HDTV – compared to 22% citing picture quality, and 7% the quality of HD programming or the number of HD channels
    • 44% with annual household incomes over $50,000 have an HDTV compared to 20% with annual household incomes under $50,000
    • 33% of HDTV owners have more than one HDTV set, and 25% are likely to get another HDTV set in the next year
    • 9% of HD owners say that they switched multi-channel video providers when they purchased their HDTV
    • 42% of HDTV owners say that they were told how to receive HD programming when they purchased their set
    • LRG estimates that about 58% of all HD households are now watching HD programming from a multi-channel video provider – up from 53% last year. 

  • Researchers Opt For COPAN's Fast Access and Security


    One of the world’s leading life science research institutes announced today that it has chosen a COPAN Systems-based storage solution to meet its demanding data storage needs.

    The Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) has a strong record of innovation in the molecular biology of disease.

    Researching, developing, testing and delivering these medical breakthroughs require generating, analyzing and retaining huge quantities of data.

    This critical data is not necessarily accessed regularly but must be kept instantly available at all times for crucial analysis.

    Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel, Switzerland

    Dean Flanders, head of informatics at FMI, said no other company on the market could match the COPAN Systems solution in such a demanding environment.

    “Our competitive review found that no other system could provide this kind of high performance, scalability and cost-effectiveness to meet our persistent data needs," he said.

    "This means we can provide fast access to a vast amount of data in a very small footprint.”

    Located in Basel, Switzerland, a large proportion of FMI’s life science data is generated from microscopy, but new projects led the institute to seek a storage solution to support a wider range of data.

    A single new piece of laboratory equipment can radically alter the organization’s storage needs.

    For example, two new Illumina Genome Analyzers are each capable of producing up to two terabytes of data per week.

    In this environment, FMI sought a cost-effective solution for backing up and restoring multi-terabyte file systems while coping with limited power, cooling and space resources.

    The institute, part of the Novartis Research Foundation, needed to innovate beyond a traditional file server system which leaves too much persistent data on expensive tier one storage, straining existing infrastructure.

    A traditional HSM system was out of the question since the high volume and file size of FMI’s life science data meant a tape system would present slow access rates, data integrity issues and no online access.

    FMI was also concerned about pressure on space, power and cooling resources as their data production grows and their system scales.

    To meet these challenges, FMI selected COPAN Systems’ disk-based Virtual Tape Library, because of its fast access times with the security and reliability of disk.

    The new highly scalable tiered file system has almost no impact to the existing cooling and power infrastructure.

    By migrating persistent data to the new COPAN Systems solution, FMI frees up more expensive tier one storage for its original purpose – modifying and storing quickly changing transactional data.

    Some of the key benefits of the new system for FMI are:

    • Scalability: The system currently holds 40 terabytes of data but can scale in one rack to 896 terabytes without redesigning or changing cooling requirements.
    • Simplicity: By writing a file to FMI’s HSM file system within a defined period of time, the file can be automatically copied to the COPAN Systems MAID platform and another copy created to tape in a remote location as required.
    • Efficiency: COPAN Systems’ ultra-dense disk configurations are enhanced using Enterprise MAID technology. COPAN Systems powers off disks that have no outstanding IO requests, thus reducing power consumption by around 85 percent.

  • Paul Semenza appointed senior vice president at DisplaySearch

    Display industry veteran Paul Semenza has been named as Display Search’s senior vice president managing its North American and European analyst teams.

    With more than 20 years of global market research experience, Semenza most recently served as vice president and manager of iSuppli’s Display Business.

    In this role he managed the firm’s market intelligence and consulting practice in the electronic display and consumer electronics sectors.

    A frequent speaker at major industry events such as CES and SID’s DisplayWeek, Semenza is has been quoted in leading business and trade publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, EE Times, Bloomberg, Information Display and CNBC.

    Tim Bush, DisplaySearch’s group president and general manager, said the company was “thrilled” to have Semenza join its team of global analysts.

    “Paul’s leadership, industry knowledge, and market insights will be a great complement to the DisplaySearch business,” he said.

    Prior to iSuppli, Semenza was a program officer at the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council, where he directed studies on IT policy.

    Before that, he served as a consultant for Mogee Research on international patent activity and was an analyst for the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), covering emerging technologies such as flat panel displays.

    He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and master’s degree in electro-optics from Tufts University.
    In 1994, he received a master’s degree in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.