Kensington (www.kensington.com), which makes computer accessories such as locks for computers and mobile devices, has announced findings from a North American survey on the security risks created by bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies in the enterprise.

The findings show 73% say that BYOD represents greater security risks for their organization. Yet 59% still approve the use of personal devices for business usage.

According to MarketsandMarkets, a research and consulting firm, forecasts the global market for BYOD and enterprise mobility to nearly quadruple in size over the next four years. Currently valued at US$72 billion, MarketsandMarkets expects annual growth of 26.6% for a projected value of $284 billion by 2019.

The Kensington survey found that across multiple B2B vertical industries – including education, health care, financial services, retail and manufacturing – CEOs, CIOs, CSO, and...

The pieces of the carrier Wi-Fi puzzle are falling into place as the standardization process speeds up with the recent updates on Hotspot 2.0 and commercial Next Generation Hotspot deployments counting more than 12 networks worldwide—implementing Cisco and Ruckus equipment, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

The increasing appetite for Carrier Wi-Fi solutions will result in revenues growing to nearly US$8 billion by 2019. Other main market players include Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia, and Ericsson.

Asia-Pacific is the top region in number of installed Wi-Fi hotspots while Europe and North America continue to grow their networks through the use of community hotspots. MSOs like BT, Liberty Global, and Comcast are advertising millions of public hotspots, thanks to switching on the dual-access feature in their massive home gateway deployments.

"This is a cost-effective way to increase...

ABI Research's latest data forecasts North American activity will drive the overall in-building wireless market while Europe and Asia-Pacific pick up the pace by 2016. The market for in-building wireless equipment and deployments will nearly double the current outlook by 2019.

North America will continue to be the region with maximum DAS spend with sports venues, transportation and healthcare continuing to be the verticals which attract the most DAS investment while shopping malls and hospitality will rank a close second place, according to ABI Research. Together these verticals in North America account for about two-thirds of DAS spending. North America is followed by Asia-Pacific and then Europe for market size.

"While the Asia-Pacific region today accounts for less than a quarter of the total market, ABI Research expects it to exceed that by 2019 at a compound annual growth rate of more than 20%," says Nick Marshall, Research Director at ABI Research. "The activity...

Over 450 million households worldwide currently have Wi-Fi networks set up in 2014, a 5% increase from 2013 according to Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com)

"Contrary to common perception, not all consumers have embraced Wi-Fi networks in their homes despite the fact that global connected devices per household stand at 5.5 in 2014 – Wi-Fi router adoption in fixed-line broadband households still has much room to grow globally," says analyst Eric Smith. "As Wi-Fi technologies continue to advance, prices fall, and the technology becomes more familiar to the average consumer, nearly 80% of fixed-line broadband households will have established Wi-Fi networks by 2018."

Jason Blackwell, director of Service Provider Strategies at Strategy Analytics, adds: "Broadband penetration in developed markets is reaching saturation point and emerging markets face infrastructure costs in expanding...

According to a new report from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) approximately two-thirds of U.S. broadband households are unfamiliar with smart home products or services. Further, few consumers know what smart home devices and services are, who sells them, or where to buy them.

Parks Associates with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) analyzed the results of a Q2 2014 survey of 10,000 U.S. broadband households. The results include recommendations for the connected home industry, analysis of consumer demand for smart home products, and strategies to raise awareness of smart home devices and their sales channels.

"Today, smart home service providers control almost every aspect of their offerings while consumers make only one choice - the service provider," says Tricia Parks, CEO and Founder, Parks Associates. "Deploying open solutions that give consumers a degree of control...

The independent ad technology market is explosive, showing 52% annual growth from 2011 through 2014, with nearly a US$6 billion expected market size in 2014. In addition to revenue growth, the pace of acquisition has been frantic, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

Acquisitions from publishers reduces the independence of providers, although they continue to have public platforms. Some of the major recent publisher-acquisitions have included Facebook (LiveRail), Twitter (MoPub), Yahoo (Flurry), AOL (Adap.tv) and Comcast (FreeWheel), with strong focus on bringing ad technology in-house.

In addition, consolidation among independents, such as Ooyala’s just announced acquisition of Videoplaza continues to change the landscape. Adobe and Criteo lead this space, with 17% and 15% market share, respectively. Adobe’s advertising business was built from the Omniture acquisition, with additional...

The market for connected LED or “smart” light bulbs is in its embryonic stage of development, with shipments totaling fewer than 2.5 million units in 2013.

However, falling LED prices and the endorsement of ZigBee Light Link as the preferred connectivity solution by a number of leading lighting manufacturers means that annual smart bulb shipments are set to increase to 223 million by 2020, achieving a total installed base of over 400 million, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

"Because of the additional dimensions smart lighting brings to the consumer lifestyle, including lighting automation, and because of its carbon footprint efficiency, this industry will rapidly become one of the key technologies that could bring IoE closer to consumers," Malik Saadi, practice director at the research company. "Because of the additional dimensions smart lighting brings to the consumer lifestyle,...

Standards committees and industry consortiums are working through a number of video standards to support UltraHD video as well as the next-generation of mobile video services, such as HEVC and DASH packaging, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com). 

However, some pain points remain unaddressed by the majority of vendors going in predictable directions; meanwhile, a few trailblazers are working on disruptive innovations, says the research group. Areas such as the inability of TCP delivery to keep up with high throughput demands, the lack of perceptual tools in modern codecs, as well as the inefficiency of storage within CDNs all pose significant additional challenges within the ecosystem.  A number of innovative companies, from startups to more mature businesses, are addressing these issues: bitmovin, beamr, Akamai, Aspera (part of IBM), Vantrix, and Conviva.

"Of the areas we examined,...

New research from the Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) research group shows the average U.S. broadband household now watches more than 17 hours of non-linear video per week, compared to 11.5 hours of linear video.

"Non-linear video accounts for 49% of the video consumed on the TV, and it is already the majority, 60%, of TV video viewed by consumers 18-24," said Barbara Kraus, director of research, Parks Associates. "Growing consumer demand, alongside new OTT service announcements from HBO and CBS, is driving all players in the video ecosystem to add streaming capabilities to their devices."

Parks Associates research shows consumers are also using connected CE for purposes outside video. Nearly 40% of U.S. broadband households that use the smart TV as their primary connected device regularly access and spend at least one hour per week using Facebook on this device.

"We are at...

Chromebook shipments increased by 67% QoQ [quarter-over-quarter] and are projected to double in size YoY [year-over-year], according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

Acer continues to maintain its lead over other vendors in the market, including Samsung, HP, and Dell. The top three leading vendors – Acer, Samsung, and HP – accounted for 74% shipment share during the first half of 2014 and are forecasted to maintain market control through the second half of the year, according to quarterly data from the research group.

"Consumers are hungry for a product that is cost effective but also provides the versatility and functionality of a laptop," says ABI Research Analyst Stephanie Van Vactor. "The growth of the Chromebook market demonstrates a niche that is gaining traction among consumers."

The questionable need of Chromebooks by consumers contributed to the slow start of these devices;...

Approximately 40% of U.S. consumers who work for large enterprises said they use their personally owned smartphone, desktop or laptop daily for some form of work purposes, according to a recent survey by Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com).

The study, which was conducted in June 2014, surveyed more than 4,300 U.S. consumers about their technology usage and attitudes in order to gain a better picture of how devices are used for work and leisure. 

"The lines between work and play are becoming more and more blurred as employees choose to 'use their own device' for work purposes whether sanctioned by an employer or not," said Amanda Sabia, principal research analyst at Gartner. "Devices that were once bought purely for personal use are increasingly being used for work and technology vendors and service providers need to respond to this." 

The survey studied the use of devices by consumers, whether as a...

According to IDC's Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) "Quarterly Enterprise Storage Tracker, Q2 2014" India's external storage market saw a double digit year-on-year de-growth (in vendor revenue) and stood at US$54.4 million, the lowest market has reached since the second quarter of 2012 (Q2 2012).

However terabytes sold in Q2 2014  saw a double digit year-on-year growth due to decrease in dollar per gigabyte and is allowing the terabyte sold to grow irrespective of the revenue de-growth, says IDC. Q2 2014 witnessed a declining trend majorly due to slow movement of deals and vendor's focus on technologies like compression and de-duplication that is making the traditional storage  more efficient, notes the research group.

The market is expected to revive in the coming quarters due to the positive business sentiment, investment announcements from the government and rising demand from the SMB segment particularly. Growing volume of data is pushing organizations to revisit...

Securing the Internet of Things (IoT) is going to be a considerable challenge in the next decade, not least because the security implications are more varied than for traditional IT settings, according to ABI Research (www.abirsearch.com).

New variables come into play, including safety considerations, consumer privacy, and data protection. Media coverage has hyped the advent of hacked toilets and spammer fridges, but the underlying trend is worrying because it highlights the fact that secure product development is not the norm for connected things.

The IoT is subject to numerous vulnerabilities at all of its core layers: perception, network, and application. The balance between cost and risk often means Things are less likely to employ more complex, resource-intensive security, such as access control and authentication.

"Some of these issues will be addressed at the gateway level or at the...

Makers and startups, not tech providers, consumer goods companies or enterprises, will drive acceptance, use and growth in the Internet of Things (IoT) through the creation of a multitude of niche applications, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). The research group predicts that, by 2017, 50% of IoT solutions (typically a product combined with a service) will originate in startups that are less than three years old.

Gartner defines "makers" as inventors, tinkerers and entrepreneurs who create and manufacture products using traditional tools and new digital design and rapid prototyping and manufacturing technologies. "Startups" are fledgling businesses that are often technology-focused and have the potential for high growth.

"Conventional wisdom is that the growth of the Internet of Things is driven by large enterprises. As is always the case, there is an element of truth in conventional wisdom and...

The worldwide Wi-Fi customer premises equipment (CPE) market is expected to grow 11% in 2014, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com). The research group says total shipments of Wi-Fi access points, routers, and residential gateways are set to surpass 176 million units by the end of 2014.

"Growth is expected in all regions, driven by increased broadband penetration and more connected devices in homes," says Jake Saunders, vice president and practice director, ABI Research.

Since its WLAN market inception in 2013, shipments of the 802.11ac standard have accelerated. In the consumer Wi-Fi equipment market, D-Link and NETGEAR lead 802.11ac access point shipments.

"The combined shipments of the two companies represented more than 20% of worldwide 802.11ac shipments in 1Q 2014. ABI Research expects that nearly 32 million 802.11ac access points will be shipped in 2014," adds Khin Sandi Lynn...

While mobile devices are an integral part of the workplace, the cyber security practices and budgets in most organizations are not keeping pace with the growing number of devices that must be managed and kept secure. According to a new survey issued by Raytheon Company (http://www.raytheon.com), 52% of organizations and employees frequently sacrifice security practices to realize the efficiency benefits of mobile connectivity.

The report was conducted by information security industry company, Ponemon Institute. The comprehensive report is based on 618 respondents who implement enterprise security, manage mobile technologies and platforms, and set mobile strategy. Fifty-seven percent of respondents identified themselves as senior executives/managers.

According to the research, on average one-third of employees use mobile devices exclusively to do their work and this is expected to increase...

Worldwide PC monitor shipments totaled 32.5 million units in the second quarter of 2014 (2Q14), a year-over-year decline of -2.9%, according to IDC (www.idc.com). The research group expects worldwide shipments to continue on their current trajectory, slipping to 107 million units for the full year 2018.

"Despite the overall decline, there was a strong quarter-over-quarter growth rate of 11% in the United States and a slight increase in PC Monitor shipments in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan). In addition, the shipment totals were stronger than forecast by 4%," says Keerthi Maganti, research analyst, Worldwide PC Monitor Trackers at IDC.

The research group says:

° LED product technology adoption continues to increase with a new high of 93% market share in 2Q14. This represents a year-over-year increase of 10.5%.

° Screen size of 21.x-inches wide has held the largest worldwide share for the last seven...

A recently completed Social Buying Study from the IDC (www.idc.com) research group concludes that 75% of the business-to-business (B2B) buyers studied and 84% of C-level/vice president executives use social media to support purchase decisions.

According to the findings of this global study, B2B buyers most active in using social media to support the buying process were more senior and had 84% bigger budgets, made 61% more purchase decisions, and had influence over a greater span of purchase decisions than those buyers who did not use social media to support their purchase process. The study indicates that social media increases decision-making confidence by providing more efficient access to an executive's professional network.

In the final stage of the purchasing process, when stakes are highest, online professional networks are the number 1 information resource preference of buyers. IDC believes that social...

By Rick Sutcliffe

iOS8 was introduced at WWDC with much hoopla but actually arrived with some problems, and has needed two updates since, the current one being 8.0.2. Also many users find it is too large to install without deleting a great deal of material from their iPuds. Hint: Use iTunes for the update. Given the usual spit and polish Apple puts into new releases, this whole episode seems odd, even a little Microsoftish--as if something has slipped there. Heads may roll.

ShellShock

As if that weren't bad enough, the world learned this week that good old reliable, well-hammered-upon UNIX in many flavours, including BSD (beneath OS X) and Linux has been harbouring a flaw in the Bash Shell most people use that would allow arbitrary code to be executed under some circumstances. It appears that some form of access would be needed to do this, but many systems are potentially vulnerable, including Macs not behind a firewall or...

By year-end 2017, over 20% of enterprises will have digital security services devoted to protecting business initiatives using devices and services in the Internet of Things, according to Gartner (www.gartner.com)/ Business cases using Internet of Things (IoT) devices already exist and their role in business and industry will force enterprises to secure them, according to the research group.

"The power of an Internet of Things device to change the state of environments and of itselfwill cause chief information security officers (CISOs) to redefine the scope of their security efforts beyond present responsibilities," says Earl Perkins, research vice president at Gartner. "IoT security needs will be driven by specific business use cases that are resistant to categorization, compelling CISOs to prioritize initial implementations of IoT scenarios by tactical risk. The requirements for securing the IoT will be complex,...

Triton Digital (http://tritondigital.com), a technology provider for the audio industry, has unveiled its monthly "Ranker for July 2014," revealing the month’s 20 top streaming audio providers, as well as insights into listening trends. Overall listening continued to rise steadily in July 2014, increasing by more than 20% compared to July 2013.

Streaming audio on mobile devices was the big story this month, with listening increasing by more that 35% compared to the same period last year.

"The July Ranker gives strong support to a mobile listening trend that we expect to continue and even accelerate moving forward," says Rob Favre, CCO/GM Measurement & Analytics at Triton Digital. "As mobile devices proliferate and expand to include wearables such as the Apple Watch, streaming audio will play an important role in consumers’ experiences on those devices."

Key findings of the July 2014...

The worldwide storage software market increased 6.3% year over year during the second calendar quarter of 2014 (2Q14), according to IDC (www.idc.com). Revenue during the quarter totaled nearly US$3.8 billion, says the research group.

EMC, IBM, and Symantec were the top ranking storage software suppliers with market shares of 25.9%, 16.0%, and 13.3%, respectively. Data Protection & Recovery software sales were up 10.2% year over year to $1.45 billion in sales. Sales of Storage Infrastructure Software were up 10.8% year over year to $448 million. And Storage & Device Management Software sales were up 4.1% year over year to $708 million.

"The storage software market experienced broad growth across most functional markets in the second quarter," says Eric Sheppard, research director, Storage Software at IDC. "Sales of data protection and recovery software accounted for almost 60% of the net-new spending during...

Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues fell -1.4% year over year to nearly $5.9 billion during the second quarter of 2014 (2Q14), according to the IDC research group (www.idc.com).

For the quarter, the total (internal plus external) disk storage systems market generated almost $7.8 billion in revenue. The modest 0.3% year-over-year increase was driven by strong internal storage sales within Asia/Pacific and emerging markets. Total disk storage systems capacity shipped was 11.5 exabytes. Growth of new capacity consumption improved during the quarter, but the 23.9% year-over-year growth was still relatively low by historic comparisons.
 
"High-end storage sales fell for the fourth consecutive quarter in 2Q14," says Eric Sheppard, research director, IDC. "The high-end decline was not as striking as last quarter but it was coupled with a drop in midrange sales, suggesting weak demand is spreading...

According to a new market research report from Transparency Market Research (www.transparencymarketresearch.com/), the global market for facial recognition will reach US$2.19 billion by 2019.

The market is driven by increased demand for surveillance systems by civil and government agencies, according to the research group. This is majorly due to rising number of crimes and terrorist activities across the globe that would elevate the demand for efficient facial recognition solutions/systems in the near future.

In addition, acceptance of facial recognition in the entertainment industry coupled with extensive use of facial recognition in consumer electronics is expected to fuel the demand for facial recognition technology in future. The report provides in-depth analysis of the market by segmenting it on the basis of parameters such as technology type and end-use...