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How the pandemic is changing the PC market

The ITC industry has been a boon at a time when lock-downs and social distancing have virtually put an  end to physical meeting people in business or in the pub. It’s more boring of course, but just imagine how difficult it would have been in 2018 when we only had fixed-line phones and the post office to help us keep in touch. One area of the industry that had reached maturity with little growth potential was the PC market before the pandemic. The new growth in Q2 2020 sales (see my Figure above) is partially due to the mass movement of business staff to homeworking. In this post I’m going to look at the opportunities and challenges facing this market in coming years, while sharing my latest stats with you. Please get in touch if you need more detail. Read more »

IBM Storage – advanced support container-based applications in its Q4 2020 announcements

IBM continues to add features and functions to its storage offerings, both software and systems, to address the latest trends in enterprise computing… and doing its best to make it simpler to understand and implement. In today’s announcement it covers a lot of ground with a strong emphasis on supporting container application deployments.
Its support for Red Hat started well before IBM acquired it, but today it shows it’s integrating as fully as it can, while covering a lot of other ground as well. Read more »

ITC and the pandemic – how ‘digital’ helps when ‘physical’ interactions are limited

The IT and Communications (ITC) market has held up well during the pandemic to date; total spending worldwide grew by 1% in Q1 and declined by 1% in Q2 2020 (see my Figure above, which includes my current forecast to 2022 for spending on a rolling 4-quarter basis). In this research post I look in more detail at the movements in hardware, IT service, software and telecoms, look back for comparisons to the effects of the Credit Crunch and make some predictions for how the coming economic recession is likely to hit us in the next few years. Read more »

IP telephony surges in the politicised network market

Service Provider and Enterprise Networks have been extremely important during the pandemic; nevertheless most Telcos and organizations have been relying on those already installed to keep people, governments and businesses connected. In total the market grew by 1% to $187 billion in the year to the end of March, but shrunk by 4% to $45.2 billion in Q1 due to the suspension of activity during the lockdown in most affected countries. Read more »

Gaming software sales grow 4% during lockdown

The last few years have not been great for hardware sales; gamers are waiting for new consoles from Sony and Microsoft later this year and even Nintendo’s Switch is reaching its peak. In the year to the end off March total console sales were 46m – down 9% from the 50m of they year before. Read more »

IBM dives into data lakes with the Elastic Storage System 5000

I very much enjoyed a briefing on IBM’s latest storage announcements ahead of today’s launch. As usual we listen to and asked questions of Eric Herzog, IBM’s CMO and VP of Worldwide Storage Channels. I also had a briefing from Sam Werner, VP of Storage Offering Management. Read more »

Mobile device sales continue to decline in Q1 2020 despite their vital role during the pandemic

While mobile devices are proving essential tools for tracking and reporting Covid-19 infection and in keeping those in unusual isolation to keep in touch, buying new ones has been proved to be less important during the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic. Read more »

Cloud computing – 18% growth to $260b in the year to March 2020

Cloud services in the past were sometimes criticised for being nothing more than a IT delivery method. Things have changed dramatically in 2020, when delivery methods have become very important for so many other things. Cloud services are certainly more important during a pandemic, but we saw no exemptional overall growth in Q1 2020; however by the end of the year I expect it to be one of only a few ITC areas which will have grown as other areas fall foul of the deep recession many countries are entering. Read more »

How IBM’s DS8900F and TS7770 storage systems enhance its z15 mainframe’s functionality



With the introduction of 2 new air-cooled single-frame mainframes on April 14th – smaller configurations than the machines launched in September 2019, it’s a good time to have another look at the DS8900F and TS7770 storage systems which are built to complement the capabilities of the new IBM mainframes. Read more »

IBM introduces air-cooled z15 T02 and LinuxONE III LT2 – more security, more cloud


Following the introduction of its first z15 mainframe T01 in September last year IBM is introduced the smaller single-frame air-cooled z15 T02 and matching LinuxONE III LT2 models on April 14th. Since moving away from producing x86 servers it has continued to invest in its Power and mainframe lines, enhancing their status as the most secure servers and making sure they can be used for advanced, modern applications fully integrated with cloud resources for a set of very demanding (mainly large) customers. Read more »

How the top ITC suppliers are helping during the pandemic


Earlier this year I reviewed the development of the top 12 ITC suppliers worldwide. Convinced that our industry can do a lot to help in a time of crisis I’ve had a look at each company’s response to COVID-19, which I outline below. Read more »

Networks – $185b, 2.1b ports shipped in 2019

Computer networks are vital in connecting people during the current pandemic whether using PCs or mobile devices. The market is split between products used by service providers (mainly Telcos) and enterprises. My Figure above shows the development of spending by each since 2005. By the way my research is copyright and not free to reuse without permission – especially by Statista, who I will take legal action against if it continues by stealing data from this post. Read more »

Storage systems – 1.8ZB shipped, $33.4b spent in 2019

Storage is a vital part of the ITC industry providing a resource for databases, analytics and record keeping. In the current world crisis it helps supports virtual contact where physical interaction between people is temporally impossible. In this post I look at what happened in 2019 with details about raw storage (disk and NAND drives, DRAM memory) and the storage systems which are used with servers and enterprise networks. Read more »

Servers – $75.6 spent on 21.3 systems in 2019

Servers (whether deployed by enterprise customers or cloud service providers) provide the backbone of the ITC industry and applications we use socially and for business, financial and citizen applications. They are vital to helping us survive the forced isolation introduced to try to halt the spread of the current pandemic. In this post I look at annual trends in spending, shipments and their installed base to the end of 2019. Read more »

Peripherals – a $245b market with a Japanese flavour

The peripheral market has performed poorly over the last few years (see my Figure abovee) as physical processes have been replaced by digital ones. The area covers many different products and services, of which printers (both laser and ink jet) predominate. Nevertheless it also includes a number of products which can help us during the pandemic, such as web cams and 3D printers. Let’s look at how the market developed in 2019. Read more »

The PC market in 2019 – 244m shipments, $169b spending, 881 installed base

The PC market reached maturity a number of years ago and has overtaken by mobile devices in terms of spending, shipments and the number installed; nevertheless they have a vital role to play for those able to work from home during the pandemic. In 2019 244 million machines, worth $169b were shipped with the total installed base standing at 881 at the end of the year. Read more »

Gaming console market 2019 – how about a virtual 2020 Olympics?

I looked recently at the advantage the large installed base of mobile devices give us to help avoid travel and keep people in touch when forced into isolating themselves socially. Today I’m thinking about entertainment and communities; facing months more of social isolation I’m already bored of watching my sports channel on TV telling me there is no sport! Japan has yet to announce the – almost inevitable – postponement of the 2020 Olympics, so I suggest we arrange a virtual Olympics to take its place using the millions of gaming platforms already in place using Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, which was launched in November by Nintendo last year. This post looks at the gaming console market in 2019 with a forecast for this year. Read more »

Mobile devices – a $361b market, 1.4b shipments, 3.2b installed base in 2019

Following my publication of the 2019 market for cloud services and the help that can give us all during the COVID-19 pandemic, today I want to look at mobile devices, by which I mean basic and smart phones, tables, smart wearables and audio devices. I’ll be looking at 2019 market shares as well as a forecast for the global installed base (see my Figure above) and shipments. Read more »

Cloud services grow 18% to reach $253 billion in 2019

I am convinced that the ITC industry can do lots to mitigate many of threats of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular providing the platform for travel avoidance and keeping the wheels of commerce going during what may be years of the need for social/physical distancing. It will also undergo a number of accelerated changes in its make up as it did as a result of the Credit Crunch in 2008-9. In order to investigate these issues I’ve decided to publish a series of posts giving findings for the sub-markets in 2019. I’m starting with cloud services (made up of Software, Infrastructure and Platform as a Service) here – spending on which grew 18% in 2019 to reach $253 billion. Read more »