The market for mobile devices, including basic and smart phones, tablets and wearables, is massive; it accounted for 1.7 billion shipments and over $500 billion in the year to the end of June this year. Read more »
Storage systems hardware and software, raw storage trends and market shares
Data storage is a vital part of ITC market. In this post I offer my latest analysis based on the period to the end of the second quarter of 2021. Read more »
IBM extends its deep storage capabilities to Microsoft Azure users
IBM’s storage group’s strategy seeks to support customers in their use of multiple data centers, whether on premises or in public clouds – and whether using IBM products or others. It wants to make it easier and more efficient for them; but to do so it has mastered a number of technical challenges that might stump all but the largest corporate data centers. Today it announces the addition of Microsoft Azure as a fully supported public cloud for its block storage and data protection offerings alongside a number of other introductions and enhancements. Read more »
IBM Power10 – technical leader with big cloud opportunities
IBM is the longest-standing and most technically adept server supplier. However it’s a long time since it was the market leader. This month it has added new processors which will help it increase the installed base (see my chart above), revenues (see the Figure below) and profits. Let’s look at the new processors. Read more »
The worldwide server market – hedged in by cloud, but still vital
The server market is vital for enterprise and SMEs, supporting vital workloads, but growth appears to have stalled. No doubt spending would be much higher if the self-built systems of the largest cloud computing weren’t continuing to eat up commercial workloads. Within the market the leading vendors – Dell EMC and HPE – have pulled away from others at the top, while the competition is growing from the success of Chinese suppliers Lenovo and Huawei (see my Figure above which shows the revenues of the main players in $US billions on a rolling four quarter basis). Read more »
Cloud computing at $344b – the Enterprise IT market squeeze continues
The cloud services (IaaS, PaaS and SaaS) market reached a total of $344b in the year to the end of June 2021. Excluding SaaS spending on IaaS and PaaS was $179 billion, already significantly more than the total of other enterprise IT spending (see my Figure above). In this post I look at various aspects of the cloud service market to help you put it in perspective. Read more »
PC sales rebound due to lockdown and home working
PCs have been at the heart of the IT industry since their introduction in the mid 1970s. In recent years the market fell due to competition from advanced smart phones and tablets and the shift in IT usage away from the ‘creation’ to the ‘streaming’ of content. From 2014 to 2019 the installed base of PCs worldwide flat-lined (see my Figure above). However the market was reinvigorated by the lockdowns and the moves to work from home brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. 2020 saw significant growth, which has continued in the first two quarters of 2021. Read more »
The printer market – where do we go from here?
The printer market entered yet another phase of decline as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020 customers spent $33 billion (down 10%) on 143 million printers (down 11%), while the total installed base dropped 4% to 577 million. Read more »
IBM storage – data resiliency, pay-as-you-go and mainframe hardware in its Q3 2021 announcement
Today IBM is extending the use of its Safeguarded Copy to FlashSystem and SVC users, and introducing an OpEx model of paying for its storage systems through launching Storage as a Service (STaaS). It has also added a model each to its mainframe array and tape library product lines. Read more »
The role of Red Hat OpenShift in IBM’s new strategy
I recently reviewed IBM’s strategy. It’s a complex issue, which I think can be elucidated by a look at how Red Hat has developed its approach. My Figure above is based on its 2019 roadmap shortly after being acquired by IBM. Read more »
Microprocessor shortages – reasons, data and solutions
I’ve seen a number of articles on the microprocessor chip shortages that have been affecting smart phone, automotive, digital camera, TV, display and even toaster manufacturing; none have quoted any market statistics, so I though I’d have a stab… as well as using the data to suggest the causes and look at how long they will last. Read more »
IBM’s supreme hybrid cloud strategy – Red Hat integrated, Kyndryl out
IBM’s Think2021! conference came at a time of great change for the company. I had a chance to listen in to CEO Arvind Krishna, president Jim Whitehurst, CMO Carla Piñeyro Sublett and others present its strategy, offerings and direction over the last few days. Read more »
IBM introduces LinuxONE III Express – Linux mainframes from $135k
Earlier this week IBM announced the introduction of the Express version of its LinuxOne III mainframe range, which was launched exactly a year ago. This is an entry-level model designed for enterprise customers looking to adopt OpenShift and take advantage of much cheaper-than-x86 processing of relevant workloads. Read more »
IBM announces Spectrum Fusion and Fusion HCI – easier enterprise container computing
IBM’s storage division announces its most important fully container-native products today (adding to the container-native Spectrum Protect Plus and Spectrum Scale clients it already sells) – its Fusion software defined storage and Fusion HCI system. As we’ll see, it’s also making a number of important hardware, software and services enhancements that strengthen its links with Red Hat and widen the use of its storage offerings in hybrid multi-cloud even further. They show IBM Storage division’s all-out support for the development of containerized applications, which are slowly growing in the market (see my Figure above, which shows the annual spending on servers by virtualization status). Read more »
Classifying servers – a proposed schema
There are so many ways of classifying computer products. Servers are at the heart of the IT industry. Today I wanted to share with you my proposal for how all servers can be classified by their physical attributes. This is work in progress, so your comments will be very helpful to make this a useful tool for research purposes.
Mobile devices and international politics
The mobile device market was worth $439 billion with shipments of 1.15 billion and an installed base of 3.37 billion worldwide in 2020. It’s a massive global market under constant change – of which mobile phones accounted for 84% of the spend in 2020. Leading European (Nokia, Ericsson, …) and Japanese (Sony, NEC, …) phone suppliers have now entirely gone away to be replaced mainly by by American (Apple), Chinese (Huawei, Xiaomi) and South Korean (Samsung) ones, who proved capable of handling the scale economies and innovation needed to succeed (see my Figure above). Read more »
BlueChip – putting the ‘International’ into Service Express
Service Express International (SEI) started business as an enterprise Third-Party Maintenance (TPM) supplier in 1993. Its business is primarily based on post-warranty hardware maintenance of data center IT equipment – made up of servers, storage systems and network devices and also offers data center relocations, asset recovery and OS support. Headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in November 2019 it was itself acquired by New York-based private equity company Harvest Partners from Pamlico Capital.
At the beginning of this month, Service Express acquired its fifth company, UK-based TPM BlueChip, expanding on a business relationship they already had and making Service Express more international in the process. Read more »
Cisco’s long-lasting first-mover advantages
Cisco’s success in the ITC industry is based on its invention of IP networking and early promotion of Local Area Networking. Its first-mover advantage has allowed it retain its position as the dominant player in the enterprise networking market, where it has maintained a market share above 50% for ever. Read more »
IBM Storage launches the FlashSystem 5015, 5035 and 5200
In comparison with many of its previous announcements IBM’s storage division is making an impressive, yet easy to understand, announcement today. It’s launching the FlashSystem 5015, 5035 and 5200, replacing three products launched almost exactly a year ago. FlashSystem 5015 and 5035 are 2U rack-mounted devices with many (usually unique) enterprise-class functions fitting in neatly with IBM’s overall storage and hybrid multi-cloud and container strategies. In contrast, the FlashSystem 5200 gives a unique turn by providing high end performance, availability, capacity, and data resilience in a 1U form factor. As always, I was able to pick up the details ahead of time from Eric Herzog (the division’s CMO and SVP) and his team. Read more »
Apple – how much bigger can it grow?
Apple is the largest IT company in the world. It’s revenues were $294 billion in 2020 – the equivalent of everyone alive on the planet spending $26.52 on its offerings. It’s business grew substantially on the introduction of the iPhone, expanded as we recovered from the Credit Crunch and has proved resilient during the pandemic. It’s time to question whether it can continue to thrive as the severe economic effects of the pandemic spreads. Read more »