Displaying items by tag: Gartner

PC sales surged in the June quarter, driven by higher demand from workers and students forced to study and work from home amid the coronavirus, according to preliminary data from two industry-research firms.

Global PC shipments rose 11% to 72.3 million in the quarter, with the U.S. posting its highest quarterly-shipment volume in more than a decade, according to preliminary data from International Data Corp (IDC) and Gartner.

"The strong demand driven by work-from-home as well as e-learning needs has surpassed previous expectations and has once again put the PC at the center of consumers' tech portfolio," said IDC Mobile Device Trackers research manager Jitesh Ubrani.

"What remains to be seen is if this demand and high level of usage continues during a recession and into the post-COVID world since budgets are shrinking while schools and workplaces reopen."

Both market trackers ranked HP and Lenovo as the top two PC makers, with Dell in third place. Apple, which doesn't use Microsoft's Windows operating system but is nevertheless grouped among PC makers, came in fourth.

Gartner research director Mikako Kitagawa described the second-quarter figures as a short-term recovery, with some of the growth due to distributors and shops restocking supplies as they become available.

Early indicators suggest strong PC shipments for education, business, and consumer uses such as streaming entertainment, according to IDC's devices and displays research vice president Linn Huang.

"With inventory still back-ordered, this goodwill will continue into July," Huang said.

"However, as we head deeper into a global recession, the goodwill sentiment will increasingly sour."

Huawei is marked as a leader in the LTE market according to the newly-released Magic Quadrant for LTE Network Infrastructure by advisory and research firm Gartner. The company evaluated the end-to-end (E2E) LTE infrastructure of vendor's completeness of vision and ability to execute in the report.

According to Gartner analysts, Huawei outperforms other market players with its rapidly-expanding market share, large-scale commercial network deployment, and a comprehensive portfolio of innovative hardware and software products. Huawei's LTE solution is growing increasingly popular, gaining recognition as a first choice for many leading global operators.

Huawei advocates the ‘4.5G Evolution, Road to 5G’ strategy, by supporting operators to implement cutting-edge technologies on existing 4.5G networks to achieve 5G-like experience, testing innovative services and incubating new business models. This helps operators to consolidate an advanced 5G business blueprint, to secure early mover advantage within the industry.

Future 5G networks will adopt cloud technologies for enhanced resource utilization and agile service provisioning, according to Huawei. The company's innovative CloudAIR solution cloudifies wireless air interface resources to increase radio resource utilization and reduce the deployment period of new radio access technologies (RATs). Huawei CloudAIR GL spectrum sharing solution has contributed to the business success of operators such as Bharti India and True Thailand.

Huawei takes the lead in deploying 4T4R/8T8R (4 Transmit 4 Receive/8 Transmit 8 Receive), together with higher-order demodulation technology and carrier aggregation of multiple component carriers on 4G networks to achieve 5G-like data rate in the pre-5G era. By June 2017, Huawei had provided commercial 4T4R products for more than 110 global operators.

For 8T8R, Huawei launched the world's first FDD 8T8R networks for VIVA Kuwait, and Europe's first FDD 8T8R networks for T-Mobile Netherlands. The 8T8R configuration increased the user rate by 85 percent and reduced TCO by 40 percent compared with the 4T4R approach. Huawei also tested commercial 32T32R Massive MIMO on China Unicom's FDD 20 MHz networks and the data rate reached 593 Mbps, such verification has greatly expedited the commercialization of Massive MIMO.

New services such as mobile video, wireless home broadband (WTTx), Internet of Things (IoT), and LTE integrated Trunked Radio (LiTRA) are among Huawei's efforts in helping operators extend commercial boundaries, innovate business models, construct a favorable ecosystem, and pursue an early start in exploring the 5G blue ocean.

Today, Huawei provides wireless network solutions and services to more than 500 operators in both emerging market and developed countries, covering over two billion users. As of June 2017, Huawei ranks first in the telecom industry with the construction of over 290 LTE commercial networks, serving over 100 capital cities worldwide. Huawei has been awarded 90 4.5G commercial contracts and this number is estimated to hit 120 by the end of 2017.

Operators worldwide are adopting the ‘4.5G Evolution, Road to 5G’ strategy by introducing 5G technologies, further enhancing 4.5G network capabilities, trialing 5G services and hatching new business models to realize 5G-like experience. Such an approach helps operators build competitiveness for the 5G network ahead of time and ensure future business success.

75 percent of end-user organizations would be willing to pay more for 5G mobile capabilities, according to a Gartner study in which over 200 IT and business leaders from the Gartner Research Circle participated in a survey conducted in the second quarter of 2017. The objective of the survey was to understand how demand for 5G is growing and to learn about adoption plans for the technology. 

“Those in the telecom industry are more likely to be prepared to pay more than those in other industries,” said Sylvain Fabre, research director at Gartner. “End-user organizations in the manufacturing, services and government sectors, for example, are less likely to be willing to pay a premium for 5G than telecom companies, which are willing to pay a 5G premium for their internal use.”

In addition to offering better prices for industries in which users are less convinced of the business benefits of 5G, communications service providers (CSPs) must create value propositions that entice customers to start 5G migration projects sooner, Gartner said.

Although most of the respondents think their organizations would be prepared to pay more for 5G, few (8 percent) expect 5G to deliver cost savings or increase revenues, the study found. 5G is seen principally as a network evolution (59 percent), and only secondarily as an enabler of digital business (37 percent).

The survey also found that respondents from the telecom sector are less persuaded than those in other industries that 5G will be a revenue enhancer. “They tend to see 5G migration as a matter of gradual and inevitable infrastructural change, rather than as an opportunity to generate new revenue,” said Mr. Fabre.

The survey found that almost half the respondents intend to use 5G to access videos and fixed wireless capabilities. More interestingly, though, the majority respondents (57 percent) believe that their organization’s main intention is to use 5G to drive Internet of Things (IoT) communication.

"This finding is surprising, as the number of deployed 'things' that need cellular connectivity won't exceed the capacity of existing cellular IoT technologies before 2023 in most regions," said Mr. Fabre. "And even once fully implemented, 5G will suit only a narrow subset of IoT use cases that require a combination of very high data rates and very low latency. In addition, 5G won't be ready to support massive machine-type communications, or ultra-reliable and low-latency communications, until early 2020."

This finding may also be a sign of confusion about 5G's applicability, as many proven and less expensive alternatives already exist for wireless IoT connectivity — use of Wi-Fi, ZigBee or Bluetooth, for example, would avoid the cost and complexity associated with cellular communications, Gartner said.

A degree of misunderstanding is probably also apparent in the expressed belief by a large majority of the respondents (84 percent) that 5G will be widely available by 2020. By contrast, CSPs' plans indicate that wide availability may not be achieved before 2022, the research firm added. 

Gartner predicts that, by 2020, only 3 percent of the world's network-owning mobile CSPs will have launched 5G networks commercially. "Although standards-compliant commercial network equipment could be available by 2019, commercial rollouts of 5G networks and services by CSPs before 2019 are likely to use pre-standard equipment," added Mr. Fabre.

CSPs' marketing organizations need realistic roadmaps for 5G coverage and typical performance, so that they communicate with customers accurately, Gartner said. They also need to publish clear 5G rollout plans for the years 2019 to 2021 to help innovators understand when and where 5G will be available for IoT applications.

Gartner, Inc. unveiled its top global 100 vendors in IT in 2016 list based on their revenue across IT (excluding communication services) and component market segments. In the Gartner Global Top 100: IT vendor, Apple was the largest vendor with more than $218 billion in IT revenue — approximately $79 billion larger than the No. 2 vendor, Samsung.

For the first time, Gartner published a ranking of the top 100 largest tech companies in the world based on estimates for their revenue across IT (excluding communication services) and component market segments. Technology business leaders can use the Gartner Global Top 100: IT to benchmark competitive performance against a shift from the Nexus of Forces (the convergence of social, mobility, cloud and information that drive new business scenarios) to digital business as the driver of IT purchasing.

"The needs of IT buyers are shifting. CEOs are focused on growth and are more focused on realizing business outcomes from their IT spend," said John-David Lovelock, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "The Nexus of Forces has been the focus of attention for many years; however, the impact of digital business is giving rise to new categories."

The top three vendors (Apple, Samsung and Google) can attribute much of their size to their solid alignment with the Nexus of Forces, according to Gartner. Microsoft was a large and influential company when the Nexus of Forces began, having grown to market leadership during the web and e-business phase, and has managed to pivot to remain relevant.

IBM gained its size and market dominance in the very earliest IT markets when servers, storage and consulting services dominated, according to Gartner. The need for these devices and services, along with mobile phones and PCs will remain — cloud will underpin all digital business initiatives — but they will become more commoditized and less of a driver for new projects and spending.

As enterprises increasingly digitalize their products and services, digital giants (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) can become involved in, or even take over, the digital experience. Gartner predicts that by 2021, 20 percent of all activities an individual engages in will involve at least one of the top seven digital giants.

"Digital giants effectively become gatekeepers for any business that delivers digital content and services to consumers," said Mr. Lovelock. "Any company that wants to engage consumers in, or through, their digital world will have to consider engaging with one or more of these digital giants."

The focus of the digital giants has mainly been in the consumer, citizen and employee world. Because the digital giants have not yet been as focused on business to business (B2B), there is an opportunity for other companies to take the lead.

"In the B2B world of selling technology solutions to large enterprises, some of the digital giants have already had significant impact," said Mr. Lovelock. "For example, Amazon Web Services' cloud is disrupting enterprise hardware and software businesses dramatically. Apple's iOS devices are dominant within enterprise mobility, and Google's presence beyond search into browsers, cloud office and more is growing."

How much is big data really worth? That's the question analysts have been tackling – some suggest big data is becoming more dominant in determining the valuation of a company. There's been a shift in the way organizations are valued, from those that own tangible assets to those that were built on big data, like Facebook and Uber. Those in the business of valuing corporate investments will increasingly be forced to "consider a company's wealth of information in properly valuing the company itself," says industry analyst Douglas Laney.

By 2021, Gartner predicts that equity analysts will eventually adopt formal internal information valuation and auditing practices to accurately determine the value of an organization. To illustrate the importance of this, Facebook's market capitalization is around $385 billion; whereas United Airlines, a company that actually owns large assets such as airplanes and licenses to airport facilities and transoceanic routes, among other things, has a market capitalization of $24 billion.

To analyze the perception of how influential big data is in determining a company's value, technology consulting firm Capgemini surveyed 1,000 senior decision makers in nine regions and nine industries to assess where the market is heading. The results show that 64 percent of companies believe that big data is changing traditional business boundaries, while 58 percent expect to face increased competition from start-ups enabled by big data.

Big data is all about business disruption, the report indicates. The real battle in business is for data that delivers the "most relevant and pertinent insights – the combination of data sets that enable effective and more rapid monetization of data," the report reads. "Your data could ultimately become more valuable than your traditional product or services. Big data technologies are the enabler for developing new business models to make that happen."

If big data is such an important aspect of success in business, then it needs to be measured effectively. In another report containing a series of predictions about the rising importance of data and analytics, Gartner analysts suggest that although information arguably meets the formal criteria of a business asset, present-day accounting practices disallow organizations from capitalizing it. That is, the value of an organization's information generally cannot be found anywhere on the balance sheet.

"Even as we are in the midst of the information age, information simply is not valued by those in the valuation business," says Douglas Laney, vice president and analyst at Gartner. "However, we believe that, over the next several years, those in the business of valuing corporate investments, including equity analysts, will be compelled to consider a company's wealth of information in properly valuing the company itself."

Gartner conducted a study which showed how companies demonstrating "information-savvy" behavior – such as hiring a chief data officer (CDO), forming data science teams and engaging in enterprise information governance — command market-to-book ratios well above the market average. Mr. Laney says: "Anyone properly valuing a business in today's increasingly digital world must make note of its data and analytics capabilities, including the volume, variety and quality of its information assets."

Equity analysts and institutional investors will consider only a company's technical data and analytics capabilities and how its business model provides a platform for capturing and leveraging information, not the actual value of its information assets, says Gartner. It also predicts that by 2019, 250,000 patent applications will be filed that include claims for algorithms, a tenfold increase from five years ago.

According to a worldwide search on Aulive, nearly 17,000 patents applied for in 2015 mentioned "algorithm" in the title or description, versus 570 in 2000. Including those mentioning "algorithm" anywhere in the document, there were more than 100,000 applications last year versus 28,000 five years ago. At this pace, and considering the rising interest in protecting algorithmic IP, by 2020 there could be nearly half a million patent applications mentioning "algorithm," and more than 25,000 patent applications for algorithms themselves.

According to the European Patent Office, there is no legal or conclusive definition for a software patent. The FFII goes so far as to say software patents should not exist under European law. However, algorithm patents can be granted in the US, the EU and many other countries. Most of them place limits on the patenting of inventions involving software, but there is no one legal definition of a software patent. For example, US patent law excludes "abstract ideas", and this has been used to refuse some patents involving software.

While not all algorithms can be patented, many can, even if the rules of application are not always straightforward, according to Gartner. Of the top 40 organizations patenting the most software algorithms the past five years, 33 are Chinese businesses and universities. The only western company in the top 10 is IBM at No. 10.

Whose data is it anyway?

Now that organizations are realizing the full potential of their information assets, some analysts warn that their customers might resent them and backlash, according to Capgemini. Some people might feel peeved off that someone else is profiting from 'owning' their information. It really comes down to the question: whose data is it anyway?

It's a sensitive issue that is difficult to predict since the profitability of big data in the business world is still relatively in its infancy. Speaking on the matter, Jeff Hunter, vice president of Capgemini, says it really "depends on how the data is being used, repurposed, or resold. Companies aren't out to resell the data en masse. They want to drive toward derived results that better serve customers and themselves."

Mr. Hunter notes that customers are probably less concerned about aggregated data, but said there's a generational disconnect on the question of who owns data. He illustrates an interesting example of this, "Your perception of data is based on your comfort level. My wife would see it as disconcerting, while my teenage daughter would see it as convenient."

The most successful data companies, according to a report by Oracle and the MIT Technology Review, include Amazon, Google and Uber, who each treat data as an asset, able to be sold and monetized. The fact that these companies are able to profit on user data, drew Microsoft Research scientist Jaron Lanier to argue that users should receive "nanopayments" for data accumulated from them. Dutch technology pundit Jathan Sadowski has even suggested that big data collection is a "form of theft".

However, many of the products and services provided by large companies that rely on big data from users – such as Uber's surge pricing feature and Google's traffic predictions – depend largely on information from millions of users. Ultimately, one individual's contribution isn't worth all that much. In fact, if Facebook divided up all of its profits among its users, each user would only receive about $5 for 2016, according to analysts.

Recent preliminary results from Gartner, Inc. shows that worldwide PC (personal computer) shipments totaled 72.6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016, a 3.7 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2015. In total, for the year 2016, PC shipments totaled 269.7 million units, a 6.2 percent decline from 2015. The significance of PCs is diminishing as the smartphone trend and popularity of connected devices takes center stage. PC shipments have declined annually since 2012, while mobile broadband subscriptions have been growing by around 25 percent annually, increasing by approximately 190 million in Q3 2016 alone, Ericsson reports.

Mobile subscriptions are growing at around three percent year on year globally and reached 7.5 billion in 2016, according to Ericsson’s recent Mobility Report. The increased efficiency of smartphones is outweighing traditional PCs, making them less necessary to own. While Lenovo holds the position as the world’s biggest PC and laptop maker, it cannot hide from the fact that globally, PC sales in 2016 were down by 6.2 percent. Meanwhile, the number of mobile subscriptions exceeds the population in many countries, according to Ericsson.

"Stagnation in the PC market continued into the fourth quarter of 2016 as holiday sales were generally weak due to the fundamental change in PC buying behavior," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "The broad PC market has been static as technology improvements have not been sufficient to drive real market growth. There have been innovative form factors like 2-in-1s and thin and light notebooks, as well as technology improvements, such as longer battery life. This end of the market has grown fast, led by engaged PC users who put high priority on PCs. However, the market driven by PC enthusiasts is not big enough to drive overall market growth."

Ms. Kitagawa continued: "There is the other side of the PC market, where PCs are infrequently used. Consumers in this segment have high dependency on smartphones, so they stretch PC life cycles longer. This side of the market is much bigger than the PC enthusiast segment; thus, steep declines in the infrequent PC user market offset the fast growth of the PC enthusiast market."

In Ericsson’s Mobility Report, it says greater device affordability is encouraging new mobile subscribers in developing regions, while growth in mature markets is largely due to individuals adding more devices; meanwhile, PC sales are declining. What’s more, with 5G on the horizon, smartphones will be able to cater to even higher demands of service. The introduction of 5G, according to Ericsson, will accelerate transformation in many industry verticals, enabling new use cases in areas such as automation, IoT and big data.

Smartphones are becoming more dominant than PCs, but Ms. Kitagawa indicates that there is still hope for the PC market. Although the overall PC market will see stagnation, there are growth opportunities within the market such as the engaged PC user market, the business market and gaming. However, these growth areas will not prevent the overall decline of the PC market, at least in the next year, she says.

Four of the top six PC vendors experienced an increase in worldwide PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to Gartner’s research. The top three vendors all increased their global market share in the fourth quarter. Lenovo maintained the number one position, as the company experienced shipment increases in North America and EMEA, while Asia/Pacific and Japan continued to be challenging markets.

In addition, HP remained in the second position and it has recorded three consecutive quarters of shipment growth. HP secured the top position in PC shipments in the US and EMEA, growing faster than the regional averages.

Dell also registered three consecutive quarters of shipment growth in Q4 2016. Dell continued to place PCs as a strategic business segment in commercial and consumer markets during 2016. Asus suffered the steepest decline among the top six vendors in the fourth quarter of 2016. The company has been shifting its PC strategy more toward the high-end market, which will allow it to maintain better profit margins. Gartner analysts said the falling shipment volume could be the cause of this strategy shift.

According to Ericsson’s Mobility Report, North America saw 405 million mobile subscriptions in 2016. Subscriptions associated with smartphones continue to increase, the report says, and have surpassed those for basic mobile phones. Fifty-five percent of all subscriptions are now for smartphones and, in Q3 2016, smartphones accounted for close to 80 percent of all mobile phones sold. In comparison, Gartner’s research says PC shipments in the US totaled just 16.5 million units in Q4 2016, a 1.3 percent decline from Q4 2016.

Five of the top six vendors in the US PC market experienced a shipment increase in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to Gartner. However, this was offset by a 20.9 percent decline in the ‘Others’ category, and a 48.3 percent decline in shipments by Asus.

"Similar to low-key back to school sales in 3Q16, big sales events, such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and holiday sales are no longer effective marketing opportunities for PCs since PC purchases are generally driven by a 'need,' rather than 'want,' motivation," Ms. Kitagawa said. "PCs are not a preferred gift item any longer, as consumers gravitate toward other consumer electronics, such as virtual personal assistant (VPA) speakers, virtual reality (VR) head-mounted devices and wearables. Vendors and channels did not have high expectations for the holiday PC sales, so the marketing campaigns remained relatively quiet."

The consumer items that Ms. Kitagawa refers to – such as virtual reality headwear and wearables – fall under the IoT (internet of things) umbrella. Ericsson predicts that the number of projected IoT devices will reach 1.5 billion in 2022. This growth, according to the report, is due to increased industry focus and 3GPP standardization of cellular IoT technologies.

Europe, the Middle East and Africa saw a decline in PC shipments in 2016. PC shipments in EMEA surpassed 21.9 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016, a 3.4 percent decline year over year, according to Gartner. PC shipments to the consumer market were driven by good Black Friday sales in Western European countries, such as the UK and France, especially on traditional notebooks, ultramobile clamshells, the hybrid form factor and gaming PCs. Gartner's early estimates also show PC shipment growth in the business segment, led by Windows 10 deployments during the fourth quarter.

In addition, the Asia/Pacific PC market totaled 24.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016, a 3.9 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2015, according to Gartner. The PC market was affected by two major events. First, the demonetization of the Indian currency in India led to weaker-than-expected consumer PC demand. Second, the success of China's 11.11 (Singles Day on 11 November) online shopping event gave a boost to consumer notebook sales.

Ultimately, growth in the number of connected devices is driven by emerging applications and business models, and supported by standardization and falling device costs, Ericsson reports. The traditional PC market is being swamped by the growing needs consumers have for mobility and convenience, which can be provided by smartphones and other connected devices under the umbrella of IoT.

Mobile device adoption in the workplace is not yet mature, found a recent survey from Gartner, Inc. Although 80 percent of workers surveyed received one or more corporate-issued devices, desktops are still the most popular corporate device among businesses, with more than half of workers receiving corporate-issued desktop PCs. The survey findings are based on the 2016 Gartner Personal Technologies Study, which was conducted from June to August 2016 among 9,592 respondents in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia.

Thirty-six percent of workers received laptops, including convertible laptops, according to the survey. Adoption of convertible laptops as a corporate-issued device is still very low, but has been gradually increasing. Gartner analysts expect that more employees will receive convertible laptops in the next three years, driven by the Windows 10 refresh that can enhance the user experience with touch-based input. Adding desktops and laptops (including convertible laptops) together, 75 percent of workers will receive at least one PC-type device in mature countries. 

In contrast to the high numbers of corporate-issued PCs in the workplace, relatively few workers receive mobile devices, according to the survey. The majority of smartphones used in the workplace are personally owned devices — only 23 percent of employees surveyed are given corporate-issued smartphones.

"The low adoption of corporate-issued mobile devices underlines the fact that large numbers of personally owned mobile devices are used in the workplace," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal research analyst at Gartner. "In fact, more than half of employees who used smartphones at work rely solely on their personally owned smartphones."

The usage rate of personally owned tablets lags behind that of personally owned smartphones, says the survey. Only 21 percent of employees use tablets — regardless of whether they are corporate issued or personally owned.

"In the era of mobility, it comes as something of a surprise that corporate usage of smartphones and tablets is not as high as PCs, even when the use of personally owned devices is taken into account," said Ms. Kitagawa. "While it's true that the cost of providing mobile devices can quickly escalate, proper usage of mobile devices can increase productivity, which can easily justify the extra costs."

When employees are provided with corporate-issued devices, they are generally happy with the devices that they receive, the survey indicates. Less than 20 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with their employer-provided devices. The satisfaction level is higher with tablets and smartphones compared with desktop and laptops.

"Usage of personally owned devices in the workplace is nothing new, but the survey results confirm that this trend has become a new workplace standard. Two-thirds of survey respondents said that they use a personally owned device or devices for work," said Ms. Kitagawa. "Smartphones and phablets are the most popular personally owned devices used for work, with 39 percent of employees using them, compared with just 10 percent who are only using corporate-issued smartphones and phablets." 

Gartner has put a damper on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to create 100 smart cities: Gartner estimates that, by 2020, fewer than 10 percent of India's smart city projects will be of a large-scale, city-wide nature.

Modi launched the Smart Cities Mission in June 2015, allocating a total of $US5 billion for the development of 100 smart cities and the rejuvenation of 500 others.

According to Gartner, the lack of a holistic, framework-based approach and of a viable revenue model are stalling large-scale smart city projects in India. As a result, it says, many small pilot projects are underway, but no big citywide projects have been announced.

"While many Indian cities have announced smart city projects, a structured approach in selecting these projects has thus far been missing from most city councils," said Ganesh Ramamoorthy, research vice president at Gartner.

"To succeed, technology product management leaders of smart city products and services must focus on a long-term, consultative approach and innovative revenue models."

According to Gartner, a holistic, framework-based approach to smart city creation would “take into consideration the current state of the physical and IT infrastructure of the city, the city's challenges, the citizens' needs, and the existing capabilities of the city machinery to deliver critical services.”

This approach, Gartner says, “helps identify the gaps in various hardware, software, network, connectivity, security and information management infrastructure that must be bridged to implement a scalable, future-proof and cost-effective smart city service delivery infrastructure.

“Engaging early on with the key decision-making officials in city and state departments beyond IT, such as the departments of public works, utilities, state highways, and state urban and rural development, will help product managers of smart city products and solutions not only gain entry into large-scale physical infrastructure projects, but also offer the Internet of Things (IoT) component that will help make physical infrastructure smart in the future.”

On a more positive note Ramamoorthy says: "The good news is that India's central government has now appointed a CEO for every designated smart city to ensure long-term continuity and a more holistic approach to smart city development. The city CEO office will need time to establish the necessary protocols, policies, procedures and mechanisms, as well as other modalities for interdepartmental communication, transaction and functioning with respect to smart city projects."

Funding for smart cites will also require serious consideration, Gartner says. It estimates that only about 20 percent of the current funding allocation will be used for IT-based smart city product, solution and service implementation with the remaining 80 percent going into physical infrastructure development.

“As a result, city officials will likely look to the service providers to fund initial projects,” Garner says. “Product managers of smart city solutions, services and products must therefore think carefully about the revenue model of the projects that they are targeting in order to ensure they get reasonable returns on their investments.”

Gartner has issued its 2016 Hype Cycle for ICT in India saying it shows the technology lag between India and other major technology markets to be narrowing as more local vendors enter both emerging and mature technology segments in India, including areas such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and software as a service (SaaS).

Santhosh Rao, principal research analyst at Gartner, said: “India has evolved from an ICT environment that was about 18 months to two years behind global trends at the start of the decade, to one in which most trends are in sync with global trends. "It’s clear that many of the technologies on the 2016 Hype Cycle for ICT in India also appear in the global ICT Hype Cycle."

Principal research analyst, Pankaj Prasad, added: "The Indian economy is in good shape, and government initiatives such as ‘Make in India’ and ’Digital India,’ are positive measures that are driving investment in India by multinational companies. The computer software and hardware segments had a foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow of $5.9 billion during the period from April 2015 to March 2016. This is an increase of nearly 150 percent compared with the same period last year, and Gartner expects these investments to gather further momentum toward the end of 2016."

The Hype Cycle for ICT in India, 2016 shows 25 key technologies at various states of maturity that Gartner has identified as being those most relevant for information technology in India and positions them on the Gartner Hype Cycle. Gartner says it provides a snapshot of technologies that CIOs and senior IT leaders in Indian enterprises should consider when transitioning to digital businesses.

Beginning its ascent of this year’s Innovation Trigger is DevOps. “The rise of digital business is driving increased awareness among Indian infrastructure and operations (I&O) teams about DevOps which focuses on rapid IT service delivery,” Gartner says.

“The fundamental principles of DevOps aim to build an agile and flexible bridge between the development and operations functions of IT. These principles encourage a culture of innovation, small and quick releases, failing fast and inexpensively, learning from failures and supporting systems of innovation in a pace-layered approach.”

Just ahead of DevOps on the Innovation Trigger is Crowdsourcing. “Crowdsourcing in India today manifests itself in four areas: crowdsourced communities for application development services; innovation platforms; hackathons and initiatives by local and central government,” Gartner says.

“Crowdsourcing offers the potential to open up innovation efforts by stimulating and capturing creative ideas from outside an organization. This approach can dramatically increase the available human insight that can be applied to a task or challenge. Government organizations are particularly well-positioned to take advantage of the willingness of citizens to help in areas that reflect their local environments or special interests.”

Poised just past the peak of this year’s Peak of Inflated Expectations, heading for the Trough of Disillusionment, is IoT. “IoT can benefit Indian enterprises in multiple ways, but for successful IoT implementation, Indian organizations will first have to understand the business use case for which they want to use IoT,” Gartner says.

“Success will also depend on aligning the IT and operation technology (OT) resources, processes and people carefully. Therefore, experimenting with pilot projects to understand the implications on people, process, technology and the business is an essential first step for Indian organizations.