Where will hyperconverged infrastructure fit in the modern data center?

Insights from TBR’s hyperconverged infrastructure research stream

As digital transformation progresses, customers’ data center environments evolve in kind. TBR’s hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) research stream provides some indicators on the market’s motions. TBR unearths customer preferences centered on HCI and maps the anticipated progression of HCI adoption over the next five years. Deep dives into the evolving vendor landscape, HCI use cases and workload trends are key highlights within this research.

Join Geoff Woollacott and Stephanie Long as they share key insights around the current state of the HCI market, how digital transformation will impact this market’s momentum, and where TBR expects the market to head in the next few years.

Don’t miss:

  • The state of the HCI market
  • HCI’s place in the cloud market
  • HCI market leaders, disruptors and laggards

 

TBR webinars are held typically on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous webinars can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

For additional information or to arrange a briefing with our analysts, please contact TBR at [email protected].

Channel partner ecosystems will evolve to support digital adoption

An exclusive review of TBR’s ongoing analysis of ICT vendors’ go-to-market strategies and Tailored Services capabilities

Shifts in customer consumption preferences and efforts to accelerate revenue expansion in high-growth business segments continue to transform the go-to-market motions of leading technology and professional services vendors. Vendors are increasingly relying on their channel ecosystems to create self-sustaining economies that support their financial and strategic objectives in cloud, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, digital, and other disruptive technology and services segments. As part of this effort to pursue channel-led growth, vendors are investing in new and revised channel partner programs, structures and strategies, and new partner types and ecosystems are emerging around major technology domains.

Join TBR’s Bryan Belanger and Colin Naples April 17 for a review of:

  • Major recent channel and alliance strategy trends and developments observed across TBR’s technology market coverage domains
  • Expectations for channel and alliance strategy trends and developments across TBR’s technology market coverage domains in 2019
  • TBR’s perspective on the importance of competitive channel strategy benchmarking, as well as recommended best practices for vendors to use in benchmarking competitive channel programs, structures and strategies

 

 

TBR webinars are held typically on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous webinars can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

For additional information or to arrange a briefing with our analysts, please contact TBR at [email protected].

Progress report: State of the NFV/SDN telecom market

Insight’s from TBR’s 1Q19 NFV/SDN Telecom Market Landscape

The NFV/SDN ecosystem continues to advance and leading communication service providers (CSPs) are making progress on their NFV/SDN-related initiatives, but full transformation is still years away as industry challenges remain. Join Telecom Senior Analysts Chris Antlitz and Michael Soper for an in-depth review of TBR’s latest report on the NFV/SDN telecom market landscape.

Don’t miss:

  • Examples of how leading CSPs are progressing on their NFV/SDN-related initiatives
  • How NFV and SDN adoption will impact global CSP capex and opex spend through 2022
  • Why 5G will push CSPs to accelerate and broaden their NFV/SDN-related initiatives
  • Which vendors are outperforming in the NFV/SDN space

 

 

TBR webinars are held typically on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous webinars can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

For additional information or to arrange a briefing with our analysts, please contact TBR at [email protected].

The makings of the telecom edge compute market

Insights from TBR’s 2Q19 Telecom Edge Compute Market Landscape

Edge compute will be required to enable and support new use cases of the network, such as augmented reality (AR)/virtual reality (VR) and autonomous transportation, as well as will provide significant benefits, such as cost savings, for communication service providers (CSP). The build-out of these edge compute environments will create opportunities for the vendor ecosystem. Join Telecom Principal Analyst Chris Antlitz for an in-depth review of TBR’s first edition of the Telecom Edge Compute Market Landscape.

Don’t miss:

  • The key reasons CSPs will build out edge compute environments
  • How much CSPs will invest to build out edge compute environments
  • Which vendors are likely to outperform in this nascent market

TBR webinars are held typically on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous webinars can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

For additional information or to arrange a briefing with our analysts, please contact TBR at [email protected].

30 minutes, 3 months, 3 years: Evolution of digital transformation

Insights from TBR’s Digital Transformation Insights team

Join Boz Hristov and Patrick Heffernan as they look at the last three years of change in digital transformation, particularly in consulting and IT services. Building on the recent launch of a Digital Transformation Insights portfolio, TBR will describe how hype became substantial engagements and how emerging technologies shifted business models for companies as diverse as PwC and Infosys.

Don’t miss:

  • Which emerging trends in 2016 to 2018 turned into digital transformation’s hard truths in 2019
  • How IT services vendors and consultancies differentiate in a crowding digital transformation space
  • Expectations in the next three years for the leading vendors

Bringing the best: Talent and technology in management consulting

Insights from TBR’s Professional Services team

Join Senior Analysts Elitsa Bakalova and Patrick Heffernan and Research Analyst Kelly Lesiczka as they discuss the infusion of technology into every aspect of management consulting. In addition to detailing changed business models among the Big Four and Strategy-centric firms, the team will review how asset- and IT-centric consulting vendors have increasingly brought their technology-trained talent to bear across the management consulting space.

Don’t miss:

  • Which IT services vendors and consultancies have best transformed their talent to handle the new management consulting world
  • How emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, will change the business models of management consultancies
  • Why companies like Capgemini, IBM and Accenture will be the ones to watch through 2019

 

TBR webinars are held typically on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous webinars can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

For additional information or to arrange a briefing with our analysts, please contact TBR at [email protected].

Obstacles and triumphs on the journey to cloud

Insights from TBR’s Cloud and Software team

Customer adoption of cloud services is maturing as enterprises pursue next-step cloud adoption, implementing lessons learned from their own initial experiences and those of peers. With this maturity, cloud adoption strategies and decisions are becoming both more nuanced and hybrid-oriented, and vary widely by CIO, industry and company scale. Join Allan, Cassandra, Meaghan and Jack as they discuss the most recent insights from TBR’s Cloud Applications Customer Research and Cloud Infrastructure & Platforms Customer Research.

Don’t miss:

  • Cloud adoption intricacies
  • CIO cloud perspectives and strategies
  • Industry considerations

 

TBR webinars are held typically on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous webinars can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

For additional information or to arrange a briefing with our analysts, please contact TBR at [email protected].

Evolutionary IoT: Starting small and controlling costs

Data must earn its keep

Internet of Things (IoT) projects range from small to huge, and the small end of the spectrum is where we find growth. TBR believes that organizations that successfully exploit the enormous transformative potential of IoT do it through widespread and continual execution of IoT projects, and through ongoing generation of insights from integration of IoT-generated data. While some of the projects are large, most are small, usually focusing on reducing costs. For these projects to succeed, and for IoT to proliferate, they must generate positive ROIs and costs must be contained. All parts of an IoT project generate costs, but stored data generates increasing costs throughout the life of the project. For this reason, managing data-driven costs is key to IoT success. Join Ezra Gottheil and Dan Callahan as they discuss evolutionary IoT and data cost containment.

Don’t miss:

  • The transformative power of evolutionary IoT
  • Vendor messaging in the age of evolutionary IoT
  • Edge computing and cost-effective IoT

 

TBR webinars are held typically on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous webinars can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

For additional information or to arrange a briefing with our analysts, please contact TBR at [email protected].

Distributors and VARs: The unsung heroes of the IoT market

The background

Commercial IoT has received substantial press over the last three years. It started in 2015 with hyped claims of IoT’s ability to deliver total transformation, but expectations around the technology have matured and IoT is now viewed as a reasonable technique for solving business problems. However, one thing has not changed: When it comes to IoT market participants, the focus of the discussion remains on larger IT vendors, SIs and customers. The missing story is the involvement of the distributors, VARs and smaller SIs, and the current needs of the small to midsize customers.

What are distributors?

Distributors sit between IT vendors and VARs or SIs, procuring equipment or software from the former and distributing it to the latter two. Because distributors generally have a very large customer base, they can help vendors reach more customers or provide a channel for vendors that cannot afford to build their own, such as smaller ISVs. Because distributors procure equipment from vendors and stock it themselves, they are incentivized to educate VARs or SIs about vendor products and help market them as well as to deliver sales training, demos and exhibitions. Distributors are masters of the supply chain, bundling and contract negotiations.

What are VARs?

VARs, along with SIs, serve on the frontline of IT and offer a more tailored storefront to customers than a larger vendor. VARs will seek to build and deliver turnkey solutions by mixing and matching technology and software, as well as layering on services of their own, such as integration, customization, consulting, training and implementation. VARs are often organized by customer type, from those offering general IT services to those specializing in education, the public sector, heavy industry and other niche areas. VARs, along with SIs, often have the keenest grasp on customer challenges, making them well positioned to package IoT components, build applications or offer services.

Interoperability, consumerism and patient engagement remain perennial health IT imperatives

Following a handful of activities that took place during the preceding weekend, including the CIO Forum opening reception, HIMSS 2019 officially kicked off on Feb. 11. Nashville, Tenn.-based Change Healthcare, a 15,000-employee provider of revenue cycle management and clinical data exchange solutions, made headlines immediately with the announcement it will launch a new solution on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide “free clinical data interoperability services.” The collaboration with AWS will improve patients’ access to their medical information while enhancing the integration of patient and clinician platforms with EHR systems. There is never a shortage of cutting-edge and innovative health IT technologies showcased at the HIMSS conference, but Change Healthcare’s new offering, and its well-timed introduction, reflects the efforts companies are making amid the persistent challenges of interoperability and consumer-centrism in healthcare IT.

During HIMSS19 TBR spoke with healthcare IT professionals from hardware, software and services vendors; management consultancies; and professional services organizations possessing a bird’s eye view of current market trends and the strategic levers healthcare organizations are pulling to align with market movements and meet evolving demand for value-, data- and patient-centric health IT solutions.

Interoperability is a still a big problem that remains to be solved

Illustrating interoperability as a common and protracted concern among health IT professionals, conference organizers described the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase as “the most trafficked area of the exhibition floor.” There, attendees found demonstration areas where as many as eight health IT vendors could cooperate to showcase use cases for interoperability solutions. Beyond the exhibitions, interoperability-related panel discussions and presentations touched on how the recent Carequality and CommonWell alliances have created a national infrastructure, or informal backbone, of sorts to support and enhance interoperability across disparate health IT systems. The topic of open APIs received significant attention, as did how open source collaborations can help drive the industry toward a more interoperable future.

 

 

HIMSS 2019 hosted over 45,000 attendees and more than 1,300 vendors and featured more than 300 education sessions. Due to the massive scale of this industry conference, TBR elected to focus on seminars, round table discussions and exhibitions that emphasized interoperability, consumerism and patient engagement.