TBR’s Business Insights

Skills Shortage Will Challenge the Scaling of Sovereign AI in 2026

02.20.26

AI-related skills will remain scarce across both buyers and ecosystem partners as the rapid pace of innovation and the technical complexity required to enable sovereign AI continue to hinder adoption. These challenges, combined with a lack of clearly defined and compliant use cases among sovereign customers, gaps in sovereign cloud infrastructure availability and steep AI learning curve faced by ecosystem partners, will constrain meaningful investment and implementation of sovereign AI throughout 2026.

PaaS Revenue Will Outpace SaaS Revenue for Cloud Software Vendors

02.17.26

Enterprise customers are prioritizing the modernization of their existing SaaS estates rather than adding new applications, driven by market saturation, accumulated technical debt, and a growing imperative to become AI-ready. As IT buyers shift their focus toward modern platforms, traditional SaaS leaders should expect their PaaS segments to continue significantly outperforming their core SaaS businesses in revenue growth.

Dee Angela, Canva Pro

Alliances Will Extend Beyond Core Offerings as AI-driven Sales and Marketing Reshape Ecosystems

02.12.26

IT services companies have their limits, and clients have preferred technology vendors, leading IT services companies to look to alliances to drive new growth. We have seen this pattern before, but in 2026 we will see IT services companies extend those alliances into devices, connectivity and even silicon, requiring a multiparty alliance approach that will strain commercial models, sales strategies and alliance leaders across the ecosystem.

Consulting Will Rebound in 2026

02.10.26

After a period of relative softness, consulting revenues are expected to rebound to high-single- or low-double-digit growth as pervasive uncertainty pushes enterprises to seek external guidance. Demand will be particularly strong around risk mitigation, strategic planning and AI adoption, positioning forward-deployed engineers, supply chain management and people advisory services as leading revenue drivers in 2026.

Bad Debt Expenses Will Rise for CSPs in 2026

02.06.26

In a K-shaped economy that increasingly separates financial winners from losers, the majority of households and businesses on the lower arm of the “K” are under mounting financial strain and are finding it more difficult to pay their bills. As these economic pressures persist, communications service providers (CSPs) should expect bad debt expenses to continue rising, with the potential to meet, or even exceed, levels experienced during the Great Recession.

How Will Advanced AI Impact Pricing, Labor Practices and Client Expectations?

02.05.26

Advanced AI may be front and center in IT services strategy, but execution challenges remain a familiar story. Despite ongoing hype around unlocking new efficiencies and nonlinear growth, IT services firms continue to grapple with the reality of needing labor arbitrage in the short term and meeting client expectations.

Gustavo Quiroga Gaitan, Canva Pro

AI Alliances Will Increasingly Target OT

02.03.26

New and expanding partnerships are increasingly targeting the convergence of IT and OT, as system integrators (SIs) align with OEMs, manufacturing ISVs and silicon providers. This momentum is driven by the strong growth potential in high-tech manufacturing, where solutions that improve accuracy, efficiency and safety can be deployed on-site without reliance on rack-scale compute systems in neoclouds or Tier 1 clouds. As a result, while AI has long operated at the edge, these partnerships will accelerate both the sophistication of AI-driven use cases and the pace of solution framework development.

Agentic AI Adoption Is Pressuring Security Architectures to Converge

01.29.26

The emerging pattern of multicloud security consolidation has direct implications for both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft, as enterprises reassess detection pipelines, governance models and operating frameworks heading into 2026. Although AWS remains well positioned in analytics-heavy workloads, the company needs to reevaluate its long-established “building block” approach, especially as peers deliver more integrated platforms. For Microsoft, its strengths will continue to be with organizations where Microsoft 365 already anchors their identity and collaboration strategies.

Saitharn, Getty Images via Canva Pro

The U.S. doesn’t have a Spectrum Shortage — It has a Utilization Problem

01.13.26

The mobile industry continues to beat the drum for more spectrum, but it should instead focus on fully utilizing the spectrum already allocated. TBR notes there are vast tranches of spectrum in the U.S. market that are broadly underutilized, either for technical or economic reasons. And challenges will only worsen as the industry aims to bring upper midband frequencies into the fray, which have greater propagation challenges and are less suited for macro coverage.

Previous Next

Our most-read analysis, free in your inbox each week!

Fill out the form to the right to subscribe to Insights Flight today

Services Weekly Preview: November 26-30, 2018

11.26.18/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

In this magical time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, despite racing to get as much analysis and as many predictions published before the new year, we’re able to enjoy a slight pause in the usual news cycle and company activity to reflect on 2018 and predict what will be coming in 2019. In two upcoming webinars, […]

Services Weekly Preview: November 19-21

11.19.18/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Before we celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday and recover from all that food on Friday, we will publish some of our periodic analysis of IT services vendors, management consulting profiles, and special reports. Here’s what’s coming: Monday: TBR’s 3Q18 Booz Allen Hamilton full report will provide analysis on one of the federal market’s most forward-thinking and risk-taking […]

Services Weekly Preview: Nov. 11-16, 2018

11.12.18/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

As we build toward the middle of the quarter, we’re wrapping up our periodic assessments of IT services vendors. Like last week, we also have some semiannual analysis on vendors in the management consulting space. Monday: KPMG’s risk-averse culture pressured its performance, causing the firm to drop a spot in terms of revenue size among […]

Cloud repatriation follow-up: Do you really know the value proposition of cloud?

11.07.18/by Angela Lambert, Principal Analyst and Practice Manager

A few weeks ago, I blogged my thoughts about cloud repatriation and how it feels like an over-emphasized trend. In my professional analysis amid researching various reports and interacting with data center vendors, one of the key pieces of the cloud repatriation narrative is that customers will move to cloud without a full picture of […]

Atos expands reach in North America through the acquisition of Syntel

11.06.18/by Elitsa Bakalova, Senior Analyst

On Oct. 9, Atos completed the acquisition of Syntel, adding close to $1 billion in revenues, 89% of which were generated in North America in 2017, as well as over 23,000 employees. This month, TBR analysts will travel to Dallas to hear further details on Atos’ plans with Syntel and further assess what this will […]

Services weekly preview: Nov. 5-9, 2018

11.05.18/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Well into the third quarter of industry earnings and our periodic assessments of IT services vendors, TBR’s analysts this week will also share their semiannual analysis on vendors in the management consulting space Monday: In 3Q18 Infosys signed 12 large deals with a total contract value over $2 billion, but the company’s delivery framework remains fragile as Infosys […]

Voice assistant volume is increasing

10.31.18/by admin

A survey conducted by Adobe Analytics found that 32% of U.S. consumers owned a smart speaker in September 2018, compared to 28% in December 2017. The report also projected that near half of the U.S. consumer base could own one by the end of December 2018, supported by Adobe Analytics’ finding that nearly 80% of […]

Big Blue opens its arms, and its wallet, to Red Hat

10.30.18/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Red Hat’s projected growth is enough to justify the hefty purchase price On Oct. 28, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) executives announced a proposed acquisition ― one that will be the industry’s third-largest acquisition should it gain approval. The deal, valued at $34 billion, would bring Red Hat into IBM’s hybrid cloud […]

Whether by R&D or acquisition, money can’t buy SaaS performance

10.26.18/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

The SaaS market appears to provide an easy opportunity for vendors to garner significant revenue and growth. SaaS is the largest segment of the cloud market — bigger than the IaaS space, which draws so much attention due to leaders Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. The SaaS market is also much more fragmented, littered […]

Customer preferences are forming around hybrid and shifting around open source as vendors focus on acquisitions

10.23.18/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Prebuilt devices are a ray of clarity amid the fogginess of hybrid Hybrid can be a difficult thing to define in cloud computing. The term “hybrid” is overused by vendors but underused by customers, causing general confusion over its definition as well as solid examples of hybrid solutions. An area of the market that cuts […]

Free Data & Analysis

Subscribe to Insights Flight today!