Month: September 2023

Strategic Considerations for Leading European MSSPs Addressing the SMB Segment

by Rajesh Muru, posted in Secure
R. Muru

Summary Bullets:

• With a market value of $20.32 billion in 2027, the SMB cybersecurity market in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe is worth pursuing, and businesses are underserved.

• Leading Western MSSPs will require investment to redefine their propositions for the SMB segment, utilizing a high-touch, asset-lite, automated proposition.

The Western, Central, and Eastern European SMB Segment is Worth Pursuing
According to GlobalData, total cybersecurity revenues for Western, Central, and Eastern Europe for the small and medium-sized business (SMB) segment (0-249 employees) will reach $20.32 billion in 2027 with a CAGR of 13.3%, whereas the large business segment (250+ employees) will generate $38.37 billion with a CAGR of 11.24%. At a high level, these revenue forecast projections are indicative of SMBs being an important segment for cybersecurity. Consequently, cybersecurity providers, including large tier one and two players as well as local smaller players, are all attempting to pursue opportunities in the SMB segment. However, the downside is that the SMB segment, like the corporate segment, has been suffering as a result of the global economic slowdown, resulting in tighter spending on enterprise ICT and IT. But there is some hope with incremental falling inflation in countries like the UK, influencing business confidence in 2024.

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Salesforce Dreamforce 2023: Lesser-Known Dev Tools Enable Observability

by Charlotte Dunlap, posted in Big Data, Cloud Enable
C. Dunlap Research Director

Summary Bullets:

• Salesforce unveiled a slew of important announcements within the fast-emerging generative AI (GenAI) space.

• For many coders, some significant, lesser-known releases and capabilities emerged that aim to make developers/DevOps’ day-to-day tasks a lot easier.

Those Salesforce Dreamforce attendees who stuck around until the end of the week got to listen to, for many, the most important speech of all – the developer keynote.

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FTC Takes a Big Swing at Amazon with Monopoly Lawsuit, but Will it Land?

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Cloud Enable, IT Leader
Amy Larsen DeCarlo – Principal Analyst, Security and Data Center Services

Summary Bullets:

• The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with 17 state attorneys, is suing Amazon for what it terms monopolistic practices for what it terms have “inflated prices, degrade quality, and stifle innovation for consumers and businesses.”

• Though the lawsuit does not cite Amazon’s size, but rather its market dominance and practices, it doesn’t require too much imagination to read between the lines and think the FTC wants Amazon split up, with the obvious potential spin-out business being Amazon Web Services (AWS).

After a lengthy investigation, the FTC and 17 state attorneys filed a lawsuit against Amazon claiming it’s the retail giant’s “illegal, exclusionary conduct makes it impossible for competitors to gain a foothold.” In a press release announcing the suit, the FTC goes on to call out specific practice as monopolistic and harmful to both businesses and consumers. The FTC specifically calls out Amazon’s search feature, which the agency says is “degrading the customer experience” by switching out “relevant, organic search results with paid advertisements.” The agency claims this hurts both customers frustrated with “junk ads” and sellers who are trying to promote their own products by limiting the return on their advertising investment.

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Security is Driving New Levels of Competition – Are You Ready?

by Steven J. Schuchart Jr., posted in Secure
S. Schuchart

Summary Bullets:

• Growing emphasis on security as an integral part of any enterprise IT buy is being pushed by high-visibility break-ins.

• Vendors and service providers need to change sales and marketing to integrate security, and they need to change their own corporate structures to be competitive.

The story of enterprises putting security first or emphasizing security in their IT solutions is happening, and it’s happening now. My colleague, Amy Larson DeCarlo, Principal Analyst for Security Services here at GlobalData, illustrates this trend in a recent blog (As Ransomware Attacks Accelerate in Frequency and Severity, How to Respond is Just One of the Questions, September 25, 2023).

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New Research Delivers Insights into the Mobile Lives of Children and Teenagers

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Mobilize
Amy Larsen DeCarlo – Principal Analyst, Security and Data Center Services

Summary Bullets:

• A new study from the non-profit research organization Common Sense Media reveals how youths between the ages of 11 and 17 use their mobile devices.

• The research finds social media and other apps flooding the teens phones with notifications in an effort to keep them engaged.

It is unsurprising that devices are omnipresent for youths who have never experienced a time before the advent of cellular technology. But new research from Common Sense Media, involving both an online survey and mobile device tracking, offers some surprising insights into how, and how much, pre-teens and teenagers are using their phones.

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The Sunset of IT Nerd Supremacy

by Steven J. Schuchart Jr., posted in IT Leader

S. Schuchart

Summary Bullets:

• After the mass adoption of computing, the IT department dominated as the final arbiter of every technology decision.

• Technology decisions are now driven by business needs but it isn’t armageddon for IT nerds. They can use their skills to solve problems related to enabling technical solutions.

When computing began and when it hit critical mass, technical knowledge, know-how, and experience was king. The IT department ruled the roost. Products and solutions suggested by other departments to solve their business problems were put under the microscope by the IT department and if they didn’t follow its operational or brand-loyalty/preferred vendor standards they were rejected. IT nerds (that is written with affection – I was one of them) used to pore over specifications such as speeds, feeds, frequencies, security, and storage. Vendors used to sell products, or an array of products in families, based on different technical specifications, and their messages were explicitly for the IT nerd. Overuse of ITIL and a certain level of technological arrogance meant that project implementation was very slow. Even updates were slow. IT nerds picked out products and solutions based almost solely on their technology use case.

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As Ransomware Attacks Accelerate in Frequency and Severity, How to Respond is Just One of the Questions

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Secure

Amy Larsen DeCarlo – Principal Analyst, Security and Data Center Services

Summary Bullets:

• Reports surfaced that both MGM Resorts international and Caesars Entertainment had been hit with ransomware demands earlier this month.

• This comes in a year when both the frequency and cost associated with ransomware demands have skyrocketed.

Earlier this month both MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment were targets of ransom demands. Caesars disclosed that it quietly paid off $15 million to hackers who had breached its customer loyalty database, negotiated down from the initial $30 million demand. MGM went the opposite route, refusing to pay hackers who took over its Okta authentication servers. The result was a multi-system outage that affected everything from reservation systems and digital room key processes to casino floor operations for at least ten days.

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Private Wireless Networks Growth Advances Slowly

by Kitty Weldon, posted in Mobilize
Kathryn Weldon – Research Director, Business Network and IT Services – Americas

Summary Bullets:

• Operator announcements since Q2 2023 have not yet proven that private wireless networks are taking the world by storm as US and European operators have only touted a sprinkling of new deals.

• Operators anticipate substantial future revenues for 4G/5G private and hybrid private/public connectivity as well as for advanced beyond-connectivity services, but traction remains spotty. Most recent announcements are on technology advancements or partnerships.

The past six months haven’t quite proven that private wireless networks are taking the world by storm as US and European operators only touted a sprinkling of new deals. However, they still anticipate substantial future revenues for 4G/5G private and hybrid private/public connectivity as well as for advanced services for private network design, testing, PoC, integration, application enablement, edge computing, and ongoing management. Technology enhancements and partnerships made up the bulk of announcements.

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Gulf States Investment in European Telcos Accelerates

by Rajesh Muru, posted in Communicate, IT Leader, Network, Secure
R. Muru

Summary Bullets:

• Gulf states funds will continue to invest in European telcos, fueled by strong regional growth and large cash reserves.

• Gulf investment in European telcos will promote greater collaboration on innovation between Gulf-based and European telcos that are funded by the same fund entities.

Increased Investment in European Telco by Gulf States Investment Funds
Overall, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in the technology, media, and telecom (TMT) segment has been increasing since 2018, but the trend reversed in 2022. Total global M&A deal value dropped 39% in 2022 to $754 billion, compared to $1.1 trillion in the previous year. Deal volume reached 612 deals in 2022, down 39% from 2021.

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Generative AI Watch: With Einstein Trust Layer, Salesforce Addresses Biggest Hurdles Holding Back Enterprise Adoption

by Rena Bhattacharyya, posted in IT Leader

R. Bhattacharyya

Summary Bullets:
• Despite the incredible interest in generative AI (GenAI), enterprises worry that large language models (LLMs) will hallucinate, create toxic or biased content, and that their use will cause data leakage, among numerous other concerns.
• At Dreamforce ‘23, Salesforce highlighted the recently released Einstein Trust Layer, a framework that secures corporate data, evaluates content for toxicity, masks sensitive information, and provides an audit trail when using GenAI.

AI took center stage at Salesforce’s Dreamforce ’23 conference. During his keynote, Marc Benioff announced that the world is in an AI revolution, and that AI could change anything and will impact everything. Although Dreamforce was all about GenAI this year, AI isn’t a new focus for Salesforce. The company had already embedded AI capabilities into many of solutions across its portfolio. Furthermore, it acquired natural language processing (NLP) expertise via its acquisition of Narrative Science in 2019. What is new this year, however, is that Salesforce is embedding GenAI capabilities into just about all solutions.

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