August 9, 2005

According to a new study by Jupiter Research, advertisers will spend almost $19 billion on online advertising in 2010, up from $9.3 billion last year. The biggest increase will be in search engine marketing, while sales of banner ads and classified ads are also predicted to grow very quickly. The amount of rich media and streaming video advertising is also expected to increase sharply.

August 6, 2005

According to the most recent U.S. Department of Labor statistics and other surveys by staffing firms, the job market for technical professionals improved considerably in July.

June 10, 2005

According to a new study by technology recruiting firm Robert Half, the U.S. information technology job market is improving steadily. The percentage of CIOs planning to add full-time IT staff in the third quarter is the highest it has been in three years. The poll was conducted with more than 1,400 CIOs from U.S. companies with more than 100 employees. Executives at the largest firms — those with more than 1,000 employees — and those in the Northeast plan to do most of the hiring, according to the survey. In addition, an article in the USA Today citing Labor Department statistics states that the number of workers who are quitting voluntarily and moving on to better jobs is nearing a four-year high, suggesting that the job market has improved significantly.

June 8, 2005

A new report on technology outsourcing has found that the number of customers satisfied with their offshoring providers has dropped from 79% to 62%. In addition, the number of customers prematurely terminating an outsourcing relationship has doubled to 51%. The report was based on surveys and in-depth interviews with 210 senior IT executives at Global 1000 companies and 242 senior executives at outsourcing service providers.

May 20, 2005

According to IBM, there will be a critical shortage of qualified IT people in the U.S. over the next five years. The company says that an additional 2.2 million people will be needed in information technlogy-related professions by 2010. The company is working with universities to increase the supply of qualified people while attempting to quickly recruit the existing supply of top graduates.

May 19, 2005

According to a new global software piracy study done by Business Software Alliance (BSA), more than one third of all software in use today is still pirated. Estimated software company revenue losses due to piracy in 2004 was $33 billion. The countries with the highest piracy rates were Vietnam (92%), Ukraine (91%), China (90%), Zimbabwe (90%) and Indonesia (87%). The countries with the lowest piracy rates were the United States (21%), New Zealand (23%), Austria (25%), Sweden (26%), and United Kingdom (27%).

May 12, 2005

According to a recent survey by Computer Economics, business users migrate towards open source primarily to reduce dependence on software vendors, and not because of cost savings. As strange as it sounds, the hatred of commercial software vendors by businesses is so intense that many would be willing to pay more for open source just to free themselves from the vendors. What this means is that commercial software vendors really have a much bigger problem on their hands; open source didn't create this problem, but instead brings it to light.

May 7, 2005

According to the latest data from the U.S. Labor Department as well as anecdotal evidence from technical recruiters, tech hiring was up significantly in April, and salaries are rising steadily. In addition, venture capitalists have been making bigger investments in new software, wireless, and Internet companies. All this points to much better times ahead for techies looking for new and better jobs.

April 29, 2005

According to new data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), internet advertising rose by 33% in 2004 to a record $9.6 billion. These numbers surpass levels seen during the dot-com boom. According to the IAB, internet advertising will grow at a similar rate in 2005. Some other statistics from the IAB report: paid search listing revenue increased 40% to $3.9 billion, banner advertising climbed 19% to $1.8 billion, rich media ads grew 10% percent $1 billion, and online classified ads grew 18% to $1.7 billion.

April 20, 2005

According to a new study released by IDC, China and India are experiencing massive growth in the number of professional software developers between 2003 and 2008, with compound annual growth rates of 25.6% for India and 24.5% for China. This growing supply of inexpensive IT talent will continue to exert pressure for U.S. and European companies to outsource large parts of their IT infrastructures.

April 19, 2005

According to a recent survey, in-game advertising revenue is expected to grow to $1 Billion per year by 2010, and to $2.5 Billion per year a few years after that. These projected revenues depict three different types of game related ad revenues: product placement in console and online games, games designed around specific products, and advertising placed in cell phone games.

April 19, 2005

Deloitte and Touche has released the results of a new study that reveals the truth behind IT outsourcing. According to the survey of IT outsourcing client companies, 70% percent had negative experiences with outsourcing, 25% realized that they could handle functions better and cheaper internally, 44% didn't see any cost-savings from outsourcing, 57% ended up absorbing costs that they believed were included in the contracts with outsourced vendors, and 50% cited hidden costs as the biggest problem. Other statistics include: 80% had either limited or no transparency to a vendor's pricing schema, and 73% are now working to reduce outsourcing vendor dependancy. A study by Gartner last month noted that customer service outsourcing could cost as much as one-third more than doing the job internally and anger your customers at the same time.

April 16, 2005

According to a new report, job postings at tech job site Dice.com rose 22 percent in the first three months of the year. Most of the growth in job openings were in the New York and Washington D.C. metropolitan areas. In addition, earlier employment data from the U.S. Department of Labor showed that the average number of unemployed technology workers fell from 210,000 in 2003 to 146,000 in 2004.

April 11, 2005

According to a new report by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, technology companies eliminated 60,000 jobs in the first quarter of this year, which is twice the number eliminated during the same period last year. The telecommunications industry accounted for more than 35,000 job cuts. Other companies in the computer industry accounted for the remaining layoffs. Many of the cuts have been blamed on the AT&T Wireless/Cingular and the Sprint/Nextel mergers. Other consolidations like AT&T/SBC and the buyout of MCI by either Verizon or Qwest are expected to continue this trend for a while longer.

April 8, 2005

A new study conducted by MediaPost and Deutsche Bank provides some interesting statistics about online media spending by top advertisers. In addition to total increased ad spending, statistics also show that 35% of spending went to targeted niche web sites, 21% went to Yahoo!/MSN/AOL, 13% went to local media sites, 11% went to advertising networks, and the rest to various other sites. Spending on sponsored search engine listings has also increased, and use of pay-per-click advertising continued to rise, with Google and Overture taking in more than 80% of all PPC ad spending.

April 4, 2005

A new report from the Pew/Internet Project takes a look at the growth of podcasting. According to the report, 29% of U.S. adults who own an MP3 player say they have downloaded and listened to podcasts. This translates to roughly 6 million people. Almost half of MP3 player owners younger than 29 years old have tried podcasts, while only 20% of older MP3 player owners have done so. The free report contains dozens of fascinating statistics about podcast producers and their listeners.

April 4, 2005

According to market research firm IDC, the number of residential voice over IP (VOIP) subscribers in the U.S. will jump to 27 million by 2009, up from an estimated 3 million today.

March 29, 2005

A report issued yesterday says that the job market for wireless and networking jobs is heating up quickly. More than 74% of wireless industry professionals stated that the job market in their field is strong and growing. Online job listing sites report that listings for wireless-related jobs have doubled over the same period last year, and listings for other data networking jobs have increased 40%. However, the job market for other IT careers is still mixed due to recent mergers, layoffs, and off-shore outsourcing.

March 28, 2005

A new report released by DisplaySearch has some interesting statistics about the current state of the desktop LCD market. According to the report, customers bought more than 21.2 million desktop LCDs in the 2004 Q4, a 26% growth over 2004 Q3. In addition, LCDs now represent 57% of the total desktop monitor market. The report also found that the best selling price ranges are $149-$199 for 15" LCD monitors, $199-$299 for 17" LCD monitors, and $359-$399 for 19" LCD monitors. The largest desktop LCD monitor vendor is Dell with a product market share of 19.8% worldwide and 39.5% in the United States.

March 28, 2005

An article in Newsweek looks at the growing cell phone games business. According to IDC, wireless firms earned $350 million in game downloads in 2004, a 250 percent increase over the previous year. Investments are way up, as venture capitalists poured $180 million into new mobile-gaming start-ups in 2004 alone. Large game companies are moving into the market as well. Electronic Arts has said that it will produce 20 to 30 mobile games in the next year.