Ethernet switches stay rock-steady: Sales of Ethernet switches passed $5 billion in the second quarter, 9 percent higher than Q1 sales and 13 percent higher than in Q2 2011, according to a new report from Infonetics Research. "Sales in North America, the largest Ethernet switch market, did especially well, providing an important boost to the overall market," Machowinski adds. "As usual, demand for 10G switches was strong, almost doubling from a year ago, and the 40G Ethernet market is taking off, as vendors round out their 40G solution portfolio." Cisco, HP and Juniper all saw revenue gains, although Cisco and HP didn't do as well year-over-year. Dell, however, saw double-digit growth in Ethernet switch sales year-over-year, thanks in part to its Force 10 acquisition. News release
Tablets prepare for global domination: Online video provider Ooyala said in its Q2 Global Video Index report, published this week, that the amount of time viewers worldwide spent watching video on tablets grew 47 percent in a single quarter. Add to that the data that 60 percent of all users watching online video (on any device) was long-form content like movies and sports, and it appears that the multiscreen viewing environment is here to stay. "The way people watch TV is changing. As more premium content becomes available online, more viewers are logging on, rather than tuning in, to watch their favorite programming on tablets and smart TVs," said Bismarck Lepe, cofounder and president of products for Ooyala. He added that consumers are leading this charge, with media companies adapting to keep up. News release
Big Data takes the stage: Where's the real value in Big Data? Analysts tried to answer that question at the 12th annual Disney Analytics & Optimization Summit this week in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Business intelligence vendor SAS took the position, naturally, that the answer to the value question is analytics. "However you define it, Big Data is here to stay and data volumes will continue to expand," said Radhika Kulkarni, Vice President of Advanced Analytics R&D at SAS. "Big Data underscores the real need for a scalable and reliable analytics infrastructure to support data analysis and modeling." News release