Managed security heats up: Despite the threat of another worldwide recession, the desire for cloud-based managed security and Software as a Service (SaaS) continues to rise. In its Managed Security Services and SaaS report, Infonetics forecast the managed security services market to grow about 13 percent in 2011, with annual growth through at least 2015, a time when the market will reach $16.8 billion, with the biggest contributor of growth coming from the SaaS segment. "Despite the global economic meltdown that started in mid-2008, the security services market is strong and growing, with demand driven by the proliferation of security threats, growth in the use of mobile devices, and the shift to the cloud," said Jeff Wilson, principal analyst for security at Infonetics Research. "It's often cheaper for companies to hire a service provider to manage their security than to do it themselves, and with the growing complexity of security solutions, this outsourcing trend will continue." Release
Consumer devices drive fuel cell growth: The potential of the consumer electronics industry to leverage fuel cell technologies into devices such as smartphones, media tablets, notebooks, and digital cameras has the potential to create a sizeable opportunity. Even though the market has developed slower than originally thought, a Pike Research report forecasts that shipments of portable fuel cells for electronic devices will reach 4.5 million by 2017. A number of fuel cell manufacturers and large-scale electronics companies have announced and demonstrated (or plan to) new micro and small portable fuel cells (PFCs) across a range of portable electronics markets. Release
802.11n WiFi rides growth wave in Q2: While overall WiFi network equipment growth in the second quarter remained relatively flat over Q1 2011, 802.11n shipments rose 17 percent from the previous quarter, while revenues grew nearly 7 percent. From a vendor perspective, TP-LINK led the way with a 26 percent market share. Not far behind TP-LINK was NETGEAR (Nasdaq: NTGR), which beat out D-Link for the number two spot with nearly a 19 percent market share. D-Link holds just over a 17 percent share, placing it close behind in the number three slot. Rounding out the top five WiFi vendors were Linksys and Pace, holding market shares of 7 and 5 percent respectively. Release
Europe beats out North America in the FTTH race: According to the latest figures published by the FTTH Council Europe, Europe had 10 million fiber-to-the-home and building (FTTH/B) subscribers as of the end of June, with Russia accounting for more than half of the total number. One country that saw the greatest gain was Lithuania. Nadia Babaali, FTTH Europe Council communications director, said Lithuania leads Europe in terms of penetration measured as a percentage of population, having "just reached over 25% during the last six months." Article