At the RSA Conference, one of the annual kickoff events is the Innovation Sandbox “Most Innovative Startup” competition, in which 10 cybersecurity startups vie for the title. Each competing company has three minutes to present their case before a panel of expert judges and a room packed with thousands of attendees. (When we say three minutes, we mean exactly three minutes. A countdown clock is visible to everyone, and when it reaches zero, a loud buzzer sounds, cutting off any presenter that is still speaking.) Learn more

IBM is at the vanguard of blockchain, focusing on its applications for banking and financial technology. The company sees blockchain as a way for the many competitors and collaborators in a business network to share data such as bank routing codes. Previously, all information and requests for confirmation had to be forwarded to a central authority, a bottleneck for every participant in this configuration. With blockchain, the leger of all transactions across each partner is distributed. Learn more

I was recently invited to Keynote RealWear’s launch event for their head-mounted HMT-1 wearable computer to discuss the next wave of enterprise mobile computing and the opportunities for “hands-free” wearable solutions, a market we have been covering at VDC Research for over 10 years. Learn more

BlackBerry invited more than 100 technology and financial analysts to San Ramon last week and shared details on its progress transitioning from a hardware-centric vendor to a software and services company. I was one of three VDC analysts that made this trip ― here are some of my quick takeaways. Learn more

Manufacturers’ ability to effectively harness the power of Big Data to maximize operations will be the single biggest Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) trend to watch in 2017.Though nearly two-thirds of respondents within the Industrial Automation segment of VDC’s Voice of the IoT Engineer survey reported their organization’s customers are not currently realizing the full benefits of IoT connectivity, this will be a major emphasis this year. Learn more

This interview is part of an ongoing Q&A series VDC conducts with AIDC solution providers where they share their views on their company, products, and state of the market. We had the opportunity to catch up with Samuel Mueller, CEO and Co-Founder at Scandit to learn about the company and its recent initiatives. Read more

VDC recently published a report focused on Dimensioning Solutions. The following blog highlights some of our thoughts on this market and its potential. The market for dimensioning solutions (also known as cubing solutions) is expanding. For years, these solutions were used for dimensioning products and parcels for efficient storage, package sizing, and quality checks and have recently come to gain greater attention beyond the transportation and logistics industry. According to the new report from VDC Research on enterprise requirements for dimensioning solutions, 55% of respondents across the manufacturing, retail, wholesale/distribution and logistics industries indicate currently using dimensioning solutions to support applications from inventory management, to order management and shipping in hubs across supply chains including distribution centers, manufacturing shop floors, warehouses, retail back of stores, and offices. Read more

Steve joined GE in September 2015. He reports into GE Digital and is based in San Ramon, CA. He serves as the Core Product Marketing lead for Predix – the Industrial IoT Platform. As a ‘go-to-market’ expert, he has launched multiple products in the mobile and enterprise infrastructure markets. He has held senior roles in both public and private companies in the US and UK. Learn more

Once again the annual consumer electronics lovefest known as CES invaded Las Vegas. With more than 3,800 exhibitors occupying 2.6 million square feet of floor space (not to mention numerous private meeting suites), the show seemed more overwhelming than in past years. We couldn’t possible see it all, much less sum it all up in a blog post, but we’ll briefly highlight a few themes.Learn more

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal has highlighted the falling productivity of American workers. Focusing on the aspect of economic growth known as “total factor productivity,” the article argued that recent gains in research and technological development have failed to adequately equip the workforce with tools that can expand its current capabilities. Learn more