Zebra Technologies announced its Q2 2017 earnings on August 8, beating analyst expectations on EPS by $0.03 and revenues by $18.07M. The company saw an improvement over Q2 2016 across all regions with its various product lines; this included 9% sales growth in North America driven by an especially strong performance in mobile computing, 4% increase in EMEA, and an 11% rise in Latin America brought on by exceptionally strong data capture, printing, and supplies sales. Read more

The Internet of Things is now a staple of competitive strategies for both embedded platforms and IT solutions alike. The recent merger of Kontron, a leading global provider of embedded technology, with S&T Deutschland Holding AG (S&T) is critical to the company regaining its foothold in the market. Kontron designs and manufactures embedded boards and systems spanning a swath of form factors. The company is a pioneer in the computer-on-modules market and remained the leading global supplier in 2016. Read more

The capabilities of technologies used by today’s police force are not keeping up with advances of policing operations according to recent research conducted by VDC. Today’s public safety officers are already juggling various technologies as part of their daily workflow, including two-way radios, vehicle-mounted computers, radar guns, recording devices, mobile phones etc. Learn more

Cybersecurity firm Symantec has announced its plans to acquire mobile threat defense vendor Skycure. The deal was for an undisclosed sum, and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2017. This is the second acquisition of an Israeli cybersecurity startup that Symantec had announced in a week. Earlier, Symantec had announced its intention to buy Fireglass, best known for its anti-ransomware browser isolation capabilities. This deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2017. Learn more

Customers want a range of choices not only in products they are looking to purchase but also in the shopping channel. Omnichannel enablement today is therefore becoming increasingly critical to secure purchases and brand loyalty. Technology leaders BT, Intel, Nexgen Packaging, RetailNext, SATO Global Solutions (SGS), and Valmarc Corporation have come together to form the Acuitas Digital Alliance (launched in 2016), which is aimed at transforming the in-store retail experience by enhancing buyer behavior predictability, inventory visibility, and stock accuracy. It combines analytical concepts and the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve overall retail in-store efficiencies. Read more

I returned to Boston earlier today after spending an interesting two days at the 2017 GS1 Connect conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. I had the opportunity to present a session titled “How Retailers are Using Inventory Accuracy to Streamline Operations” with a representative from Target (Kevin O’Dare, Lead Business Partner). Here we talked about the importance of in-store inventory visibility to help facilitate a seamless and consistent omnichannel shopping experience for customers while at the same time elevating their retailer/brand loyalty levels. Read more

Everyone is talking about the rise of e-commerce, and what it means for traditional brick-and-mortar businesses across a wide array of industries; however, it also has meaning for warehouses and distribution centers, and, more specifically, how organizations are designing warehouses and distribution centers to efficiently fulfill this growing swell of e-commerce orders. Keeping up with demand – especially during peak holiday seasons – has proven itself a massive challenge. The warehousing industry is roughly a $31 billion industry, when you include warehousing, distribution centers, storage and e-commerce fulfillment, employing more than 650,000 people each year in the U.S alone (globeconfreight.com). Learn more

Apple released its long-anticipated AR tracking and recognition SDK, ARKit, at its 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) last Monday. Many in the AR industry had anticipated the release for quite some time, given Apple’s 2015 acquisition of leading AR SDK provider Metaio – a German company incubated within Volkswagen in 2003. Until last week, Apple had remained content to play at the mobile hardware, OS, and application distribution levels, shuttering all licensing of Metaio’s SDK and tracking solutions, along with the popular insideAR conference that Metaio had organized since 2006. Read more

Customers want a range of choices not only in products they are looking to purchase but also in the shopping channel. Omnichannel enablement today is therefore becoming increasingly critical to secure purchases and brand loyalty. Technology leaders BT, Intel Labs, Nexgen, RetailNext, SATO Global Solutions (SGS), and Valmarc Corporation have come together to form the Acuitas Digital Alliance (launched in 2016), which is aimed at transforming the in-store retail experience by enhancing buyer behavior predictability, inventory virtualization, and stock accuracy and visibility. It combines analytical concepts and the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve overall retail in-store efficiencies. Read more

I recently attended National Instruments’ annual customer conference, NI Week. Each year, NI augments hands-on training sessions, partner showcases, and customer success stories with a series of announcements regarding new or enhanced product offerings. This year, as detailed by my colleague Dan Mandell, the focal point of these announcements was very clearly the unveiling of LabVIEW NXG. However, NI also revealed some important enhancements within its suite of CompactDAQ solutions, centered on the concept of Time Sensitive Networking (TSN). Learn more

We recently published market estimates and forecasts as part of VDC’s 2017 coverage of the global market for Mobile Thermal Printers. The market grew nearly 2% from 2015 to 2016, per our research. E-commerce fulfillment and retailers’ omnichannel initiatives are transforming supply chains and how they operate. Retail, Transportation & Logistics, and Commercial Services segments are the biggest adopters of mobile printing solutions, and will continue to be the main segments driving growth for the mobile printers market through the forecast period (2017-2021). Read more

We were in Austin, Texas this week for National Instruments’ annual conference, which brings together thousands of engineers, scientists, and industry professionals from a variety of backgrounds. NIWeek is a showcase of how the organization is accelerating development and increasing productivity in test, measurement, and control systems using its platforms. This year’s show was full of exciting new announcements and customer demonstrations of new technologies at the forefront of 5G and the Industrial Internet of Things. Read more

VDC recently published a report analyzing Machine Vision as a growth opportunity for AIDC participants. The following blog highlights some of our thoughts on the market and its potential. In the enterprise, cameras have historically been associated with machine vision solutions such as Smart Cameras and PC-Based Machine vision systems that leverage industrial cameras & software applications for advanced machine vision applications. However, camera technology has over the years expanded to traditional AIDC markets through the introduction of camera-based imager engines. Imager engines today have overcome previous performance limitations including decode snappiness, ambient light performance, depth of field, and price, all of which has helped the technology do what laser scanners can and more. Read more

We recently published market estimates and forecasts as part of VDC’s 2017 coverage of the global market for Handheld Barcode Scanners. The market contracted nearly 2% from 2015 to 2016, per our research, with vendors generating close to a billion dollars for the segment during the year. Revenues from the laser scanner category declined 20%, in keeping with the overarching trend of migration to camera-based imaging. 2D imager-based scanner sales were up more than 7% in USD terms. From VDC’s perspective, it has been interesting to see the transition from 1D to 2D scanning take place with this form factor, especially from the standpoint of the changing dynamics of the global competitive landscape. Read more

Retail store closings have dominated headlines these past few weeks with several major brick-and-mortar chains announcing significant changes to their existing landscape. Retailers today have a heightened focus on creating a meaningful, engaging, and consistent shopping experience for their customers across all channels of operation. In keeping with this theme, VDC’s Richa Gupta, Director of the AutoID & Data Capture (AIDC) Practice, will be presenting on the topic “How Retailers are Using Inventory Accuracy to Streamline Operations” as part of the Apparel and General Merchandise Track at the GS1 Connect® 2017 conference on June 20, along with Kevin O’Dare, Lead Business Partner at Target Corporation. Read more

This interview is part of an ongoing series VDC conducts with IoT and embedded technology providers to share views on their company, products, and state of the market. In part one of this blog, Majid touched on the evolving IoT threat landscape and how open source communities are crucial to securing embedded platforms. Read more

This interview is part of an ongoing series VDC conducts with IoT and embedded technology providers to share views on their company, products, and state of the market. Majid Bemanian is Director of Segment Marketing for Imagination Technologies, responsible for driving the company’s strategic security initiatives and leading its market strategy for the networking and storage segments. He also co-chairs the prpl Foundation’s security working group, focused on developing open standards and APIs around next-generation embedded security solutions. He has more than 30 years of high-tech industry experience. Read more

Retailers with physical storefronts face mounting pressure today. Department store chains nationwide are closing hundreds of stores, e-fulfillment is on the rise, and changing consumer habits are forcing many brick-and-mortar retailers to re-evaluate their operations and move towards a more omnichannel sales model. Brick-and-mortar retail still accounts for over 90% of overall revenues. Despite that, retailers are feeling the pressure to create meaningful and highly engaging in-store experiences that align with shoppers’ expectations in order to facilitate customer conversion Consumers’ access to non-traditional retail channels, including online shopping (both desktop and mobile), and click-and-collect, has transformed retail and logistics, perhaps forever. Read more

SOTI announced an expanded product strategy and direction today with the release of its SOTI ONE platform. SOTI’s flagship MobiControl remains at the center of the offering, but the vendor has added important enhancements and integrations to its platform that will help make the vendor a viable alternative to other competing EMM solutions. Learn more

Zebra Technologies announced its Q1 2017 earnings on May 8, beating analyst expectations on EPS by $0.07 and revenues by $17.25M. The company saw an improvement over Q1 2016 across all regions with its various product lines; this included double-digit sales growth in EMEA and Latin America and a 5% growth in North America. Strong demand from retail and e-commerce customers contributed to success this quarter that exceeded Zebra’s guidance range. Read more

Dell EMC World is underway this week in Las Vegas, and VMware didn’t miss the opportunity to be part of the news cycle at the mega vendor’s annual powwow with its marquee customers, the analyst community, and media outlets. VMware announced today that it is integrating its AirWatch mobility management suite with Dell’s Client Command Suite—the integration will make sticking with the Client Command Suite more compelling for current customers. Learn more

Amid presentations from senior executives and demos from partners, on May 3 Intel invited dozens of press and analysts from around the world for Autonomous Driving Day, literally rolling up the garage door on its new autonomous driving engineering facility in the former Altera building in San Jose, California. Read more