forrester

The online retail trade in both the U.S. and Western Europe is in store for double-digit growth over the next five years, according to Forrester Research.

The U.S. online retail business is likely to grow 10 percent a year compounded annually, reaching $249 billion by 2014, according to the report "US Online Retail Forecast, 2009 To 2014," released Monday. Online firms in Western Europe, meanwhile, are eyeing an 11 percent annual gain over the next five years, hitting 114 billion euros ($155.7 billion) by 2014, according to a second Forrester report out Monday, "Western … Read more

The conventional wisdom is that scarcity makes a product worth buying.

Whether in software development or software analysis, the thinking goes that making your products freely available extinguishes the desire to buy it.

It's a great thought. Unfortunately, it's not true--at least, not to the extent that its proponents would like.

Take Forrester. The venerable analyst firm has decided to stop letting analysts maintain personal blogs and instead to aggregate their blogs on Forrester.com. The content will still be free and viewable by anyone.

In and of itself, this isn't particularly controversial. However, the aggregation will … Read more

We're seen all kinds of strange-looking sleep gear, from the Selky sleepbag you wear to bed to the Vertical Bed you can lug along. But a sleep suit that lets you swaddle yourself in a cocoon for a siesta anywhere? If you don't get mistakenly rolled out with the trash, or carted off to the Egyptian mummies gallery of the Antiquities museum, that's a start.

Dreamed up by architect/artist/scientist/graphics designer Forrest Jessee, the concept Sleep Suit comprises connected but adjustable soft foam rings that are compacted enough to feel like you're being cushioned … Read more

Analysts may differ on the strength of the technology spending recovery, but they're increasingly in sync on believing that 2010 will see a healthy rise.

Both Forrester Research and Goldman Sachs recently updated their projections on technology spending in 2010, and both see global spending on the upswing: Forrester projects 8.1 percent growth while Goldman Sachs's new "Mapping 2010: Key Tech Trends to Watch" report forecasts a more conservative 5 percent growth.

It's fair to say, however, that technology vendors will be happy with either outcome, especially as the U.S. continues to shed jobs.… Read more

IT spending worldwide will reboot in 2010, rising 8.1 percent after last year's 8.9 percent freefall, Forrester Research predicts in a report released Tuesday.

Businesses and governments are expected to spend $1.6 trillion on information technology throughout 2010, Forrester predicts. In the U.S. alone, IT spending is likely to grow 6.6 percent this year to $568 billion after last year's drop of 8.2 percent.

The largest gains are expected to be in computer hardware and software. Purchases of computer equipment globally will increase by 8.2 percent, while communications hardware will see … Read more

Was 2009 the year of the smartphone? Or will it be 2010? Either way, a new Forrester report confirmed a surge in smartphone ownership last year and expects more growth and more competition this year.

Around 17 percent of mobile phone subscribers now own smartphones, up from 11 percent at the end of 2008 and 7 percent at the end of 2007. Those numbers are even more impressive than they sound, Forrester said Monday, because new technologies typically enjoy a growth spurt in their first year and then trail off in subsequent years. Smartphones are doing the reverse.

In 2009, … Read more

Application development professionals need to become "lean and mean" to emerge from the current economic recession, according to Forrester Research.

In a report titled The Top Five Changes For Application Development In 2010, Forrester details five key changes with the overall goal of becoming "lean and mean so you'll be ready to move as the Great Recession wanes, thus leaving no doubt of your development team's contribution to improving business efficiency and driving increased revenue."

Embrace cloud as an early-stage platform Cloud offerings will continue to expand and evolve and companies should look at … Read more

It may not be happy holidays for the retail industry overall. But the Web should provide one bit of good cheer.

Retail sales will probably be flat this holiday season, but online sales are expected to reach $44.7 billion, an 8 percent jump over last year, according to the latest data from Forrester Research.

Among 4,000 online consumers surveyed, 94 percent have made a purchase online in the past three months and plan to do the same for the holidays. As for retailers, 72 percent of those questioned for the third-quarter Forrester report "The State of Retailing … Read more

Tech lovers used to be dubbed geeks and nerds. According to a new report, we're all geeks and nerds now.

Young, old, single, married--they're all online, using PCs, watching digital TV, and chatting on cell phones, according to a report published Wednesday by Forrester Research. Looking at American consumers by "life stage," Forrester examined the devices people own, what technology they buy, how they use the Internet, and how they set up their digital homes.

Singles under 40 and couples under 40 sans children are well-connected to the Web, noted the report, with 87 percent of … Read more