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Market Insight


Cloud Computing solutions, including Software, Infrastructure, Platform, Unified Communications, Mobile, and Content as a Service are well-established and growing. The evolution of these markets will be driven by the complex interaction of all participants, beginning with end customers.

Edge Strategies has conducted over 80,000 interviews in behalf of our clients in both mature and emerging markets with decision-makers across the full cloud ecosystem- including Vendors, Service Provider and End Customer organizations.

Typical projects include:

  • Identifying target market segments
  • Designing Service Portfolios
  • Designing Application and Services Features
  • Developing Value Proposition and Messaging for each customer segment
  • Analyzing competitive alternatives and determining best practices
  • Designing Activation Programs
  • Building process to reduce churn, build loyalty and measure Customer Lifetime Value
  • Improving the User Experience

We provide current, actionable insight into business decision processes across market segments, from SMBs to Large Enterprises. Our work leverages a deep understanding of the business models of key Cloud Ecosystem participants including:

  • Cloud Service Providers ( CSPs)
  • Web Hosting Providers
  • Communication Service Providers
  • ISVs and Automation Providers
  • MSPs and IT Channels

Our experience allows us to get up to speed quickly on new projects. We are experts in designing and conducting quantitative and qualitative research. Based on our focused findings, we work with our clients to make the decisions necessary to gain early success in a variety of markets, including SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, UCaaS, and mobile/device services.    

 

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News

  • GenAI is already transforming the healthcare industry

    Generative AI (genAI) is quickly transforming healthcare, according to a survey by consultancy McKinsey & Co. released today. The survey of 150 healthcare industry organizations found 85% are exploring or had already adopted genAI. The organizations, which included insurers, health systems, and health services and technology (HST) groups, found that 40% or more from each group had already implemented genAI. Not surprisingly, HST organizations have the highest rate of genAI implementations at 57%. The least? Healthcare providers with a 40% implementation rate. GenAI has already been proven in studies using historical patient data to be more accurate at diagnosing illnesses and other conditions. For example, OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo model not only outperformed physicians, but also outdid every single AI system developed for healthcare over the last 50 years, according to the lead doctor in one study at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston. And it did so without any medical training. Healthcare stakeholders are also using genAI to explore ways to create value and reduce costs, despite ongoing challenges such as evolving regulations and capability gaps. Of the respondents that have already implemented genAI tools, 64% reported that they anticipated or had already quantified positive ROI, “suggesting high expectations for genAI technology,” McKinsey said. Many organizations are also forming partnerships to access external talent while customizing AI solutions, and partnerships with hyperscalers could ensure successful implementations, McKinsey said. Early genAI use cases have focused on improving administrative efficiency, dealing with IT gaps, and boosting clinical productivity. As capabilities grow, other uses could expand to patient engagement and quality-of-care improvements. Leaders recognize the importance of AI risk management and governance for safe implementation. Organizations that have developed their genAI capabilities are seeing success with large-scale implementations, b ut future success will depend on a value-driven strategy, strong execution, and effective management, McKinsey said. Most respondents reported their organizations had implemented or were developing genAI use cases, with more in the implementation phase than the proof-of-concept stage. However, 15% had not started proof-of-concept work. Other prominent findings include: Nearly half (47%) of payers, health systems and HST groups have already rolled out genAI tools.  About three-quarters of healthcare leaders believe the technology could help most with administrative efficiencies and clinical productivity — and more than half (55%) believe it has value for patient/member engagement and IT/infrastructure.  Sixty-one percent of payers and providers expect to collaborate with partners on building out their genAI capabilities; 20% said they’d build their own; 19% said they’d buy a program.  GenAI may create “tremendous value” in areas that could fundamentally improve patient experience and streamline operations to generate cost savings, the report said.

  • Trump launches new office to oversee CHIPS Act, boost semiconductor investments

    US President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order this week creating the US Investment Accelerator office to oversee the CHIPS and Science Act, a Biden-era program to re-shore semiconductor production. According to a White House statement, the new entity’s mission will be to speed up corporate investments domestically by reducing government regulations and coordinating with federal agencies. Trump has criticized the bipartisan CHIPS Act, signed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2022, and said he wants to negotiate better deals. The office will also work to make it easier for companies to invest in US semiconductor manufacturing. In a speech before Congress last month, Trump called the CHIPS Act “horrible” and said he wanted to defund it: “We don’t have to give them money; we just want to protect our businesses and our people, and they will come because they won’t have to pay tariffs if they build in America.” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the status of CHIPS Act funding. In February, reports emerged that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) planned to cut 497 jobs as part of Trump’s federal government downsizing. NIST, a non-regulatory agency within the US Department of Commerce (DoC), helps drive innovation and industrial competitiveness and oversees the CHIPS for America program. The personnel cuts were widely criticized as damaging to the rollout of the CHIPS Act. In a letter today, nearly two-dozen lawmakers bemoaned the firings of 70 probationary employees at NIST and the ongoing reduction-in-force efforts by the Trump Administration that could target additional probationary scientists, postdoctoral researchers, and other staff authorized by the CHIPS Act. The letter from 22 members of the US House of Representatives to US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said the potential changes come on the heels of the deferred resignation program, which already is affecting the capacity of the NIST to fulfill its statutory obligations. “Removing national and international leaders from the nonpartisan and professional civil service at NIST would hamper the development of critical standards, threaten industrial and consumer safety, and weaken American leadership around the world,” the letter said. In 2021, the years-long decline in domestic chip production was exposed by a worldwide supply-chain crisis that led to calls for re-shoring manufacturing to the US. After more than a year of work from the Biden Administration to respond to acute semiconductor shortages, Congress in August 2022 passed the measure. The Commerce Department, which is administering the CHIPS Act, spent months negotiating with semiconductor designers and fabricators to gain commitments from them and to achieve specific milestones in their projects before getting government payouts. With the CHIPS Act spurring them on, semiconductor makers including  Intel, Samsung, Micron, TSMC, and Texas Instruments unveiled plans for a number of new plants on US soil. (Qualcomm, in partnership with GlobalFoundries, also said it would invest $4.2 billion to double chip production in its Malta, NY facility.) The Department of Commerce has been divvying up $52 billion in the hopes of spurring on-shore chip manufacturing. While about $32 billion of CHIPS Act money has been allocated, the funds have not yet been dispersed. It was not immediately clear whether Trump’s action this week could delay disbursement of the monies.

  • Mozilla unveils its Gmail challenger — Thundermail

    Mozilla has decided to launch a challenger to Gmail called Thundermail. The upstart is a web-based email service based on the open-source project Stalwart, according to technology site Thurrott. The plan is to eventually add support for calendar and contacts to Thundermail, but when that would happen remains to be seen. Alongside the new email service, Mozilla is also launching Thunderbird Pro. It offers, among other things, an AI assistant, a file-sharing tool and a planning tool and can be seen as a complement to Thundermail. Users interested in trying the new services, can sign up for a waiting list at Thundermail.com.

  • Battle of the banks: Who will grab the Apple Card?

    Apple is a hot property, and the big banks all want a chance to grab a piece of the action now that Goldman Sachs has decided to leave retail banking behind.  We’ve entered the “breaking it down for parts” stage of deal-making now, with banks bidding for both financial network access provision and to be the partner of note for the card. Apple Card was the future of banking when it launched six years ago. It immediately generated noteworthy public interest, people liked the software that supported it, and the interest rates (which have changed over time) were seen as super-attractive. Apple’s Daily Cash loyalty scheme became popular, too, as did the Apple Card Savings account the company created a little later. The card was supported by Goldman Sachs as the credit partner and used Mastercard as the payment processor. Following some costly service failures, Apple has been working to leave the first partner, while the deal with the second has expired. And that’s where the action is. The Apple Card yard sale Mastercard wants to keep Apple’s business, but is facing fairly aggressive competition from both Visa and American Express. There is clearly value in the business — Visa has offered a hefty $100 million to take over from Mastercard, while American Express is vying to take a partnership position in replacing both Mastercard and Goldman Sachs. Barclays, Synchrony Financia, and JP Morgan Chase have also discussed taking over the credit side of the Apple Card business. What’s in it for them, of course, is access to Apple’s high-value market of relatively affluent and very loyal consumers. There are more than 12 million Apple Card users in the US with north of $20 billion in balances. These are (mostly, possibly except me) creditworthy people who spend, save, and borrow money. A 2020 survey told us that a third of Apple Card customers had annual incomes above $100,000. Customers in demand In an unpredictable economy, customers like these are gold dust — and Apple has them. The opportunity to expand the service into other up-and-coming economies won’t be lost on the banks, either. Banks usually want to follow the money, so once all these deals are done, it will be interesting to see where Apple Card gets introduced. But that’s not all that Apple brings to the table: Challenger banks — newer, tech-driven services that aren’t weighed down by tradition — have proliferated and improved since 2008 when bankers seemingly siphoned all the cash from the global economy. Banks responded by improving customer service and developing better B2C and B2B applications and software services. But challengers — including Revolut — have sought and gained banking licenses and pose more competition now than they did then. What’s limiting all these efforts, of course, is software design; the best services offer the best software. That’s where Apple comes in. Follow the money Banks know that Apple is really, really good at software (most of the time). They know that when it comes to usability and platform support, the company is second to none. They read the same research that shows Apple’s products rapidly replacing Windows, and they also recognize that Apple’s commitment to security and privacy is vital — essential, even — to secure and stable financial exchange.  (This is why the UK really should announce whether it has chosen to sacrifice its financial services sector by breaking end-to-end encryption, because financial firms will be furious when they find their trading system security undermined without any warning.) Apple has a lot to offer. But for more traditional financial entities such as those talking with the company about Apple Card, the biggest thing it can offer is that it is more than capable of building software and services to compete with challenger banks. And while many of us might rejoice if those challengers defeat the established order of financial things, incumbent entities will not fold without a fight — hence, the interest in Apple Card. They think Apple could help them thrive in the New World Fiscal Order. They are probably right.  Deal, or no deal? This is what’s at stake in Apple’s talks around the Apple Card. Banks want a direct line to the world’s most affluent customers, want to surprise and delight those customers, retain and profit from them, and they believe Apple can help them do it. The only snag is going to be whether Apple gets the deal right, or prices itself out of the market — after all, Apple was a challenger once, and some other service could conceivably replace it. You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

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