According to IDC, the Q3 2018 EMEA integrated systems market is worth $873 million, a 20.1% Y-o-Y increase brought about by increased adoption of hyperconverged systems as IT managers shift focus higher up the rack.

"Similar to last quarter, the growth in integrated systems has mainly been driven by a strong hyperconverged segment, while the more traditional certified reference systems & integrated infrastructure and integrated platforms segments saw a flat trend in US dollar value terms, with little differentiation between segments," the analyst says. "Overall demand generated by the advantage of having pre-integrated, fine-tuned systems able to simplify the management and deployment of datacenter infrastructure, but their higher acquisition cost limits their deployment to specific use cases."

According to IDC, global spending on the Internet of Things (IoT) is to reach $745 billion in 2019-- a 15.4% increase over the $646bn of 2018, with the manufacturing, consumer, transportation and utilities sectors as main drivers.

"Adoption of IoT is happening across industries, in governments, and in consumers' daily lives. We are increasingly observing how data generated by connected devices is helping businesses run more efficiently, gain insight into business processes, and make real-time decisions. For consumers, access to data is changing how they are informed about the status of households, vehicles, and family members as well as their own health and fitness," the analyst says. "The next chapter of IoT is just beginning as we see a shift from digitally enabling the physical to automating and augmenting the human experience with a connected world."

Discrete manufacturing is the industry forecast to spend most on IoT solutions in 2019, with spending reaching $119bn. Following are process manufacturing ($78bn), transportation ($71bn), and utilities ($61bn). Manufacturers tend to buy solutions supporting manufacturing operations and production asset management. In transportation, over 50% of spending goes towards freight monitoring, followed by fleet management.

Edge computing is set to become the next big thing in 2019, Forrester predicts-- and the value of the edge goes far beyond the Internet of Things (IoT), since it finds a spot in the roadmaps of all leading cloud vendors and telcos.

According to the 2018 Technographics Mobility Survey, 27% of participant global telecom decision makers say their companies are either implementing or expending edge computing in 2019. Achieving such a digital transformation requires new wireless tools and updated skill sets, bringing about decisions such as the Verizon employee buyout offer driving nearly $10 billion in savings.

The year coming to a close is a time for both celebration and contemplation, especially when the year was as tumultuous as that known as 2018. In our case we ponder about the year in IT, so join us as we take a look at what we believe were the biggest stories.