IT budgets, cloud-computing migrations, iPhone sales, and more: ZDNet's research round-up

Let's start with our special feature on Tech Budgets 2021. According to Gartner's latest analysis (13 July), worldwide IT spending will total $3.5 trillion in 2020 - a 7.3% decline from 2019. All industry segments will experience declines, Gartner said, ranging from -16.1% in devices to to -3.3% in communications services. Yet the analyst firm seems cautiously optimistic about IT spending in 2020/21, expecting recovery to outpace that of the overall economy.

SEE: IT budgets 2020-21: Planning for business continuity in uncertain times

A recent TechRepublic Premium survey shows that the uncertainty of COVID-19 factored into many respondents' IT budgetary plans. Last year, 9% of survey respondents were unsure of their IT budgets, and that number grew to 20% of this year's respondents. Further, almost two-thirds of survey respondents (62%) said that they will tighten their 2021 IT budgets as a result of the coronavirus.

SEE: Research: How COVID-19 will affect 2021 IT budgets

The team behind the very first contact-tracing app that launched using Google and Apple's API, Switzerland's SwissCovid, has found early evidence that the technology could be as effective as manual contact tracing. Researchers from the EPFL University in Lausanne, who developed the technology, have now published preliminary results about the technology's efficiency. They found that, between the end of July and the end of August, 1,054 Covid codes were submitted in the app.

SEE: Contact tracing: Data shows apps can help in fight against COVID, say researchers

We all know Apple is far from hurting for money. In fact, as Bloomberg reports, "Apple shares have soared 76% this year, making it the first US company to surpass $2 trillion in market value." And yet, sometimes, it takes looking at things differently to get behind the numbers. We did some tinkering with existing research and the red line in the graph above indicates a declining iPhone unit sales trend, which must be moderately alarming from Apple's perspective.

SEE: iPhone unit sales have been declining steadily for 5 years

Shipments of wearables grew 14.1% in Q2 2020 but a lot of that growth was driven by strong demand for 'hearables' like Apple's AirPods. Global shipments of wearables rose to 86.2 million in the second quarter or 14.1% year on year, according to analyst firm IDC. Apple's total wearable shipments were 29.4 million for the quarter, giving it a 34.2% market share and year-over-year growth of 25.3%.

SEE: Apple AirPods and other smart 'hearables' are ruling the wearable tech market

The Small and Medium Business Trend Report by Salesforce Research analysed the responses of more than 2,300 small and medium business (SMB) owners and leaders. The world of SMBs has radically changed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The major trends outlined in the Salesforce SMB Trend Report are: 

1. SMBs prioritise customer safety and shift interactions 
2. SMB optimism persists amid new challenges
3. Digital-forward SMBs are better equipped to handle market volatility
4. Growing SMBs prepare for future crisis 

SEE: Impact of COVID-19: Growing small and medium businesses are investing more in technology

It's been two years since Microsoft open-sourced Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), its .NET Core UI framework for building Windows desktop applications, but contributors aren't nescesarilly happy with how Microsoft has handled the project. Contributor satisfaction is fairly positive for four of the five repositories covered in the survey with the exception of WPF. Eleven contributors to WPF are either 'extremely dissatisfied' or 'moderately dissatisfied' with the responsiveness and engagement of repo maintainers, versus four who are at least 'moderately satisfied'.

SEE: Microsoft told, 'We're not happy' by GitHub contributors to open-source .NET Core WPF

Resume Lab surveyed 1,001 workers in the US and uncovered that almost all respondents (99.1%) have a resume, yet only two in three (65.1%) have LinkedIn profiles. There are several strategies used to improve a resume. Some people adjust the resume for each job application, which 46.3% of respondents reported doing - yet the job offers from this method were not as high as other methods.

SEE: How useful is LinkedIn when almost half of profiles have outdated information?