Why Enterprises Move Apps into the Cloud

"Business agility" is the reason 65 percent of 140 surveyed enterprise information technology professionals give for desiring virtualization and cloud projects.

But cost savings are the second most important reason for moving at least some applications into the cloud. Competitive advantage also is seen as a top driver for such moves.

read the study here

Triple Play and Broadband Pricing: The Assumptions Always Matter

Methodology matters when any researcher attempts to make a cross-nation comparison of TV, voice or broadband access value and spending. For example, when trying to determine whether consumer prices are up, down or flat, and looking at either stand-alone or bundled service packages, the assumptions make all the difference.

A new study by the Technology Policy Institute, for example, finds that U.S. broadband prices are relatively steady.

 Researchers Scott Wallsten, TPI VP and James L. Riso, TPI senior fellow, studied about 25,000 wireline broadband plans across Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries as part of their analysis.

Overall, quality-adjusted prices remained relatively constant from 2007 to 2009, they find.

Prices for standalone broadband plans in the U.S. are approximately in the middle of the range of prices across OECD countries. Prices for triple play plans in the U.S. are among the highest in the OECD. And while residential prices have on the whole remained constant in the U.S. they have been declining in most other countries.

read the full study here.

The study also compared quality-adjusted broadband prices across countries and over time, and found that
U.S. standalone broadband plans (plans not bundled with voice or video services) compare favorably to other OECD countries, but that U.S. prices for triple play (plans bundled with voice and video) packages and very-fast broadband connections tend to be higher than those in other OECD countries. In addition, while residential prices have remained unchanged in the U.S., they have been falling in most other OECD countries, the study found.

One might argue that the triple-play prices are subject to the assumptions one makes. By definition, a triple-play bundle includes three products at one price, so an analyst has to attribute component prices to each of the constituent products.

Indeed, the researchers caution that the results must be viewed carefully. "The figures must be interpreted cautiously," the report says. The raw prices do not immediately translate into meaningful observations about the real world for at least two reasons, say Wallsten and Riso.

"First, the number of plans in a given country will affect the median and range of prices in that country," they say. "These simple summary statistics assume all of a country’s plans are equally important and representative, which is not the case."

Plans often are available to subsets of a country’s population of varying size, and the popularity of different plans differs even when they are available to the same population. "Notably, existing studies and sources of data on prices suffer from this problem: the prices they report may be based on plans that are not those to which consumers typically subscribe." In other words, the study deals with published rates, and not with the percentages of consumers who may be buying various plans.

Also, the plan data does not account for contracts and data caps, which makes simple comparisons difficult.

The other issue, when looking at triple play pricing, is that if prices for the other constituent services--voice and video--vary significantly, the triple play packages will reflect, to a large extent, those pricing differentials. And most observers might note that U.S. video entertainment packages cost more than equivalent services in most other markets. See study  here for a comparison of multichannel TV spending in variious countries.

The point is that all such cross-country studies are highly dependent on the assumptions and methodology used.

Few U.S. Consumers Buy 25-Mbps Services

It appears there is almost no U.S. consumer buying of the highest-speed broadband access services, according to Federal Communications Commission data.

Of services offering 25 Mbps or more bandwidth, business buyers register something on the order of two percent of total broadband subscriptions.

Consumer take rates are low enough not to register on the graph. One might argue that take rates for the higher tiers among consumers are so low only because the 25 Mbps services are not available in most markets. That's true. See http://ipcarrier.blogspot.com/2010/12/us-broadband-access-not-as-bad-as-some.html.

But even where such services are available, take rates remain quite low. Low enough, in fact, that U.S,. service providers never disclose the numbers.

Enterprise Social Software Revenue to Surpass $769 Million in 2011

Enterprises are getting more "social," so global enterprise social software revenue is on pace to total $664.4 million in 2010, a 14.9 percent increase from 2009 revenue of $578.2 million, according to Gartner researchers. That's not a huge amount of spending on a global basis, but does indicate changing enterprise requirements.

The market is poised for continued growth in 2011 when revenue is forecast to reach $769.2 million, up 15.7 percent from 2010.

Enterprise social software enables participation through formal and informal interactions. Technologies include blogs, communities, discussion forums, expertise location, feeds and syndication, social bookmarks, wikis, and integrated platforms/suites.

Gartner Says Worldwide Enterprise Social Software Revenue to Surpass $769 Million in 2011

Smartphones Will Replace Your Wallet, in Some Cases

Samsung’s Nexus S, the first NFC-enabled Android phone, will be on sale at Best Buy starting December 16; Nokia has announced that all of its Smartphones starting in 2011 will support NFC; and Apple recently hired an NFC expert.

Jeff Miles, the director of mobile transactions worldwide at NXP Semiconductors, which co-invented NFC with Sony in 2002, says he expects more than 70 million NFC-capable handsets to be manufactured in 2011.

“As far as what will happen with it, who owns the keys and all of that, none of that has really been determined,” Miles says.

Technology does not automatically create habits and markets, of course, but we are about to see what can be done with transaction-enabled smartphones.

Why Your Smartphone Will Replace Your Wallet

Browsing for a cause: like this

http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/15/if-youre-a-good-person-or-a-web-browsing-fiend-download-this-chrome-extension-now/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

JiWire Launches Location-Based Mobile Ad Platform

JiWire, a leading location-based mobile media company, has launched Compass, a new location-based advertising platform that provides mobile app and public Wi-Fi users with interactive location-related ads.

Until now, location-based advertising has largely been limited to companies with physical venues, such as retailers and restaurants.

Compass unlocks location for all companies by providing product availability and real time in-stock information, directing consumers to any place where a brand's products are sold.

Location-marketing pioneers Clinique, Groupon, HP and Ritz & Wolf Camera & Image have all signed on as launch partners for the new platform.

Media Center - JiWire.com

CES 2011: low expectations?

Tablets and smartphones. But no surprises.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/12/15/ces-2011-let-the-boredom-begin/

Twitter’s U.S. Growth Is Stallingy

That might not be a problem. Facebook had slowing growth at one point, as well.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/242000-twitters-u-s-growth-is-stalling?source=feed

Apple Will Sell 9 Million Verizon iPhones Next Year, maybe more

Surveys suggest pent-up demand exists.

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-will-sell-9-million-verizon-iphones-next-year-says-gene-munster-but-he-hints-it-could-be-double-that-2010-12?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Falleyinsider%2Fsilicon_alley_insider+%28Silicon+Alley+Insider%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Smartphone Browser Landscape

A nice review of smartphone browsers

http://m.alistapart.com/articles/smartphone-browser-landscape/

$1.4 billion in Business Smartp[hone Subsidies

According to In-Stat, U.S. businesses will spend close to $27 billion on wireless data this year.

To help make sure they do, mobile operators will subsidize about $1.7 billion of costs, including smartphone subsidies of $1.4 billion.

In-Stat: This year US operators will spend $1.4 billion on smartphone subsidies

Don't Dismiss Netflix

Why Venrock thinks Netflix is not going to falter in its push to remain relevant in video business.

Smartphones and 3 Screens

How Big is European Demand for Fiber-Based Access Services?

European consumers value reasonable prices and high bandwidth access services. The issue is that they seem to value affordable prices more than they do higher speeds.

At least that is the conclusion one might draw from a new survey of 13,764 European online users.

When asked about the most-important considerations when choosing a new Internet service provider, 87 percent indicated "price" was important.

(click on image for a larger view)

About 62 percent said the speed of the connection was important. Most other issues, ranging from technical support, installation fees and type of connection were cited by 31 percent to 35 percent of respondents.conducted by Forrester Research.


Telco fiber services might lag the headline speeds offered by cable. Ian Fogg, Forrester Research analyst, suggests that where cable might offer 100 Mbps, telcos might offer 40 Mbps to 60 Mbps.

The issue is whether the "speed gap" will matter much. One would think it would. But in other markets where very-fast services are available, at higher prices, consumers do not seem to be buying them in large numbers. "Fast enough at a lower price" seems to be the winning formula.