Motorola Inventory Management on a Mobile

An Experiment In Cord Cutting from Hill Holliday on Vimeo.
Global Bay created the app.

People May Want to "Cut the Cord," But Can They?

An Experiment In Cord Cutting from Hill Holliday on Vimeo.
In the case of the "typical end user," video cord cutting seems to be more of a barrier than some might think.

$25.6 Trillion Telecom Industry Revenue in 2016? Absolutely No Way

Insight Research predicts that wireless revenues will jump from 60 percent of all telecommunications services in 2008 to 72 percent in 2013, which amounts to a 14.4 percent compound annual growth rate.

The Asia-Pacific region will experience the highest growth rate in the next five years, at nearly 16 percent, led by China and India. The telecom sector in Latin America and the Caribbean will grow by 12 percent.

Insight Research also apparently believes telecommunications services revenues on a worldwide basis will grow at a compounded rate of nine percent over the next five years, bringing the sum spent globally on telecommunications to $25.6 trillion, a figure that some will consider wildly optimistic. If one counts all sorts of activities that have some relationship to communications (voice and data), plus all video entertainment, plus the value of data networking services and products, one likely could get to a number that big. See http://www.zimbio.com/New+York+News/articles/rbJJYS2aT3r/Insight+Research+Worldwide+Telecom+Industry.

But service provider revenues will not reach anywhere close to that figure. Global telecom services revenue reached $1.5 trillion in 2006, for example. To the end of 2011, growth is projected to slow to a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.2 percent. See http://www.prlog.org/11216402-global-telecom-market-status-and-forecast-2006-2011.html.

Assume for the sake of argument that the $1.5 trillion 2006 figure was correct. An eight-percent annual growth rate would result in global revenue of $2.2 trillion by the end of 2011. Or assume a baseline of $2 trillion in 2006, a figure that might be considered on the high side for that time period.

That would result in a global market of $2.9 trillion. I do not have access to the full methodology used by Insight Research, but the forecast of $25.6 trillion seems off by an order of magnitude, which means the researchers are including all sorts of other revenue streams arguably related to communications.

In fact, Insight Research's own 2009 forecast of global communications revenue projected "worldwide revenues are predicted to grow from under $1.7 trillion in 2008 to over $2.7 trillion in 2013." See http://www.insight-corp.com/ExecSummaries/review09ExecSum.pdf.

Research companies change methodologies from time to time. Obviously something major has changed in that regard. The new forecasts absolutely cannot reflect service provider revenues alone. But one might ask whether such major "lumping" of multiple revenue sources from multiple industries actually provides much analytical clarity.

Telecom outlook 2011 Gartner

Mobile Augmented Reality: A Small Business by 2015

Mobile augmented reality applications and services will generate global revenues close to $1.5 billion by 2015, according to Juniper Research.

Of course, to keep things in perspective, consider that global ad spending is something on the order of $500 billion. See http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=147493, for example.

The installed base of AR-capable smartphones had increased from eight million in 2009 to more than 100 million in 2010. At the same time, AR apps that initially were the preserve of smaller development companies and researchers at technological institutes, are starting to get some use from larger brands.

Mobile Augmented Reality Attracts Leading Brands as Juniper Research forecasts $1.5 billion revenue stream by 2015:

Africa Mobile Advertising Grows19% Growth |in 90 Days

Mobile advertising views grew nearly 19 percent in just 90 days, says InMobi, breaking the three-billion impressions mark to reach 3.3 billion monthly impressions. Smartphones remain relatively nascent in the market, and 88 percent of all mobile ad impressions are on advanced feature phones.

Nokia strengthens its’ already dominant market position by gaining 2.7 share points. About two out of every three ad impressions in the region occur on Nokia devices.

InMobi report for Africa shows a further 19% growth

Phantom Data: How Big a Problem?

Phantom data usage being billed against customer accounts appears to be a growing problem.

Apple iPhones apparently have had the issue, a consultant study has found. Microsoft Windows Phone 7 users have complained of inexplicable data usage being charged to their cell data accounts. Microsoft tracked down the "phantom data" bug that they attributed to a third party.

Apple continues to remain silent and some customers of the iPhone in the U.S. and abroad continue to complain to their carriers about 'phantom data' usage.

No Jitter | blog | Apple iPhone: Phantom Data Outstrips Bandwidth Supply?

10 Common Misconceptions New Users Have About Skype

Skype has become, for many, one of the preferred modes of communication, particularly over long distances. For newer users, though, there are a few misconceptions. Here are 10 of those issues.

10 Common Misconceptions About Skype

66% of Enteprises Plan to Use Cloud Services in 2011

About 66 percent of 1,ooo enterprises who are customers of Ipswitch are making cloud computing investments in 2011. For security reasons, most are choosing either private cloud, or a hybrid public-private mix.

Not Planning Any Investment: Some 36 percent of respondents are not planning any cloud spending. About 29 percent will use a private cloud approach. Some 13 percent will use a public cloud approach (Amazon, Microsoft Azure or another computing infrastructure provider). About 21 percent will use a mix of public and private approaches.

Big Biz keep Cloud thoughts private • The Register

IPv6, IPv4 Address Exhaustion and Machine-to-Machine Internet

Internet address registrars will announce soon that that last set of internet addresses has been allocated, today, tomorrow or the next day. That means device addresses will be exhausted in a few months. Then begins the process of living with two address systems for some extended period of time, as new devices get assigned IPv6 addresses.

Whether this is a manageable problem, or something bigger, remains to be seen.

Without internet addresses, we won’t have an “internet of things”

Viacom More Positive on Hulu Prospects

Viacom wasn't happy having "The Daily Show" and "Colbert Report" shown on Hulu, but now seems to have changed its views. Hulu’s introduction of subscription plans and increased advertising base now seem to convince Viacom that having its content on Hulu can pay off.

Hulu’s subscriber count is expected to pass one million this year and Hulu Plus as a business will have a revenue run rate north of $200 million this year, observers predict.

And Hulu now has 30 million monthly users, traffic which Viacom simply cannot ignore.

The Daily Show And Colbert Report Return To Hulu Via New Viacom Content Partnership

Vodafone Milestone: Data Tops SMS Revenue For First Time

Vodafone Group has hit a milestone. Vodafone's latest quarter data revenue exceeded messaging revenue for the first time. Vodafone's emphasis on sales of smartphones and associated data plans seems to have been the driver.

Vodafone, the world's biggest mobile operator by revenue, posted a 2.1 percent uptick in group service revenue, underpinned by good growth in India, Turkey, the U.K. and South Africa. It is the fifth sequential quarter of improvement.

The company said data revenue continues to drive its growth strategy and grew 27 percent on the back of "strong smartphone and mobile connectivity sales."

Vodafone Revenue Rises On Increased Data Usage - WSJ.com (subscription required)

How Groupon Might Change Advertising

"Maybe you haven’t noticed, but media companies have changed their strategy of charging for advertising," says Gordon Borrell, Borrell Associates president. 'If it continues, the business model for media might change forever.'

Group deals have allowed local businesses to offload the risk of advertising onto the media company, Borrell argues. "Advertising has become 'free,' and the media company gets paid only when a sale is made.

"If this continues, it will transform media companies into marketing partners," he argues.

Borrell Associates, Inc: Local Interactive & Online Advertising Research and Consulting

Clay Christensen on Local Media Prospects

Timing the shift to Ethernet in mobile backhaul - FierceTelecom

Carriers are rapidly reducing TDM's role in mobile backhaul, says Jim Theodoras, Ethernet Forum president. An April 2010 Infonetics report illustrates the change in thinking.

The firm's August 2009 survey of 18 mobile operators and transport providers indicated that 60 percent were taking a hybrid approach to backhaul that leverages both Ethernet and TDM. At that time, only 47 percent intended to commit to pure Ethernet.

Infonetics' survey in March 2010--just six months later--showed a near flip in the ratio: 45 percent hybrid, 65 percent Ethernet-only.

Timing the shift to Ethernet in mobile backhaul - FierceTelecom

Android Getting In-App Billing

In-app billing is coming to the Android Market. The new service gives developers more ways to monetize their applications through new billing models including try-and-buy, virtual goods, upgrades, and more.

The In-app billing service manages billing transactions between apps and users, providing a consistent purchasing experience with familiar forms of payment across all apps. At the same time, it gives you full control over how your digital goods are purchased and tracked. You can let Android Market manage and track the purchases for you or you can integrate with your own back-end service to verify and track purchases in the way that's best for your app.

In-app billing will be available in stages. Google is now providing detailed documentation and a sample application to help developers get familiar with the service. Over the next few weeks Google will be rolling out updates to the Android Market client that will enable developers to test the apps using the service. Before the end of this quarter, the service will be live for users.

Android Developers Blog