10 Million Smaller Apple Tablets Already Ordered?

Some component suppliers to Apple in Asia say they have received orders to make more than 10 million units of the smaller tablets in the fourth quarter of 2012, Wall Street Journal reports.  That is roughly double the order that were placed for Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets in the same quarter, these suppliers say.

Multi-Device, Multi-Network, Single Session?

Looking at content consumption and shopping, there seems to be a clearly established trend: people use, or will use, multiple devices to complete a single task, such as planning a trip or buying a product.

A new study by Google, for example, suggests people behave that way when consuming content or conducting search operations.

Those same trends, with a more immediate real-time element, might be said to be an issue in voice communications as well. Where the Google study shows people using multiple devices and networks sequentially, you might argue that people might also increasingly need to use multiple devices and networks to complete a single session, as when initiating a phone call on a mobile on the way to work and then transitioning to a desk phone while maintaining the session.

True, the average person is more acquainted with conducting travel research over time, on multiple machines and networks, and then completing the transaction, in sequential fashion.

Communications sessions often are real time, not sequential, but the principle is the same: multiple networks and devices might be used in the context of a single session. That, in a sense, is one illustration of how “unified communications” provides value.

The business issue, though, is which trusted entity hosts the sessions. Is it the business phone system, the fixed telecom network, the mobile network or a third party application?

In fact, as cloud computing architecture becomes more established, there will be few differences between those potential “hosts.”

John Lazar, Metaswitch Networks CEO, faces a challenge most suppliers to the global telecom business also face, namely how his own business, and that of his service provider customers, will change over the next decade or so. Some of those changes, such as a blurring of “over the top” and “carrier services,” will cause some potential discomfort.

The issue is not, as sometimes happens in IP ecosystems, that Metaswitch Networks would ever compete with its customers. The issue is that, over time, as cloud computing becomes the established computing architecture, and as Metaswitch software is crafted to run in a cloud environment, there is not reason why its customers could not include “over the top” application providers, mobile service providers or anybody else who believes messaging and voice services and features have value for their own businesses.

In other words, neither Metaswitch Networks, nor any other leading supplier, can permanently ensure any of its current customers that, someday, third party application providers, mobile service providers and others might well be buying and using Metaswitch Networks software.

In other words, when the world evolves further, and it is easier for third parties to run the equivalent of central offices in the cloud, some might well decide to do so. With a cloud-based infrastructure, an upstart competitor could create an almost-instant point of presence in a new market with less financial investment than in the past, and then scale operations based on how well things go.

That world is coming, Metaswitch Networks knows it is coming, and will tell anyone who really asks, that Metaswitch Networks intends to sell its products in that new market.

Over the past several decades, Metaswitch Networks has been a growing supplier of infrastructure to a growing range of service provider customers.

“The New Multi-screen World: Understanding Cross-Platform Consumer Behavior” study found that 90 percent of people move between devices to accomplish a goal, whether that’s on smart phones, PCs, tablets or TV.

Of the 90 percent of media consumed on a screen of any type, browsing, shopping, trip planning and financial operations make sequential use of multiple screens.

Separately, a study sponsored by Kenshoo suggests multi-device behavior when shopping. Conducting research is something lots of people are comfortable doing on a variety of devices, according to eMarketer.

But actual transactions are more likely to be conducted on a PC. More than nine in 10 respondents said they preferred to buy using a PC, compared to three percent who would rather to do so on a smartphone and two percent on a tablet, the Kenshoo study found.

Both studies suggest the importance of “multi-screen” approaches to marketing, retailing and video services.

There are two primary ways people exhibit multi-screen behaviors, the Google study suggests. Sequential screening is when people move from one device to another to complete a single goal. Simultaneous screening occurs when people use multiple devices at the same time.

The study found that nine out of ten people use multiple screens sequentially and that smart phones are by far the most common starting point for sequential activity.

So completing a task like booking a flight online or managing personal finances doesn’t just happen in one sitting on one device. In fact, 98 percent of sequential screeners move between devices in the same day to complete a task.  

With simultaneous usage, the study found that 77 percent of viewers watching TV with another device in hand. In many cases people search on their devices, inspired by what they see on TV, the report suggests.

Sequential screeners will start interacting with an application on one device and then pick up where they left off on another, so making experiences seamless between devices is key, the study suggests.

It might seem odd, in fact, that similar behaviors are not yet already so widespread in the voice communications area. Starting a phone call on a desktop phone, then moving to a mobile and finishing on a home phone, would seem to be a logical capability that mirrors the multi-screen nature of shopping or content consumption.

To be sure, initiatives now are underway to enable more “sequential” content consumption, communications or shopping, where a single goal is pursued across a couple, or several devices, over time.

Rival Manufacturers Have Worried About Huawei; Now Some in U.S. Government Do, Also

The U.S. House intelligence committee is releasing a report that raises national security questions about Huawei, the Chinese firm that many say the the largest telecommunications equipment supplier in the world, with sizable share of the market for fourth generation networks.

The report does not have immediate consequences for private sector purchases of Huawei gear, but could point to future issues, especially if U.S. government agencies are barred from buying Huawei equipment. Those rules will tend to migrate to state purchases as well, and all of that could lead to pressure on leading U.S. telecom firms not to use Huawei gear. 

Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R., Mich.) said U.S. telecommunications networks would be at risk of cyber attacks if Huawei gear were used. "We simply cannot trust such vital systems to companies with known ties to the Chinese state," Rogers said. 

Huawei executives deny the charges. 

The House intelligence committee has conducted a year-long investigation of potential national security threats posed by Huawei and ZTE.

Huawei is now the world's second-largest provider of telecommunications equipment, and it does 70% of its business outside China.

The report also recommends that the U.S. government avoid using equipment from the firms, and that U.S. companies seek alternative vendors for telecommunications equipment.

Immigrant Entrepreneurship in U.S. Has Stalled for the First Time in Decades

A new Kauffman Foundation study finds that high-tech, immigrant-founded startups — a critical source of fuel for the U.S. economy — has stagnated and is on the verge of decline.

"America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs" Then and Now" shows that the proportion of immigrant-founded companies nationwide has slipped from 25.3 percent to 24.3 percent since 2005, the study finds. The drop is even more pronounced in Silicon Valley, where the percentage of immigrant-founded startups declined from 52.4 percent to 43.9 percent.

This report, which evaluated the rate of immigrant entrepreneurship from 2006 to 2012, updates findings from a 2007 study that examined immigrant-founded companies between 1995 and 2005.

If you work in the software or high technology industries, you know how important this issue is, and understand why it must change. 

“Consumerization” Turns Enterprise IT Upside Down

The rise of bring your own device (BYOD) programs is the single most radical shift in the economics of client computing for business since PCs became common in the workplace, according to Gartner. Even so, one might note that since at least the 1990s, it has been commonplace for consumer PCs to be more powerful than the machines used at work.

And though mobility has over the last decade become a core concern for business information technology, even mobile innovation is now driven more by consumer markets than business markets, Gartner says.

But that’s only the latest evidence of the "consumerization" trend that has changed the way enterprise and business information technology gets adopted.

To a shocking degree, the historic process of technology diffusion has been stood on its head.

Decades ago, the pattern of technology diffusion was fairly straightforward. The latest new technology was purchased by large enterprises and large government entities.

Over time medium-sized businesses and organizations started to buy the same technology. Later, small businesses and organizations adopted the tools. Finally, some consumers 'brought the technology home' and used it as well.

All of that has changed over the last two decades. These days, many enterprise tools actually were brought into the enterprise by consumers who already had adopted the technology for home use. That has been true of social networking, email, mobile devices, tablets, the Web, even broadband Internet access.

In part, that historical reversal is driven by technology affordability, which  is putting very powerful technology in the hands of consumers, but those consumers are also upgrading at a much faster rate.

Gartner therefore argues that every business needs a clearly articulated position on BYOD, even if it chooses not to allow for it, say analysts at Gartner.

Workers now report using an average of four consumer devices and multiple third-party applications, such as social networking sites, in the course of their day, according to a study sponsored by Unisys.

Also, workers in the survey reported that they are using their own smart phones, laptops and mobile phones in the workplace at nearly twice the rate reported by employers.

In fact, 95 percent of respondents reported that they use at least one self-purchased device for work. Another big change is that where enterprise IT staffs used to assume they were responsible for training and supporting users on enterprise technology, these days many users simply will go ahead and train themselves to use tools they prefer. That also is a big change.

BYOD is an alternative strategy that allows employees, business partners and other users to use personally selected and purchased client devices to execute enterprise applications and access data. For most organizations, the program is currently limited to smart phones and tablets, but the strategy may also be used for PCs and may include subsidies for equipment or service fees.

"With the wide range of capabilities brought by mobile devices, and the myriad ways in which business processes are being reinvented as a result, we are entering a time of tremendous change," said David Willis, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

“Consumerization,” the trend of employees using personal devices and cloud services for work, not only is widespread, but also shows a trend at work for more than a decade, namely that although “enterprise” information technology traditionally has been more advanced than consumer tools, that now is reversed, in many ways.

A study by Forrester Research suggests that more employees have better technology at home than they have at work. Today, 52 percent of all global workers Forrester Research surveyed, and 62 percent of younger employees, feel that they have better technology at home than at work.

“When we analyzed the data on information workers, we found that a subset of highly connected mobile employees is also using multiple personal devices and applications,” Forrester Research says. Forrseter calls this group of employees the “mobile elite.”

“Mobile elite workers are those who make the most intensive use of multiple personally acquired technologies for work and who use them for improving their work with customers and business partners. Those technologies include smartphones, tablets, home computers, and non-authorized software applications and web/cloud services.”

What makes them elite? It starts with their willingness to spend their own money for work: 58 percent  buy the devices and applications that help them to be productive and to collaborate with customers, partners, and other employees, Forrester Research says.

That trend also has been described by other studies.

About 16 percent of respondents pay for their own smart phones used for work. Some eight percent purchased their own tablets and use them for work. Some 35 percent of respondents use their own home computer for work purposes. About 38 perent use software that is not specifically authorized by their employers.

These mobile elite users wind up relying on personally procured technology for work because they need to, not because they just want to, Forrester Research says.

Twenty-seven percent of the information workforce uses two or more personally procured technologies, including personal cloud apps, personal smartphones, tablets, and home computers, to get work done.

Among employees who use unauthorized personal apps and sites, more than half do it to get work done; “because I needed it and my company didn’t provide an alternative,” Forrester Research says.

The importance of consumer technology also illustrates why Apple now is a factor in enterprise computing, even though Apple does not build products for the enterprise market.

Video Subscription Price Hikes Aren't a Problem, Yet, Analyst Claims

Are complaints about ever-growing video subscription prices overblown? At least one equity analyst thinks they are, at least for the moment.

Programming-rate increases keep driving subscription TV prices higher, but other consumer expenditures are rising faster, according to Sanford Bernstein senior analyst Todd Juenger. That's a bit like saying people shouldn't claim about continually rising prices because some products they buy are inflating faster. 

From 2005 to 2011, the price of pay TV has grown 4.7 percent on an annual basis, faster than the broader inflation rate. The consumer price index, for example, rose 2.4 percent annually over that period.

Juenger points out that pet food prices rose 4.8 percent, a New York City subway ride grew seven percent, a gallon of gas grew about eight percent and a cup of coffee grew nearly 16 percent, Juenger argues. 

Few consumers are going to buy that argument. For starters, some of those products are used only by some people. Video subscriptions and gas are used by most people, and represent significant amounts of money, compared to other purchases of smaller amounts that are spread out over a month's time. 

In other words, gasoline and video subscription bills are large and noticeable. One way of looking at matters is that, every 30 days, subscribers get a highly visible reminder of how much they are paying when they get their bills. For that reason, service providers long have worried about "sticker shock," especially with the advent of triple play services. 

Also, video subscription prices have tended to rise by more than the overall rate of inflation every year, for decades, not just for limited periods of time. 

Also, as Juenger and all studies have shown, any single viewer watches only about 10 to 14 channels, making all the rest seem like waste, even if suppliers would say all that "waste" means a more affordable product. 

That isn't to say a shift to an a la carte retail pricing model necessary would save consumers money. All other things being equal, consumers probably wouldn't save money. But that's the point. Over time, all other things will not be equal. 

The existing cost structure of the video business will be disrupted. The analogy, for those of you with telecommunications backgrounds, is the level of profits and profit margin in the old monopoly business, compared to the level of profits and margin in the competitive business. 

The cost structure of the business has changed. The same thing will happen to the video entertainment business, eventually. 

Turkcell Launches Unified Mobile Wallet

Turkcell is introducing a mobile wallet service, working with MasterCard and Garanti top create what it claims is a unified wallet offering contactless payments, peer to peer payments, money transfers, airtime top-up, utility payuments, loyalty programs, offers and coupons, both online and at participating retailer locations.

Turkcell Chief New Technology Business Officer Cenk Bayrakdar says 13 other banks will become participating partners. Notably, the platform also will be accessible by Turkcell customers who do not have bank accounts.

Turkcell customers activate Turkcell Wallet by adding their cards using text messaging,, or by loading cash to their wallets through Garanti ATMs or Turkcell Communication Centers.

"Mobile Elite" Finds They Must Supply Their Own Tools

“Consumerization,” the trend of employees using personal devices and cloud services for work, not only is widespread, but also shows a trend at work for more than a decade, namely that although “enterprise” information technology traditionally has been more advanced than consumer tools, that now is reversed, in many ways.

A study by Forrester Research suggests that more employees have better technology at home than they have at work. Today, 52 percent of all global workers Forrester Research surveyed, and 62 percent of younger employees, feel that they have better technology at home than at work.

“When we analyzed the data on information workers, we found that a subset of highly connected mobile employees is also using multiple personal devices and applications,” Forrester Research says. Forrester calls this group of employees the “mobile elite.”

“Mobile elite workers are those who make the most intensive use of multiple personally acquired technologies for work and who use them for improving their work with customers and business partners. Those technologies include smartphones, tablets, home computers, and non-authorized software applications and web/cloud services.”

What makes them elite? It starts with their willingness to spend their own money for work: 58 percent  buy the devices and applications that help them to be productive and to collaborate with customers, partners, and other employees, Forrester Research says.

That trend also has been described by other studies.

About 16 percent of respondents pay for their own smart phones used for work. Some eight percent purchased their own tablets and use them for work. Some 35 percent of respondents use their own home computer for work purposes. About 38 perent use software that is not specifically authorized by their employers.

These mobile elite users wind up relying on personally procured technology for work because they need to, not because they just want to, Forrester Research says.

Twenty-seven percent of the information workforce uses two or more personally procured technologies, including personal cloud apps, personal smartphones, tablets, and home computers, to get work done.

Among employees who use unauthorized personal apps and sites, more than half do it to get work done; “because I needed it and my company didn’t provide an alternative,” Forrester Research says.


In fact, one of the reasons some think consumer technology is more important or disruptive than traditional enterprise technology is precisely this transformation of roles. In the past, advanced technology has been adopted first by enterprises, then mid-market firms, then medium and small business and finally consumers.

These days, advanced technology increasingly is created first for consumers, and then adapted for enterprise use.

Mobile Shopping Reaches $20 Billion

Mobile purchasing now represents $20.7 billion worth of shopping using mobile devices, Javelin Strategy and Research reports. 

About $5 billion of mobile purchases were made through tablets in 2011. The number of people owning tablets is expected to more than double within the next three years, which should lead to an explosion in retail purchasing using tablet devices. 

U.S. VoLTE Delayed Until 2013 or 2014?

The outlook for Voice over LTE (VoLTE) in the U.S. market is pretty dire, with sources saying it might be until late 2013 before Verizon lights up nationwide coverage. and 2014 for Sprint, says Doug Doug Mohney. 

That might matter if you believe VoLTE really will resonate with end users, allowing service providers to integrate other media with voice, or match features offered by over the top voice and messaging providers. 

But the potential advantage VoLTE represents is debated. VoLTE is supposed to allow mobile service providers to operate at lower cost, and add value. 

The issue is that, in most cases, lower price tends to beat "more features." No matter what people think "should" be the case, consumers and businesses shift to VoIP to save money, mostly, though the new features sometimes are a nice plus. 

If people are using over the top voice and messaging, it typically is because of the lower price. Matching those features, using VoLTE, probably won't resonate much if the carrier VoLTE prices are not close to those of OTT alternatives. 

Put Millennials First

Most elections, one supposes, are about perceived self interest. Candidates or parties are perceived, rightly or wrongly to “support my interests,” or “harm my interests.” But without overplaying the theme, the 2012 U.S. elections might unusually be less about “my interests,” and more about “my children’s interests, or my grandchildren’s interests.”

That might tend to explain why single (no children) voters might tend to lean one way, while parents might tend to lean a different way. I don’t mean that in a simple party affiliation sense, or a marital status sense, but in a time frame sense.

Parents, you might argue, naturally have a longer time frame than people without children. That isn’t to say parents necessarily agree about what should be done to ensure better life chances for their children and grandchildren, only to say that the behavioral time frame is different from that of any particular person without children. Those differences in perspective are not universal, nor exclusive, just arguably different in magnitude, by some significant amount.

Perhaps this is an election that is a bit unusual. Maybe some people will choose to act in ways that potentially harm their own interests, to protect the interests of their children. In other words, they will choose to put the interests of their Millennial children ahead of their own interests.

Some might say that is what they should do. Parents will get this. It's what they do, every day.

Generation Opportunity, which describes itself as “the largest non-profit, non-partisan organization in the United States engaging and mobilizing young Americans on the important economic issues facing the nation,” might be a case in point for parents and their grown children to be thinking in similar ways about the future.

The youth unemployment rate for 18 to 29 year olds specifically for September 2012 is 11.8  percent. The youth unemployment rate for 18 to 29 year old African-Americans for September 2012 is 21.0  percent. The youth unemployment rate for 18 to 29 year old Hispanics for September 2012 is 12.1  percent and the youth unemployment rate for 18 to 29 year old women for September 2012 is 11.6  percent.

The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.7 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.

If the labor force participation rate were factored into the 18 to 29 youth unemployment calculation, the actual 18 to 29 unemployment rate would rise to 16.6  percent,
Generation Opportunity says.

Some “11.8  percent of young Americans are now unemployed through no fault of their own and more still are falling out of the workforce due to an historic lack of opportunity,” says  President Paul T. Conway, former Chief of Staff of the United States Department of Labor and former Chief of Staff of the United States Office of Personnel Management.

“Young Americans know this is not fair,” Conway simply notes.

For Generation Opportunity, the polling company WomanTrend conducted a nationwide online survey of 1,003 adults ages 18 to 29 between July 27 and July 31, 2012.

Some 29  percent of Millennials believe that the economic policies coming out of Washington are helping them, while 47  percent of Millennials say that the economic policies coming out of Washington are hurting them. The point here is that, perhaps unusually, a significant  percentage of parents might be thinking they need to act in ways that further their childrens’ interests, and their grandchildrens’ interests, not their own.

And that would mean the job market first and foremost. Some 89  percent of young people ages 18 to 29 say the current state of the economy is impacting their day-to-day lives.

Some 51 percent reduced their entertainment budget;

• 43 percent reduced their grocery/food budget;
• 43 percent cut back on gifts for friends and family;
• 40 percent skipped a vacation;
• 38 percent driven less;
• 36 percent taken active steps to reduce home energy costs;
• 32 percent tried to find an additional job;
• 27 percent sold personal items or property (cars, electronic appliances, or other possessions);
• 26 percent changed their living situation (moved in with family, taken extra roommates, downgraded apartment or home);
• 17 percent skipped a wedding, family reunion, or other significant social event;
• 1 percent other;
• 8 percent none of the above (accepted only this response);
• 3 percent do not know/cannot judge (accepted only this response)
• 
  
• Longer term decisions also are being affected, apparently. Some 84 percent of young people ages 18 to 29 had planned to but now might delay or not make at all a major life change or move forward on a major purchase due to the current state of the economy.
• 
  
• Those postponed actions include 38 percent who are delaying buying their own place, as well as:

• 32 percent go back to school/getting more education or training;
• 31 percent start a family;
• 27 percent change jobs/cities;
• 26 percent pay off student loans or other debt;
• 25 percent save for retirement;
• 23 percent get married;
• 12 percent none of the above (accepted only this response);
• 4 percent do not know/cannot judge

80,000 Koreans, Gangnam Style

Sorry, couldn't resist. There's no accounting for what goes viral. 

Can T-Mobile Climb to 3rd Spot on Strength of Prepaid?

The logic behind theT-Mobile USA  MetroPCS deal is that the combined firm will be able to climb the market share rankings on the strength of demand for prepaid services, sold without contract, on a "value" platform, with a skew towards younger users.

Historically, one might have viewed that strategy skeptically, given the lower average revenue per user prepaid accounts represent. That is one reason the market leaders have tried to avoid encouraging users to buy prepaid services, in place of postpaid. 

At the same time, T-Mobile USA has said it will emphasize the wholesale segment more heavily, something that is the mainstay for Clearwire and a significant business for Sprint. 

Of course, on one hand, you can argue the potential for prepaid in the United States is quite high, given prevailing adoption in many other countries, where prepaid is dominant. Some also argue that tough economic conditions will drive more people away from postpaid, and towards prepaid. 

UC Now is Mobile

It likely won't come as news to you, but unified communications increasingly, or perhaps even "mostly" now is about mobile computers, not phones, and wireless access, not fixed access, you might argue.

“Our unified communications survey reveals a really important shift taking place as enterprises increasingly use mobile devices to access UC applications,” notes Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS at Infonetics Research  .

“Survey respondents indicate that smart phones and tablets will be the two most widely used devices for UC in 2013, passing traditional computers and desk phones.” 

$377 Billion VoIP, UC Services Spending, Over 5 Years ($75 Billion a Year, Average)

A cumulative $377 billion will be spent by consumers and businesses on VoIP services and unified communications over the five years from 2012 to 2016, driven primarily by SIP trunking and hosted VoIP and UC services.

If sales volume were equal in all years (and they are not), then you might say about $75 billion a year is the global revenue for all consumer and  business VoIP and UC-related services. 

The global telecommunications industry represents about $2.1 trillion in annual revenue, according to The Insight Research Corporation. 

Insight Research expects global revenue will grow from $2.1 trillion in 2012 to $2.7 trillion in 2017 at a combined average growth rate of 5.3 percent. 

NTT,  leader of residential VoIP market, topped 14 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2012, according to Infonetics Research.

Roughly 15 percent to 20 percent of all new IP PBX lines sold are part of a managed service or outsourced contract, making managed IP PBX the largest segment of business VoIP services.

SIP trunking revenue grew 23 percent in the first half of 2012 compared to the second half of 2011, led by strong activity in North America, Infonetics Research estimates.