Buyer Processes for Software and Hardware are Changing

As more business software moves to a cloud-based model, something else is going to change: The way business customers buy software and applications. To an extent probably not yet appreciated, a shift to Internet-delivered software makes it easier for business buyers to focus on business outcomes, not "speeds and feeds."

Buyers will start to focus less on "features" and start to concentrate on the quality of business outcomes enabled by technology, and not the technology itself, said Peter O’Neill, Forrester Research analyst.

That should have implications for sales teams, as it suggests the typical buyer is going to be inclined to look for a discussion of how a particular solution helps an organization boost its chances to grow revenue, or conversely how a given solution helps an organization reduce its costs in some measurable way.

As always, it is a good bet that the more interesting stories will revolve around "growing revenue" rather than "reducing cost." For some suppliers, this will represent a challenging shift. All too often, a hosted IP telephony discussion, or a potential new premises phone system sale, will center on all the features a new solution offers. That doesn't fit with the growing emphasis on "business impact," especially as the actual "buying" becomes easier, since applications can be sourced simply by using the Internet access connection and browser.

By simplifying all the implementation and provisioning tasks, hosted or cloud-based applications mean the buyer can spend more attention on the direct business benefits attached to any solution. That will prove a different, and perhaps more difficult sales challenge, since the pitch will have to be on the business benefits, not the attributes of a given solution. Instead of "our box or software does X, Y and Z," sales forces will have to speak to the ways the deployed solution helps boost revenue, customer acquisition, retention, sales volume or number of prospects that can be contacted in a day.

Buyer Processes for Software and Hardware are Changing

Gartner Identifies 10 Consumer Mobile Applications to Watch in 2012

The most important mobile apps in 2012 will be those that are purpose-built to take advantage of mobile device capabilities and situational use cases, say analysts at Garner. Perhaps the most interesting apps will combine multiple mobile-specific features that use sensor information, combine it with other user-supplied preferences, and then create some sort of commerce activity.

In other words, the mobile experience is becoming a distinct medium from the location-based experience, representing something more than simply a smaller-screen, out of home or "on the go" version of the tethered Internet experience. If you had to pick one element that is most distinctive, it would be "location," the smartphone's ability to use the actual user location, as it changes, to modify the application experience.

Most of the distinctive mobile apps will use location, mapping and directions, in conjunction with other user-supplied data and preferences, to create new experiences and new business models for application and service providers. Context awareness is the new wrinkle.

Gartner Identifies 10 Consumer Mobile Applications to Watch in 2012

How Traditional Telecom Suppliers are Preparing for Mobile Payments

Mitch Cornell, Xius VP, talks about the mobile payments business, particularly illustrating how a traditional provider of prepaid mobile solutions believes its traditional solutions can be "re-purposed" for the mobile payments ecosystem.

Apps Moving to PCs

Enteprise Hierarchies Endangered?

As 24/7 connectivity, social networking, and increased demands for personal freedom further penetrate the walls of the corporation, corporate life will continue to move away from traditional hierarchical structures, a Booz & Co. analysis apparently suggests. Instead, workers, mixing business and personal matters over the course of the day, will self-organize into agile communities of interest.

By 2020, more than half of all employees at large corporations will work in virtual project groups. These virtual communities will make it easier for non-Western knowledge workers to join global teams, and to migrate to the developed world.

The proliferation and increasing sophistication of communication, interaction, and collaboration technologies and tools, and the economics of travel itself, will result in knowledge workers’ traveling much less frequently. Many of you undoubtedly would agree that although work processes are becoming more collaborative and fluid, the hierarchy of authority has not much changed.

The Rise of the Connected Generation: Some Amazing Facts - GLG News

Is Mobile Voice Nearing a Tipping Point?

Sprint has announced very-significant integration of Google Voice, allowing Sprint subscribers to use their Sprint phone numbers to access a full range of Google Voice features, including routing calls to fixed phone numbers, as well as replace Sprint voice mail with the Google Voice voice mail service. That move can be interpreted in numerous ways. At a tactical level, you might say that more-substantial innovations in a market tend to come from contestants that do not have market power, and which need to shake things up.

At another level, you might ask whether a strategic shift has been made at Sprint, in terms of where the single most important revenue stream is coming from. It is no secret that mobile service provider revenue, which has been based on voice, but augmented significantly by text message and now mobile broadband revenue, continues to evolve in the direction of primary reliance on broadband-based services and access. Perhaps Sprint has made a decision to essentially hasten that process by attempting to change the value equation for voice, even if that hastens the demise of voice as a revenue stream in many ways.

"For an operator to work with a company such as Google, which is widely perceived as a significant threat in the most lucrative areas in mobile, and to endorse a service that has previously been seen by many as a threat to core voice revenue, is intriguing," says Steve Costello, GSMA content editor. "At the very least it reflects changing telco attitudes, as the previous business model is swept away by new-entrants from the internet world."

Whether merely tactical, or indicative of a broader strategic shift, the Sprint deal with Google Voice is possible evidence that a turning point is about to be reached, historic for either the fixed-line or mobile businesses, where at least some contestants reach a point in their business development where the growth of broadband revenues and the tempo of innovation has to be spurred, even at the expense of putting further pressure on the core voice services revenue.

Voicing the differences - GSMA Mobile Business Briefing

Unified Communications Goes Social, Because Social is a Competitor

"You can have enterprise social software without unified communications, but no unified communications technology player worth its salt is without an enterprise social media strategy," says David Carr at Information Week.

One might also say that the reason social software now is being grafted onto unified communications systems is that social software to an extent replicates the value claimed for much UC software. Another way of explaining what "social software" is to say it is "collaboration." And collaboration is another way of describing the value of much unified communications.

One might also point out that in many instances, social software can be seen as a replacement for much of what UC is supposed to provide.

Unified Communications Goes Social -- InformationWeek

Better Ad Targeting for GMail

Google's Economic Value $119 Billion?

Here's how an economist would conduct the analysis. Google economist Hal Varian came to the conclusion that Google saves us 3.75 minutes per day, and then used the average U.S. hourly earnings numbers ($22) to calculate that Google saves users $1.37 a day. That number multiplied by 365 days in a year equals $500. Varian then multiplied that $500 number by 130 million, the number of people employed in the US, to get to $65 billion value in savings for users.

Adding those two bottom line numbers $65 billion + $54 billion together results in the rough ballpark of the total value of Google to US users ($119 billion), Varian holds. For comparison Google’s global market cap is $187.04 billion.

But that $119 billion number doesn’t take into account extraneous factors like the value to non-employed. “You should think about these numbers as an underestimate," says Varian. The value of getting answers to questions immediately is a pretty big deal.”

Tablets Now Represent Difference Between Decline and Growth for Worldwide IT Spending

Among other things, tablets now represent all of the difference between "flat" global information technology growth in real terms and a decline in real terms, according to Gartner. On a nominal basis, tablets drive most of the 5.6 percent growth in 2011.

Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.6 trillion in 2011, a 5.6 percent increase from $3.4 trillion in 2010, according to Gartner.

Tablets account for the increase in top-line growth, said Richard Gordon, research vice president at Gartner. “Absent the addition of media tablets, the forecast would have slightly declined in constant-dollar terms; however, with their addition, there's virtually no change in underlying forecast growth at the level of overall IT.”

Gartner Says Media Tablets Help Drive Worldwide IT Spending Up 5.6 Percent in 2011

Netflix Canada Creates 3 Streaming Rates

To cope with new user caps in the Canadian market, Netflix has created three different image quality levels for users of the streaming service. The "Good" setting is the default setting and provides good picture quality and lowest data use per hour (about 0.3 GBytes perc hour).

The "Better" setting consumes about 0.7 GBytes per hour. The "Best" setting picture quality consumes about 1.0 GByte an hour, or up to 2.3 GBytes per hour when streaming HD content.

The "Good" setting limits video and audio to 625 kbps and 64 kbps, respectively. The "Better" setting limits video and audio to a maximum of 1300 kbps and 192 kpbs, respectively.

The "Best" setting will use any of the video and audio rates available. The highest quality files are 4800 kbps (for 1080p HD video) and 384 kbps audio (for 5.1 audio).

http://blog.netflix.com/2011/03/netflix-lowers-data-usage-by-23-for.html

AmEx Mobile Payment Addreses "Debit Card" Gap

In yet another take on the mobile payments value and business model, the American Express "Serve" service gets American Express into the "debit card" revenue stream, essentially.

"In our view, this is a bold undertaking for American Express that has the potential to address the company's key strategic weakness, debit," said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Chris Brendler.

Serve could also help extend Amex's reach beyond just the high-end consumer as Serve is clearly targeting the mass market. So in addition to making possible an Amex foray into the debit card revenue stream, it also extends Amex activities in the broad consumer market in a new way.

AmEx's Mobile Payment Scheme to Boost Revenue: Analysts - TheStreet

Is There a Social Networking Bubble?

Bob Metcalfe says "yes," there is a bubble.

Google Updates "Google Commerce" for Retailers

Google Commerce is an application designed for retailers, and has been upgraded to feature "Search as You Type," provides instant gratification to shoppers, returning product results with every keystroke, right from the search bar.

"Local Product Availability" helps retailers bridge online and offline sales by showing shoppers when a product is also available in a store nearby, in-line with the search results.

"Enhanced Merchandising" tools allow retailers to create product promotions that display in banners alongside related search queries, and to easily set query-based landing pages (for example, when a visitor types [shoes], they’re directed to a “shoe” page).

"Product Recommendations"  helps shoppers make purchase decisions by showing them what others viewed and ultimately bought.

Netflix Adjusts Video Quality

Netflix Canada now has adjusted video image quality so that less bandwidth is consumed, allowing users to watch more video while remaining under their usage caps, Netflix says. Users can manually reset image quality to higher levels, consuming more bandwidth, from their dashboards ("Your Account," then "Manage Video Quality").

Where watching 30 hours of video, especially in high definition, would consume as much as 70 GBytes, and about 30 Gbytes in standard definition, now Canadians can watch 30 hours of streaming from Netflix in a month that will consume only 9 GBytes of data, well below most data caps.

http://blog.netflix.com/2011/03/netflix-lowers-data-usage-by-23-for.html

Smart Phone Sales to Grow 49% in 2011

The worldwide smart phone market is expected to grow 49 percent in 2011 as more consumers and enterprise users turn in their feature phones for smartphones with more advanced features, according to International Data Corporation.

Smart phone vendors will ship more than 450 million smartphones in 2011 compared to the 303.4 million units shipped in 2010, IDC predicts, growing four times faster than the overall mobile phone market. None of those predictions will come as a surprise.

Operating System	2011 Market Share		2015 Market Share		2011-2015 CAGR
Android	39.5%	45.4%		23.8%
BlackBerry	14.9%	13.7%		17.1%
iOS	15.7%	15.3%		18.8%
Symbian	20.9%	0.2%		-65.0%
Windows Phone 7/Windows Mobile	5.5%	20.9%		67.1%
Others	3.5%	4.6%		28.0%
Total	100.0%	100.0%		19.6%

IDC - Press Release

Millennials Much More Responsive, but Overall There is Low Response to Text Message Advertising

Millennials with mobile phones look at texted ads and respond to ads sent by text far more than do other cell phone owners, followed by GenXers, according to the latest data from GfK MRI. Baby Boomers, have yet to warm significantly to text ads.

But the more important finding is that few adults actually have gotten, or looked at, a text ad of any sort. Approximately six percent of adults with mobile phones looked at an ad sent with a text message in the last 30 days (some 12.5 million people), while 2.7 percent of adults with mobile phones used text messaging to respond to an ad or to make a purchase in the last 30 days (some 5.3 million people).

Millennials (born 1977 to 1994) are 57 percent more likely than the average cell phone owner to have looked at a texted ad. Moreover, they are 93 percent more likely to have used text to respond to an ad or to make a purchase.

GenXers (born 1965 to 1976), on the other hand, are only 19 percent more likely than the average cell phone owner to have looked at a texted ad, and they are just six percent more likely to have responded to an ad or to have made a purchase by text messaging. Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964) are 40 percent less likely to have looked at a texted ad than the average mobile phone owner and 55 percent less likely to have responded to an ad or to have made a purchase by text.

But it would be fair to note that virtually every type of digital activity, even when much more heavily engaged in by younger users, has also been adopted by older users. That suggests responsiveness to text ads will grow, in the older demographics. But that is likely a secondary consideration. At the moment, few users of any age actually receive, or look at, text message advertising.

Press Release: Millennials Prime Targets For Ads Sent Via Text Messages

Mobile Payments: Tough Business Case for Credit Card Issuers

Bank of America, Citigroup and U.S. Bank executives do not see a compelling business case, for them, in mobile payments, in large part because mobile payments simply represent a way to defend their existing business.

"There’s just not a business case right now," says Dodd Roberts, Merchant Advisory Group CEO. That perspective is not limited to credit and debit card issuers. Telcos found there was no business case for digital subscriber line, allowing competitors to gain a market foothold. Telcos found there was no business case for widespread deployment of consumer VoIP. Cable companies, on the other hand, easily could justify VoIP as their way to attack the consumer and small business voice business.

Credit card issuers, in other words, might find that mobile payment systems actually represent new cost, but little, if any, incremental revenue. Attackers will find mobile payments a business platform for taking market share away from established players. In fact, a likely early approach for many credit card issuers is simply to tolerate some loss of market share, until a defensive response becomes absolutely necessary.

The reason is simple revenue economics. If one assumes that new mobile payments systems promise retailers lower transaction costs, then a major shift to mobile payments by credit card and debit card issuers will simply lower profit margins across the board. As telcos early found out, revenue is higher if established players simply allow competitors to take some amount of market share, while maintaining higher gross revenue and profit margins as the remaining business that does not shift.

There are limits to the strategy, though. At some point, so much business is lost that a competitive response, even at the cost of lower gross revenue and profit margin, is necessary.

Big U.S. Banks Look for A Business Case for NFC | NFC Times – Near Field Communication and all contactless technology

How Important are Social Product Recommendations?

People still get most of their information about products and services from friends and other people in face-to-face conversations. Email and voice conversations also are frequently used by more than half of respondents to a Colloquy survey.

Company sites, shopping sites, blogs and Twitter and other micro-blogging sites are much less frequently the source of such information. But that is likely to change as the lead edge of younger users become more nearly representative of the "general" or "typical" user.

Some might argue that socially-influenced product recommendations are not as influential as often is thought. But 56 percent of respondents 18 to 25 already say they share such information on social networking sites.

96% of Marketers Increasing Social Spend

Fully 96 percent of World Federation of Advertisers members polled recently are spending more time and money on social media. However, half of them admitted to being unsure of the likely return on that investment and nine percent believe the outcome will be "poor."

The attraction of social media often seems to be that it can be done without spending much money. But nearly always, organizations find that it takes far more time than originally anticipated. Just nine percent found their social activities took less time and cost less than expected.

Some 27 percent of those who have increased their social media efforts have found running fan pages takes more time and money than they had anticipated. The payoff is additional insight and increased loyalty (85 percent agreed), and the opportunity to increase advocacy (80 percent).

read more here

Marketers to increase social media budgets, despite lack of measurability - Social Marketing - BizReport