Increased Online, Event, Direct Marketing in 2008

According to BtoB magazine's 2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans survey, 60.1 percent of marketers plan to increase their overall marketing budgets next year predominantly in online, events and direct, despite the softness in the overall economy. Some 29.6 percent plan to keep budgets flat, and 10.3 percent plan budget decreases.

Last year, 62.6 percent of respondents said they planned to increase their marketing budgets in 2007; 29.4 percent said budgets would be flat, and eight percent said they planned to decrease their marketing budgets.

In 2008 the primary marketing goal is customer acquisition, cited by 62.4 percent of
respondents, followed by:

Brand awareness (19.3%)
Customer retention (11.7%)
Other objectives (6.6%)

Of those planning budget increases next year:

27.8% plan a 5% to 9% increase in spending
24.6% plan a 10% to 14% increase
12.7% plan a 20% to 24% increase
10.3% plan an increase of less than 5%

The biggest budget increases will be seen in online marketing, with 79.1 percent of marketers planning to boost their online budgets next year, up from last year, when 75.6 percent of marketers said they planned to increase their online budgets in 2007.

BtoB's survey found that the average percentage of the marketing budget spent next year on online marketing will be 33.8 percent, up from 26.5 percent in 2007.

Among the online areas that will see increases next year are:

Web site development (74.0%)
E-mail (70.1%)
Search engine marketing (64.3%)
Video (39.5%)
Webcasting (39.1%)
Banners (36.4%)
Sponsorships (29.6%)
Social media (26.2%)

Event marketing will see a spending boost in 2008 with 49.5 percent of marketers planning budget increases in this area, as will direct mail with 49 percent of respondents planning to increase their direct budgets in 2008.

LTE: 160 Mbps Bandwidth in Test by Nokia Siemens

Nokia Siemens Networks has completed the world’s first multi-user field trial in an urban environment, reaching speeds in excess of 160 Mbps.

The test of Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, which supports mobile data rates up to 173 Megabits per second, was conducted in a real urban outdoor environment with multiple users using the new 2.6 GHz spectrum.

It confirms that LTE performance requirements can be met using 3GPP standardized technologies and it realized data rates of more than 100 Mega bits per second over distances of several hundred meters, while maintaining excellent throughput at the edge of typical urban mobile radio cells.

700-MHz Bidders Surface

Some 266 bidders for 700 MHz spectrum auction have surfaced so far. Not all the bidders will content for the national C block, though. Many of the bidders are small, independent telephone companies angling for local blocks of spectrum. But a few cable companies also are on the list. Of course, over time those fragmented allocations probably will be rolled up into larger networks, as has always happened in the past.

The bidders include Google (GOOG) Airwaves Inc.; Towerstream; Vulcan Spectrum;
Alltel; AT&T Mobility Spectrum; CenturyTel Broadband Wireless; Chevron; Cincinnati Bell Wireless; Cox Wireless; Iowa Telecommunications Services; MetroPCS 700 MHz; Qualcomm
Cablevision (CSC Spectrum Holdings); Verizon Wireless (Cellco Partnership) and Advance/Newhouse.

Google Apps on WildBlue Home Page

WildBlue Communications will be making Google Apps available to its broadband access service directly from the WildBlue.net home page in the first quarter of 2008. The apps include Gmail webmail services, Google Calendar shared calendaring, Google Talk instant messaging and Google Page Creator web page creation tools.

The new WildBlue.net home page will also feature a mix of news, weather, sports, and entertainment, plus powerful new customizable features from more than 2,000 available Google Gadgets that can be easily added to each customer's individual WildBlue.net home page.

To be sure, any Web user can access any of the Google Apps on their own. But the WildBlue deal should help increase awareness of, and use of, the Web-based apps. Some observers say most Web users aren't aware of Google Apps, so the deal will help popularize the tools.

The deal is reminiscent of the way the old SBC used Yahoo as a way to drive the usability of its Internet access services. Sure, the deal is not exclusive. Users can get access to the functionality some other way. But the packaging should help, in the same way that apps benefit from placement on mobile provider "main decks."

Amazon DevPay: Getting Paid for Cloud Apps

Amazon DevPay is a simple-to-use billing and account management service that makes it easy for developers to get paid for applications they build on Amazon Web Services.

Amazon DevPay allows app providers to quickly sign up customers, automatically meter their usage of services, have Amazon bill users, and collect payments.

Amazon DevPay provides a simple Web interface for pricing applications based on any combination of up-front, recurring and usage-based fees.

To use Amazon DevPay, users develop using Amazon S3 or an Amazon EC2 Machine Image (AMI), register the apps with Amazon DevPay, provide a product description and configure your desired pricing.

The Amazon DevPay purchase pipeline is linked to the app Web site. Activity is
monitored on the Amazon DevPay Activity page.

There are no minimum fees and no setup charges. Activity is billed at three percent of the transaction amounts and $0.30 per bill generated.

Amazon SimpleDB: Boost for Cloud Computing

Amazon now offers SimpleDB, a Web service for running queries on structured data in real time. This service works in close conjunction with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), collectively providing the ability to store, process and query data sets in the cloud.

Traditionally, this type of functionality has been accomplished with a clustered relational database that requires a sizable upfront investment. In contrast, Amazon SimpleDB is easy to use and provides the core functionality of a database--real-time lookup and simple querying of structured data--without the operational complexity.

Amazon SimpleDB automatically indexes data and provides a simple API for storage and access.

Amazon SimpleDB provides streamlined access to the lookup and query functions that traditionally are achieved using a relational database cluster, while leaving out other complex, often-unused database operations.

Amazon SimpleDB allows easy scaling of applications as well. For the Beta release, a single domain is limited in size to 10 gigabytes and 100 domains. Over time these limits may be raised, Amazon says.

The service runs within Amazon's high-availability data centers and fully indexed user data is stored redundantly across multiple servers and data centers.

Amazon SimpleDB is designed to integrate easily with other web-scale services such as Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3. For example, developers can run their applications in Amazon EC2 and store their data objects in Amazon S3. Amazon SimpleDB can then be used to query the object metadata from within the application in Amazon EC2 and return pointers to the objects stored in Amazon S3.

Developers and users pay only for what they use; there are no minimum fees.

Machine use costs $0.14 per Amazon SimpleDB Machine Hour consumed. Data transfer in
$0.10 per gigabyte. Data transfer out varies based on volume. Costs are $0.18 per GB for the first 10 TB per month; $0.16 per GB for the next 40 TB and $0.13 per GB over 50 TB.

Structured data storage costs $1.50 per GB-month.

The point is that it is becoming easier by the day to create, store and execute applications based entirely "in the cloud," without ownership or lease of data facilities, access pipes or servers to support those apps. At some point, highly-distributed workforces or end user bases will find it congenial in the extreme to support remote users with services always available through a standard Web browser, with the latest version, with no need for loading updates, patches or extensions.

As software becomes a service, computing infrastructure also is becoming a utility or service as well.

Channel Embraces SaaS

An IDC survey of members of the International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners suggests high expectations for software as a service.

IDC says 76 percent of solution providers who responded believe that SAAS will dramatically impact the partnering landscape, and more than 70 percent of solution providers view it as an opportunity. Solution providers believe that the most profitable opportunities related to SAAS will be in the area of deployment and implementation services.

But solution providers are also looking forward to the recurring revenue opportunity that comes with the SAAS business model.

SAP, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and IBM are among the application providers expected to be active in 2008.