How PC Usage is Different from Mobile

To state the obvious, users behave differently on their mobile devices than they do on their PCs, which ought to have implications for a world where perhaps half to two thirds of all Web and Internet access is from a mobile device.

A study of 16 information workers over a period of time illustrates some of the differences (again, keeping in mind that habits likely continue to evolve).

Mobile service providers, for example, know there is a huge difference between users on PCs and smartphone users.

Namely, PC users consume lots more data. And that is what the study conducted by Microsoft and the University of Washington also noted. The other obvious observation was that phones are used for voice and text messaging. PCs can be used for those applications, but in this study of office workers, that was not the case.

And productivity applications, though important for desktop use, was not the focus on mobiles, where "maps" seem to be more important, as you might expect. Users relied on both devices for email and Web access. Beyond that, the usage profiles were different.

Aside from the sheer difference in volume, understandable given the "on the go" nature of a mobile phone, users did different things on their mobiles. One might hypothesize that mobile device input-output limitations and time constraints (people are on the go) account for much of the difference in behavior. Heavy document or file interactions are not prevalent on mobiles.

That doesn't mean people will stop doing things at their desks that require full PC support. It does suggest that as use of mobiles becomes a bigger driver of Internet usage, the key applications will change. Mobiles are "becoming PCs," but that does not mean they will be used the same way, at all. The Microsoft study simply confirms that fact.

Mobile Broadband Will Need a New Business Model

One way or the other, something has got to change in the mobile business as voice ceases to be the industry revenue driver. Today mobile service providers get 86 percent of their revenue from low-bandwidth applications like voice and text. But that will keep changing in predictable ways.

Namely, most capacity requirements will be driven by low-margin data rather than high-margin voice and text.  Over the long term, it is irrational to better price services in relationship to cost without attributing more revenue directly to the data services that are driving capital investment.

That doesn't mean every single service or application necessarily has to be priced in relationship to cost. Loss leaders at supermarkets, promotional DVD prices at Target and other promotional pricing happens all the time, in every business. Some products have high margin, others low or even negative margins.

The point is that current retail pricing will get more irrational as data demand grows, and that something will have to be done about it.

Carriers are investing in new capacity, but that alone will not be enough to bring revenue and capacity into balance. By 2013, virtually all traffic load will be driven by broadband data of one sort or another, especially video. That means, over time, new ways of charging for network usage will have to be created.

Like it or not, network management is going to be necessary, plus traffic offload and policy management. The issue, in part, is that demand is unevenly distributed. Even at peak hours of congestion, only a minor percentage of cell sites actually account for most of the congestion. To speak of congestion management at the "whole network" level is not to capture the issue.

The key issue is peak-hour congestion at perhaps 10 percent to 15 percent of sites. Put another way, even at peak congestion, 85 to 90 percent of sites do not experience difficulty. That means it might be necessary to use different policies at a small number of physical sites, not the entire network, even at peak hours.

So even if traffic shaping, bit priority policies and other tools are not generally required at every site, for every application or user, there will be a need to do so at some sites, some of the time.

Apple and RIM Are Winners in Handset Market, Profit-Wise

The Apple iPhone might not be the only reason the mobile handset market has changed over the past several years, but it is a major influence, according to a new analysis by analysts at Deutsche Bank.

In 2006, before the iPhone was available, Nokia had nearly half--47 percent--of industry profits. By the end of 2010, it will have 25 percent.

In 2006, Sony Ericsson had 11 percent share. By the end of 2010 it will have a negative one percent operating profit.

Motorola had 18 percent share in 2006 and will have declined to about a negative one percent by the end of 2010.

By the end of 2010 Apple will have an estimated 37 percent share, while Research in Motion, which had four percent share in 2006, will have grown to 16 percent.

Most of the other suppliers will have remained about where they were in 2006, except for Lucky Goldstar, which will have grown from one percent to six percent.

Keep in mind, these figures reflect profits, not handset share.

Conferencing Now Part of UC, Study Finds

UC is often thought of as a broad solution set including a unified directory, unified messaging, a single number (find me, follow me), presence awareness and the ability to track all forms of communication, say Josie Sephton and Dale Vile, Freeform Dynamics researchers.

What seems to have changed lately is the increased role conferencing solutions seem to be playing as parts of an integrated UC solution. Among lead adopters, audio conferencing is viewed as a mandatory feature by more than 70 percent of information technology executives surveyed by Freeform Dynamics.

More than 40 percent of all respondents said that audio conferencing is mandatory (Click on image to see larger view).

Nearly 20 percent of the most-aggressive UC adopters say video calling is mandatory, while more than 65 percent say that features is "desirable." So far, fewer than 10 percent of all respondents say video calling is mandatory.

About 25 percent of early UC adopters say video conferencing is a mandatory UC feature, and about 55 percent of early adopters say Web conferencing is a mandatory UC feature.

Instant messaging is seen by more than 80 percent of early adopters as a mandatory feature. Nearly 40 percent of all enterprise IT executives say IM is necessary.

Mobile Marketing Works Better Than Online, Study Finds

Mobile marketing campaigns score 4.5 to 5 times higher than online campaigns on unaided awareness, aided awareness, ad awareness, message association, brand favorability and purchase intent, according to a new study by InsightExpress.

Is Mobile Marketing the "Best" Advertising Channel?

There's a very good reason many content providers, marketers, device manufacturers and application developers  are intrigued by the mobile platform as an advertising venue.

Some researchers say it can outperform every other alternative, including "fixed" online channels, by quite some margin.

Some of us would quibble about whether it is so vastly superior on some dimensions. Some of us would argue TV is just as powerful as mobile on the "emotion" scale, and that lumping "print" in the same category as 'TV" makes no sense. Print is a "lower emotion" channel, compared to TV or even radio.

And this matrix is only a look at "potential" effectiveness. Advertising effectiveness depends on the quality of the creative material and many other factors beyond the mere choice of channel. Still, the potential reach and effectiveness of mobile marketing is clear, if perhaps overstated in this analysis.

Social Networking Drives Mobile Web Activities

Without much fanfare, social networking has become a "killer app" for the mobile Web use by smartphone or feature phone users.

Or at least that is what one would surmise based on recent data from GroundTruth, which shows that more than 60 percent of U.S. mobile Web page views are to social networking sites.

A separate study by the GSM Association shows that in December 2009, about half the time they actually were using their mobile Internet access, U.K. mobile users accessing the Internet from their mobiles were going to Facebook.

So far, social networking is developing as the killer app for mobile broadband.