Apple's Enteprise Strategy? Target People

It’s possible Apple will become more enterprise-centric in the future, but not because Apple will spend much more effort than it now does to reach enterprise buyers.

Instead, Apple aims its products and people, not enterprises. If people want to use its products at work, Apple assumes they will.

Apple Doesn’t Target Markets. It Targets People

Social Media Affects SMB Purchasing

A recent study by the SMB Group gathered data from 475 respondents working at companies with less than 1,000 employees.

The study found that social media sites have significant relevance when small or mid-sized business executives and personnel are weighing product or service purchases.

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You might suspect younger users would rely on social media and the study suggests that is true. But the study also finds that users in all age ranges consider social media significant sources of information.

The differences are that older users are more likely to rely on advice from colleagues than younger users are. For users 34 or younger, colleagues and social media are about equally important.

For user 35 to 40 colleagues are slightly more important. For users older than 40 there still is a tendency to rely on advice form colleagues. But even in the worst case, social media is viewed as more important than advice from business advisors.

Study: Social Media Affects SMB Purchasing Decisions

Consumer study shows changing TV behavior

Internet-based TV is growing rapidly, with 50 percent of the consumers using it every week, says Ericsson.

The study shows that people are spending up to 35 percent of their leisure time watching TV and video content, and that consumers are becoming more aware of new technologies, which in turn are creating new patterns of media consumption.

At least once a week, 93 percent are still watching scheduled 'linear' broadcast TV, but the role of broadcast TV is changing owing to the introduction of new distribution channels.

More than 70 percent of consumers surveyed are streaming, downloading or watching recorded broadcast TV on a weekly basis, and 50 percent are using internet-based on-demand TV/video every week.

Data was collected in China, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK and US.

Consumer study shows changing TV behavior - Ericsson

Many Enterprises Balking at Social Media?

A large majority of attendees polled as part of a recent webinar aren't integrating social media with their call center operations at the moment, and almost half say they have no intention of integrating social media and communications.

No Jitter | blog | Many Enterprises Balking at Social Media Integration?

94% of U.S. Workers Stay Connected to Work While on Vacation

All but six percent of users polled by iPass say they stay connected, at least some of the time, to work, even when on vacation, a new survey by iPass has found.

Only 5.9 per cent of workers disconnect from the office while on leave, the study found. About 58 percent report they connect at least some days when on vacation. About 36 percent report they connect at least part of every day when they are on vacation.

For better or worse, most U.S. workers appear to be working at least some of the time when on vacation.

The majority of respondents (53.6 percent) never truly disconnect from technology when on vacation.  For the 46.4 percent of mobile employees that do on occasion disconnect, their reasons were mostly situational, such as being in a location with poor connectivity.

Even while on vacation, 94 percent of mobile employees connect to the Internet, and the majority connect for work, pointing out the crucial role mobile devices now play in work life, the added productivity firms and organizations are gaining, and also the importance business applications have played so far in driving smartphone and mobile broadband adoption using dongles or cards to connect PCs.

Is there such a thing as too much mobile spectrum?

UK-based Colaego Consulting warns that a spectrum race might be dangerous for European mobile operators, though good for consumers. The reason?

New bidding for Long Term Evolution spectrum in the 2.6GHz and 700/800MHz bands will essentially be an "arms race" dictated more by competitive concerns than by actual end user demand for new services based on use of those airwaves.

European mobile operators are smart enough to remember an earlier, expensive race to acquire 3G spectrum, moves which nearly bankrupted a couple of carriers, and which proved difficult to convert into new revenues from new services.

Basically, Colaego Consulting warns that the same thing could happen again, leading to a situation where spectrum supply can outstrip capacity demands and lead to lower retail prices.

It seems unlikely any executives are unaware of that potential pitfall. As with fiber-to-customer investments, bandwidth demand looks to keep growing, so operators essentially do need to keep investing to stay in the game. New services ultimately will be created, but there seems no getting around the need for additional spectrum.

The warning is apt, but one might suspect mobile executives are well aware of the problem.

Is there such a thing as too much mobile spectrum?

Blair Levin on Network Neutrality

Blair Levin talks about network neutrality.