39% of SMBs Will be Buying Cloud Services by 2014, Study Suggests

Some 39 percent of small and medium-sized businesses expect to be paying for one or more cloud services within three years, an increase of 34 percent from the current 29 percent, a study conducted by Edge Strategies has found. The study also found that respondents expect to almost double their use of cloud services over the next three years.

The global survey of 3,258 firms that employ up to 250 employees included respondents from Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.

Collaboration, data storage and backup and business-class email are some cloud-based services that hold promise for channel partners and other sales entities. SMBs paying for cloud services will be using 3.3 services, up from fewer than two services today, over the next few years, the study suggests.

The larger the business, the more likely it is to pay for cloud services. The study suggests 56 percent of companies with 51 to 250 employees will pay for an average of 3.7 services within three years.

Within three years, 43 percent of workloads will become paid cloud services, but 28 percent will remain on-premises, and 29 percent will be free or bundled with other services.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/emea/presscentre/pressreleases/MSSMBCloudAdoption.mspx

Consumerization of Enterprise IT Continues

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 smartphones, 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.

That 'consumerization' of technology is quite a big shift. 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.

Consumerization of Enterprise IT Continues

Net Neutrality Positions Hinge on Assumptions

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has told Internet service providers that their plans for a two-tier Internet go against the principle of net neutrality. Berners-Lee said that Internet users should have free and open access to all content, and that content providers should also have unrestrained access to customers.

That sort of points up the confusion around the whole notion of network neutrality, understood as the idea that every user and entity should be able to communicate with every other user, for "free."

Even the original thinking that every entity should be able to communicate with every other entity no longer is possible. China will not allow some communications, on some subjects, by any Chinese user, no matter what a content or application provider might think. Many governments will not allow the use of Skype or other VoIP services and applications.

Net Neutrality Positions Hinge on Assumptions

Watch for Significant Cord Cutting in 2012

Nearly 25 million U.S. households have watched online video on their standard TVs, Forrester Research reports. The U.S. online adults Forrester Research surveyed reported that 14 percent of their total video viewing was coming from the Internet, on average. Assuming a typical user watches five hours a day worth of video, which implies about 42 minutes a day of online video consumption using TVs, PCs or other devices.

When the results are sorted to include only respondents who say they watch online video on a TV, 28 percent of total viewing time—about an hour and 24 minutes a day—is online video.

In about 56 percent of cases, consumers are using their videogame consoles as the gateway to online viewing that is displayed on a TV. That makes sense, as the game players are, by definition, already connected to the TV and to a broadband connection.

The personal computer is the second most common gateway device used to view online video on a standard TV, Forrester Research reports that 10.9 million homes currently connect a PC to a TV at least occasionally, representing about 44 percent of the gateway devices used to watch online video on a TV display.

Watch for Significant Cord Cutting in 2012

Half of Mobile Subscribers Use Their Phones to Shop

About half of mobile phone owners use their devices when shopping, to one extent or another.

While 89.7 percent of the U.S. population aged 18 to 64 have mobile phones, only 49.1 percent are using their phones to shop, according to Arc Worldwide, the marketing services arm of advertising agency Leo Burnett.

Mobile shoppers are using phone-friendly versions of websites and apps to compare prices, read reviews, check out product features, download coupons and make purchases.

read more here

Half of U.S. Mobile Users Buy Mobile Broadband, Parks Associates Says

"Almost 50 percent of U.S. mobile phone users pay for mobile Internet access, according to Parks Associates. Some 95 percent pay for SMS, 92 percent pay for Internet access, 83 percent pay for mobile email, 63 percent pay for mobile navigation, and 43 percent pay for mobile video.

Parks Associates reports almost 50% of U.S. mobile phone users pay for Internet; global data revenues to reach $500 billion by 2015

Tablet Sales Could Drive Significant Mobile Broadband Sales

In yet another sign that connected devices other than smartphones are starting to drive demand for mobile broadband service, Parks Associates forecasts more than 68 million of the 126 million tablets sold worldwide in 2015 will have 3G or greater technology. That only means that users have the ability to buy mobile broadband, not that they will, of course.

Some 29 percent of the 16.5 million tablets sold in 2010 featured embedded 3G technology, while tablets with 3G or 4G technology will account for over half of all tablets sold in 2015.

Tablet Sales Booming Alongside 3G and 4G Network Subscriber Growth