Smart Phone, Freemium Games Competing With Console Games?

Shifts of consumer demand always are important, and a shift seems to be happening in the video game arena. Sales of video games fell by 10 percent in June 2011 according to NPD Group, from $1.15 billion in June 2010 to $1.03 billion. The decline is worst among publishers of traditional console games.

The industry currently garners about 75 percent of its revenue from packaged sales, although some industry leaders expect that to drop to just 50 percent within the next five years. Changing user expectations probably play a part, as there is growing evidence gamers think $40 is too much to pay for a single title.

But something else also seems to be happening. Users are spending more time playing simple games on their smart phones and tablets, instead of using dedicated gaming devices.

Even the pre-teen market, the largest for hand-helds, is perfectly happy to play games on an iPhone or other smartphones, NPD says.

Smartphone & Freemium Games Killing Console Competitors?

Google runs 900,000 servers, uses 0.01% of world's electricity

Google runs 900,000 servers that possibly consume u0.01 percent of worldwide electricity, compared to data centers as a whole, which account for up to 1.5 percent of worldwide electricity use, and as much as 2.2 percent of U.S. electricity.

To be sure, those figures represent a "best guess" made by Stanford professor Jonathan Koomey.

Google runs 900,000 servers, uses 0.01% of world's electricity

Windstream Purchase of PAETEC Has Broader Lessons

Windstream Corp.'s acquisition of PAETEC Holding Corp. illustrates one key element of business strategy for most service providers of any size in the U.S. and other global markets. The $2.3 billion deal gives Windstream a bigger profile in business customer services, arguably a more-important revenue source for any fixed-line service provider, given the cable industry's growing success in the consumer services market.

The acquisition also illustrates the generally paltry returns available to most service providers in their legacy geographic footprints. Generally speaking, the largest tier-one telcos, mobile service providers, small rural telcos and competitive local exchange carriers have been able to get significant growth in subscribers and revenue over the last decade largely by growing outside their original service territories. Read more here.

The need to go "out of region" is not just a strategic imperative for tier-one global providers. It applies to small telcos, competitive local exchange carriers and mobile service providers as well.

Few remember it, but Rochester Telephone, an independent telco operating in Rochester, N.Y., once wanted to get into the competitive long distance business badly enough to trade away its local access monopoly, breaking itself up into a "wholesale" infrastructure company and a separate retail entity that bought network service from the wholesale company just like any other competitor in the market.

More recently, SingTel decided to give up its local monopoly in the same way Rochester Tel did, in exchange for freedom to deploy its capital in other international markets. But note the business driver: SingTel cannot achieve the growth it expects and wants if it stays a provider of services in Singapore. Perhaps 90 percent of current revenue already comes from "out of region" operations.

Windstream says the deal provides more opportunity in strategic growth areas for Windstream, including IP-based services, data centers, cloud computing and managed services. A stronger presence in the important business market is key. But the acquisition also gets Windstream into new geographic markets as well.

Mobile Operator Radio Costs to Grow 7 Times to 2016

According to Juniper Research, even after adding more-efficient Long Term Evolution networks, global mobile operator costs to deliver user data could surpass $370 billion annually by 2016, a seven-fold increase on their 2010 level of $53 billion.

That might be a generalized problem for fixed networks as well, on both capital and operating cost fronts.

Mobile Network Operators Face Seven Fold Increase in Data Delivery Costs

Apple Gets 66% of Handset Profits

Apple gets two thirds of total industry profit share in the handset arena, despite getting only about 28 percent share of device sales. Apple share of phone revenues increased to 28%

Read more here as well. 

Low ROI Blunts Mobile Marketing Adoption

A new study conducted by The Relevancy Group in June 2011 and commissioned by Pontiflex, finds that lack of return on investment from mobile advertising is the biggest deterrent for marketers when it comes to increasing mobile ad spending in 2011.

Some 43 percent of marketers who aren't planning to increase their mobile ad spending this year say low ROI from mobile advertising is the top reason that they won't increase spending. The survey also found that 93 percent of marketers said they would increase mobile ad spending if they realized a higher return on their investment.

Other survey results indicate that marketers are dissatisfied with click-based mobile advertising. The Relevancy Group survey found that 56 percent of Fortune 500 marketers are dissatisfied with or don't use click-based mobile advertising.

Low Mobile ROI Deterring Mobile Advertising

Comcast Won't Compete for Over the Top Video Customers Outside its Franchise Areas

Comcast Corp. says it will not offer streaming video services that can be purchased by customers outside its own franchise areas.
The economic hurdle is too great for the operator to consider going over the top with subscription streaming video services that would compete not only with Netflix, but with other cable TV operators, according to As Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts.

If you know the cable industry, you knew he would say that. Cable companies simply do not compete with each other.

Comcast Won't Go Over the Top