640 Million Mobile VoIP Users in 2016

There might be as many as 640 million mobile VoIP clients in use by 2016, but most will be voice apps used in conjunction with other social media, gaming or applications, according to Juniper Research.

Mobile VoIP clients downloaded to the smart phone will account for 80 percent of the 640 million mobile VoIP accounts in use by the end of 2016.

Mobile VoIP application providers are expected to seek alliances with social media, gaming and software partners, Juniper Research says.

There are some important implications. As has been predicted for some time, the role of voice within the broader communications market will change. Where "calling" once was a stand-alone application, voice increasingly will be available as a feature of other applications. It is not immediately clear whether "voice as part of an application" will primarily augment or displace existing stand-alone calling.

Similar questions might be raised about video calling as well. To what extent does video calling represent incremental activity, and how much will represent a displacement of legacy calling? The number of mobile video calling users also will exceed 130 million by 2016, spurred by the launch of mobile video calling, Juniper Research predicts. But what usage patterns those users will exhibit is unclear.

Mobile VoIP Users to Reach 640 million by 2016

Google planning major upgrades to Google ‘within days’ • The Register

Google is planning to unveil a series of major upgrades to its social networking service starting in late October 2012, including the ability to use Google Apps accounts to access Google and set up brand pages for companies and the use aliases instead of real names.


Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Vic Gundotra, Google’s senior vice president of social business, said that the first month of open access to Google has seen 40 million users sign up, and 3.4 billion photos uploaded.

Gundotra said that the demand exceeded Google’s most optimistic projections, and this has meant some features are running late in the face of user demand.

“By Christmas (2011) you will see the Google strategy coming together,” Gundotra said. “The reality was that we had to prioritize doing some work and we didn’t anticipate such fast growth.” Google planning major upgrades to Google ‘within days’

BlackBerry Enterprise Share Will Drop from 52% to 36% in 2012

BlackBerry Market Share Dropping Fast

The BlackBerry may not be dead, but it's dying, some now say. New research from Enterprise Management Associates likewise indicates that 30 percent of BlackBerry users in companies with more than 10,000 users will move to a different mobile platform in 2012.

That would move Research in Motion's standing in large enterprise accounts into that of a minority operating system. Today, 52 percent of users in such organizations "actively" use a BlackBerry for work purposes, EMA reports; a 30 percent reduction would bring that total to 36 percent.

"We expected to see some market share loss by RIM, but these results were far more dramatic than we could have anticipated," reports Steve Brasen, EMA's managing research director. They come on the heels of a larger defection: Users of all stripes are moving away from BlackBerry, as its continually declining market share shows.

Even the BlackBerry faithful are abandoning RIM

New Jersey Transit Embraces Google Wallet

NJ Transit  is the first public transportation agency to partner with Google Wallet, Google’s recently released contactless payment system.  Using Google Wallet, NJ TRANSIT rail and bus customers have the option to use their smart phones to tap and pay for transportation tickets at select locations.

Now, NJ TRANSIT customers can use Google Wallet to purchase transportation tickets at New York Penn Station ticket vending machines and ticket windows, Newark Liberty International Airport Rail Station (AirTrain), on bus route nos. 6, 43, 80, 81, 87, and 120, and on some buses on the 126 line.

Currently, Google Wallet is available on Sprint’s Nexus S 4G phone and supports Citi MasterCard credit cards and a Google Prepaid Card.

New Jersey Transit Takes Google Wallet

Sprint says iPhone 4S Isn't Congesting the Network

Sprint says reports that the Apple iPhone 4S is causing congestion on Sprint's network are in error.

"As always, Sprint is carefully monitoring the performance of the 3G network," Sprint said. "We are looking into a small number of reports of slow data speeds when using the iPhone 4S."

All speed tests are subject to handset performance, time of day and physical location and obstructions. And some tests have suggested that Sprint's 3G network, which supports iPhone devices, is not the fastest.

Sprint says iPhone 4S Isn't Slowing Access

Google: 1% Of Searches Affected By Site Speed Ranking Factors

Slow-loading websites definitely hurt a site's search rankings, Google says. A recent study found that about one out of a 100 searches are affected by the site speed ranking factor. The sites loaded slowly enough that load speed alone would "actually change the ranking to a noticeable degree,” Google says.

That means about one in a 1,000 sites are affected. So only 0.1 percent of all websites have site speed issues that affect how well the site ranks.

Google: 1% Of Searches Affected By Site Speed

The iPad Is Cannibalizing Macs, PCs, Smart Phones

Apple CEO Tim Cook says Apple is seeing iPad sales cannibalize Mac sales to some degree. Of course, he also argues tablets are cannibalizing PC sales, which most people intuitively might guess is happening. To the extent that consumers have to choose between spending money on a new smart phone or a tablet, one would guess there is some shift of spending towards tablets as well.

It isn't that the tablet displaces a smart phone in terms of function, but only that tablets are the new "hot" consumer gadget, compared to smart phones.

“Yes, we’re seeing cannibalization," Cook says. "Some people are electing to buy an iPad rather than a Mac."

"However, I think a larger percentage are choosing iPad over a Windows-based PC," he says.

iPad Is Eating Mac Sales