"Post-PC" Affects Device Usage, Design, Sales, Activities, Purpose and Places

PC shipments in Western Europe totaled 13.6 million units in the third quarter of 2012, a 15.4 percent decline compared with the same period in 2011, according to Gartner.

"We've witnessed a decline across all PC segments this quarter in Western Europe," said Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner. In the third quarter of 2012, mobile PC shipments declined 15.2 percent while desktop PC shipments decreased 15.7 percent. The professional and consumer PC markets declined 15.8 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

In the third quarter of 2012, the U.K. consumer PC market declined eight percent, while the professional PC market declined six percent. The mobile PC market declined three percent. The biggest problem was the desktop PC market, which fell 13 percent.

In the third quarter of 2012, the French consumer market decreased nearly eight percent due to low back-to-school sales. The French professional market declined 7.4 percent in the third quarter 2012. 

PC shipments in Germany dropped 19 percent compared with the same period in 2011. 

Germany mobile PC shipments declined 14 percent in the third quarter of 2012, while desktop volumes decreased 13 percent year over year. Consumer dropped 20 percent and professional PC demand declined 18 percent. 

So what does it all mean? Computing is shifting from stationary to ubiquitous. Instead of "sitting at a desk," starting and finishing a task, users increasingly start on one device and then finish on other devices, at other times, Forrester Research says. 

Ubiquitous computing also incorporates more "context," supplied by accelerometers, gyroscopes and geolocators. 

"Post PC" computing also often is more casual. Compared to use of a PC at work, post PC consumption is interstitial: people use computing appliances for short periods of time, in between something else they are doing. 

Use of computing appliances also is more often used on the couch and in bed, rather than at a desk or table. And physical interaction is physical (touch and swipe) rather than abstracted through the use of a keyboard and mouse. 

The biggest evolution is from computing as "work" to computing as entertainment or play. 

Vodafone Spain Learns Important Lesson About Mobile Device Subsidies

Mobile service providers have good reasons for disliking subsidized smart phones, since the practice puts a real drag on operating results. 

For AT&T, the financial impact of iPhone subsidies is clear. AT&T profit margins had grown for five straight years beginning in 2005, but reversed in 2010, apparently related directly to iPhone 4 demand and subsidies, BTIG argues.

BTIG estimates that the iPhone subsidies reduced AT&T margins by at least 10 percent in 2011, for example. To be sure, there also are churn reduction effects, as customers sign two-year contracts to earn the subsidies. But the subsidy costs outweigh the value of the churn benefits. 

Vodafone Spain and Telefonica tested the theory that consumers would respond favorably to unsubsidized device prices by ending all device subsidies early in 2012. Both carriers might now agree that device subsidies are required.
Vodafone's Spanish division is bringing back subsidized smart phones, apparently on a "permanent" basis, after losing more than half a million customers in the second quarter of 2012 while competitors Orange and Yoigo gained market share. 

A temporary restoration of subsidies was announced by Vodafone in August 2012. 

Vodafone Spain  and rival Telefonica used Spain as a testing ground for getting rid of the costly subsidies for new customers and ended the policy in April and March respectively.

But both companies lost out to rivals Orange and Yoigo, with Vodafone losing 639,000 customers in the second-quarter, while Telefonica lost 830,000 customers between April and August of 2012. 

Meanwhile Orange gained 80,240 customers and Yoigo 58,069 in the second quarter and other operators gained 238,578 customers between them.

Can LTE Replace Fixed Wireless?

AT&T says it will invest $14 billion over three years in new broadband facilities, including $8 billion for mobile and $6 billion for fixed network initiatives. The program would bring "fiber to the node" services to 75 percent of AT&T customer locations. 

Perhaps significantly, AT&T says the investments will provide Long Term Evolution high speed access to 99 percent of AT&T's customer locations. 

In other words, one might argue that nearly a quarter of AT&T customers might find that faster broadband access is made possible by LTE mobile networks. 

Some now argue that LTE can replace T1 service. Others argue that cable modem service can cannibalize both T1 and DS3 or other high-capacity access services. That might be more true for business customers than consumers, given the higher price-per-bit of LTE access, compared to either telco DSL, fiber to the node, fiber to the home or cable modem high speed access. 


In some ways, that is a simple continuation of global trends we have seen since the mid-1990s, when mobile began to represent a greater share of industry revenue. 

In 2016, IDATE predicts that the number of LTE subscribers will exceed 900 million, compared to nearly 230 million for fixed ultrafast-broadband using fiber to the home, fiber to the building or high speed digital subscriber line (VDSL).

One Way of Looking at "Small Cells"

Even a casual conversation about the definition of a "small cell" will quickly lead to a series of necessary qualifications and a "fuzzy" answer. Pressed for a concise answer, many observers might point out that a "small cell" approach meaningfully could include every radio installation
smaller than a traditional cellular macrocell.

And that's quite a lot of terrain. It includes "carrier" cell sites of 2-kilometer radius, "pico" cells of  perhaps 200 meters, but also customer-owned "femto" cells that cover indoor areas of perhaps 50 meters, and use the customer's own "backhaul" or "access," not a carrier-supplied link. 

Those are some reasons why the "heterogeneous network" terminology now has become commonplace.  Future mobile networks will use a variety of cell types, with different capital investment parameters and coverage areas.

Future networks also might make much more direct use of both carrier-supplied and customer-supplied backhaul. A carrier public Wi-Fi hotspot might use a carrier-supplied access connection, while, on an informal basis, most smart phone customers use their own fixed network connections, with their devices connected to in-home or in-building Wi-Fi, in place of any of the mobile cell site types. 

Without making too much of the development, "heterogeneous" implies a mix of carrier and consumer-supplied radio and backhaul network resources; a range of management options and quality of service mechanisms. 

One might also say that heterogenous networks and customer offloading to Wi-Fi also represent an unparalleled and new form of asset sharing. Whether by formal contract or simply informal mechanisms, customers are using a mix of carrier and "owned" access to support their "untethered" access requirements. 

While some entrepreneurs continue to work at creating whole networks using end user supplied access and radio assets, the heterogeneous network does the same thing, essentially. In a broad sense, users and their devices are supported by a mix of carrier-owned and customer-owned networks, both "mobile" and "fixed," using mobile air interfaces and simple Wi-Fi. 

The point is that "small cells" are more than a technology. They are part of a shift to more use of "shared" networks in a real sense. 

Smart Phones Now Lead Public Wi-Fi Hotspot Activity

Smart phones now are the devices most often used at Wi-Fi hotspots, a study of Wi-Fi usage now finds. Respondents said 40 percent of Wi-Fi hotspot connections were used by smart phones, while 39 percent were notebook PCs. Tablets represent 17 percent of connections. 

As you would guess, Wi-Fi is said to be playing an increasingly important role as a feature of a mobile or fixed network high speed Internet access service. That, in fact, is why cable operators and telcos have moved to offer public hotspot networks in their service territories, for example. 

Smartphones overtake laptops as the most popular way to connect to Wi-Fi Hotspots

Telefonica to Compete with Amazon for Cloud Computing Infrastructure

"Instant Servers" is a cloud-based infrastructure as a service offering that Telefonica hopes will allow it to offer a big branded alternative to other services such as Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud that offer virtual server services.

That a big global telco thinks cloud computing is a business opportunity is not new. But the move might also illustrate one other aspect of competing with Amazon. A big company, with a "trusted" brand might be helpful, and sometimes essential, for any would-be competitor to firms such as Amazon. 

Some familiar with customer opinion surveys might counter that people do not "like" their telco suppliers so well. That is true. But the issue is "trust," not "likability." The point is that potential customers might trust a telco to engineer and operate a reliable, available service, even if those suppliers are not particularly well liked. 

Instant Servers promises 99.996 percent availability with a service guarantee that pays customers when those service level agreements are violated. 

Telefonica  also says its clouds can quadruple in capacity instantly, and without rebooting.

Will Mobile UC Mostly be a "Consumer Tools" Development

Mobile unified communications is in the early stages of mainstream adoption, so it is tough to predict how it will develop. But there is at least some thinking that consumer tools, not enterprise solutions will be a big factor.

In fact, some question the findings, arguing that survey findings might be overstating the use of "enterprise" unified communications systems and tools.

The native capabilities on virtually any smartphone can provide click-to-call, click-to-join a meeting, access to multiple communications modes (text, email, voice, or video), and a number of other features that either by themselves or through the use of a network-based service like Skype could be called "UC." 

The longer term issue is whether consumer tools might wind up representing a huge part of business mobile UC adoption.