Coda Research Consultancy Blog

Mobile broadband via laptop users to reach 418m worldwide in 2017, LTE users to reach 209m, claims research.

2009-07-17T13:23:00.004+01:00

PRESS RELEASE

Mobile broadband via laptop users to reach 418m worldwide in 2017, LTE users to reach 209m, claims research.

-----BEGINS-----

London, 17 July 2009

Newly released forecasts by technology and media specialist Coda Research Consultancy show that portable laptop and netbook users accessing the internet via mobile broadband will produce US$48bn in operator revenues in 2017, will number 418m worldwide, and will generate and consume an immense 1.8 exabytes of traffic per month - a forty fold increase over 2009.

Coda Research Consultancy's report into mobile broadband via netbooks and laptops shows that the most significant growth will occur in the Asia-Pacific region, where users will amount to 162m by 2017. Europe will account for 94m users, and North America for 58m users.

Impacts of Long Term Evolution (LTE) will be dramatic, with half of all mobile broadband via netbook and laptop users employing LTE worldwide in 2017. LTE users will hit 38m in 2013 after a ramp up in LTE production in 2012, and will rise to 209m by 2017, a 1100% increase over 2012. Three quarters of users in Europe and nearly two thirds of users in North America will employ LTE in 2017. This contrasts with just over half of users in Asia Pacific, and 12% in Central and South America. According to Steve Smith, founder of Coda Research, "LTE take up will be greatly skewed toward European and North American markets in the short to medium term, where ARPU will be highest. However, we will also see significant take up in China, and we may also see countries like India bypass 3G altogether, and move straight to LTE."

More generally, mobile broadband user growth will not correspond with operator revenue growth, particularly in less wealthy regions of Asia-Pacific, thus significantly impacting mobile broadband ARPU. For example, operator revenues from Asia Pacific will grow at only 50% of the rate of users, which contrasts with 63% for Europe. The silver lining however, is that LTE ARPU will be 17% higher than for mobile broadband in general.

LTE operator revenues will be greatest in Europe, where they will rise by a CAGR of 47% from 2012 to 2017, and will form 83% of all mobile broadband revenues in that region. LTE revenues from North America will grow significantly more, at a CAGR of 59% between 2012 and 2017, and LTE will form 72% of its mobile broadband revenues. In contrast, LTE revenues will form only 13% of all mobile broadband revenues in Middle East and Africa.

LTE usage via portables will lead to more traffic per user than for mobile broadband in general. This will further increase pressure upon network capacity, and will hit 1.1 exabytes per month in 2017. Asia Pacific alone will take up 45% of this, whilst Europe will take up a third, and North America 17%.

Video will dominate mobile broadband traffic to and from portables, and will account for over half (53%) of traffic by 2017. The bad news for rights’ holders is that one fifth of all traffic will be P2P. Nearly half of video traffic (47%) and nearly two thirds of P2P traffic will be consumed in Asia Pacific. This reflects the dominant position this region will play in mobile broadband usage and how mobile broadband will continue to be the sole vehicle for many people to gain broadband connectivity in developing countries such as India and China.

In summing up the report’s forecasts, Steve Smith said, "Clearly, tremendous opportunities for both operators and device and component vendors exist, but the risks are significant. With enormous growth in traffic and considerable decline in ARPU, operators will need to be ruthlessly efficient. Asia Pacific is going to be the hotbed for growth, but it is a complex picture of emerging markets, developed markets and even markets that will leapfrog 3G altogether. LTE is going to be an important cushion for operators, but our research shows they will need to take into account the very different factors impacting 3G and 3G+ growth across regions and decide carefully how, when and where to market LTE."

The report Mobile Broadband and Portable Computers: Revenue, User and Traffic Forecasts 2009-2017 forms part of Coda Research Consultancy’s 2009 ‘Mobilities’ project. This report presents 48 pages of revenue, user and traffic forecasts and commentary up to and including 2017, split by five key regions (Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, Latin America, and Middle East and Africa). The report includes separate forecasts for LTE (Long Term Evolution).

The report is essential reading for device and component vendors, mobile network operators, consultants, financial analysts and application, content and service providers.

Key Questions answered by this report:

How much service revenue and ARPU will users of mobile broadband via portables generate by region each year up to 2017?
What proportions of these revenues and ARPU will be derived from LTE?
What will the take up of mobile broadband across each region each year be, and how much and what types of traffic will they generate?
What proportions of revenue, users and traffic will be generated by LTE each year up to 2017?
Which will be the prime regions for 3G and LTE deployments?
What are the trends, drivers and constraints shaping the development of mobile broadband, including LTE, markets across all regions?

To find out more about this report and its costs, and to read further highlights, visit www.codarc.co.uk, or email steve.smith@codarc.co.uk.

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-----NOTES FOR EDITORS-----

Coda Research Consultancy specialises in critical and strategic insight into current and emerging behaviour around technologies and media. It draws upon a range of disciplines, and works with specialist commercial and academic organisations to help them understand and take advantage of emerging technologies and media.

Coda Research is directed by Dr Steven Smith, an acknowledged research specialist with more than ten years experience in successfully undertaking strategic projects for media, technology and academic institutions.

To find out more about Coda Research, visit www.codarc.co.uk, or email steve.smith@codarc.co.uk.

Vodafone Bets On Web Widgets, Not Apps

2009-06-25T10:08:00.001+01:00

As the rush to launch app stores risks a nuclear arms race in app standards, Vodafone is almost alone in placing faith instead in the one great standard digital media already has - the web. While everyone fell over themselves to copy Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), Vodafone - together with Verizon (NYSE: VZ), China Mobile and Softbank - last year launched Joint Innovation Lab, a scheme to develop web-based apps.

"At Mobile World Congress, every platform provider was announcing an app store," Vodafone internet services director Pieter Knook told Mobile Entertainment Market '09 in London on Wednesday. "There are too many platforms - for the developers to write apps that work on all these different platforms is challenging."

Instead, JIL members want to be "writing applications in the browser", Knook said: "For a large catalogue of apps - particularly those like stocks and weather - the browser run-time is perfect for that - (then) you're out of writing for Windows Mobile, Android, S60, each of which require testing, a commercial model. We're not in that game, we want to abstract that. All the cool innovation is happening inside the browser - you don't need to the native operating system anymore ... Every high school graduate can write a Javascript widget - which is certainly not true of the C++ that you need to write an app store app."

This all seems to ally quite nicely with Google's efforts to popularize HTML5-based web apps - but when will we get there? After customers' next 18- or 24-month upgrade cycle, Knook reckons: "In two years time, the majority of our customers will have access to web run-time." For now, Vodafone is picking Opera over S60's own browser for these widgets: "we're not exclusively committed to Opera - it’s just the first browser that implements this really well."

Source: paidContent

BBC chief hits at critics over top-slicing

2009-06-25T10:03:00.001+01:00

A war of words between the government and the BBC broke out on Wednesday when Mark Thompson, the broadcaster’s director general, accused a small group of "ideologically focused" people within the UK government of trying to undermine his organisation’s financial security.

Mr Thompson, in a pre-recorded interview with a BBC Radio 4 programme, said that there were no circumstances in which so-called "top-slicing" – the use of part of the £3.6bn licence fee to make programmes for other channels – would be a good idea.

To remove any part of the licence fee would represent an attack on the independence of the BBC and its ability to deliver on its public service remit, he said.

Thee BBC chief directed particular attack on the government and Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, listing a series of causes – including the funding of Channel 4 and the provision of regional news programmes on ITV – for which the broadcasting regulator had been keen to top-slice the licence fee.

"There is a suspicion that for some years now there has been a small group of people ideologically focused on getting a wedge into the licence fee," Mr Thompson said.

His remarks are the BBC management’s first response to the Digital Britain white paper, published on June 16, which indicated that the government was going to take up to £130m a year from the licence fee to fund a number of projects.

Source: FT

Media industry plots pay plans

2009-06-25T09:59:00.002+01:00

Two of the most ambitious media industry efforts to retrain consumers to pay for online content set out their plans on Wednesday amid a surge in accessing free content via the internet.

Time Warner said it planned to begin a test in July to offer some of its top cable network shows online to about 5,000 subscribers of Comcast, the top US cable operator. A broader roll-out will begin in the fourth quarter.

The test is among the first concrete plans to evangelise the industry’s "TV Everywhere" strategy to make all cable network programming free on the internet, but only to paying cable subscribers.

Across town, Journalism Online, aiming to offer struggling newspapers a way to start charging for online news and entertainment, unveiled plans for its e-commerce platform.

This could enable newspaper publishers to convert about 10 per cent of their online readers to subscribers, while retaining 91 per cent of the advertising revenue their free sites currently generate, its co-founders argued. A typical 1m circulation newspaper, charging $7.50 monthly online subscriptions, could enjoy an $82.2m bottom line benefit within two years, they estimated.

Jeffrey Bewkes, chief executive of Time Warner, has staked his reputation on simplifying the way pay TV subscribers can access the same shows on all devices. "As we move through time, every multichannel network would be online and on broadband," said Mr Bewkes.

But the details have yet to be worked out, executives admitted, including how many shows to offer and for what period.

Although video consumption online is just a small sliver of overall television watching, the proliferation of more shows online could threaten traditional television advertising.

Time Warner and other cable network owners are in discussions with Nielsen, the TV audience measurement firm, to include online videos in a new aggregate ratings system.

Journalism Online would launch with "a significant number of publishers" this autumn, said Steven Brill, who founded The American Lawyer magazine.

In a move likely to broaden its appeal to bloggers, Journalism Online also said publishers could earn credit for referring readers to other sites.

The platform could offer a solution to newspapers, such as many UK titles, struggling to attract advertising for the large number of online readers outside their home markets, Mr Crovitz said.

The announcements came a day after Les Hinton, chief executive of Dow Jones, likened Google to a "digital vampire" sucking on the newspaper industry's blood. In committing the "colossal blunder" of giving content away online for free, publishers "gave Google’s fangs a great place to bite".

Source: FT

Small technology companies braced for tougher times

2009-06-25T09:54:00.002+01:00

A great divide is opening up among technology companies.

The sector has previously been largely unaffected by the downturn, but as the recession begins to bite, it is highlighting a gulf between the fortunes of the larger companies and their small rivals.

As large companies with strong records, Logica and Misys were able respectively to reduce and refinance their debts, while Micro Focus International was able to find funding for two acquisitions.

By contrast, the plight of the small-cap technology sector was underlined on Wednesday when two stocks suspended their shares on Aim.

AT Communications halted trading because of an impending clarification of its financial position after the potential buyer in an asset sale made a further claim that could cut the price.

Meanwhile, Artilium, a small telecoms software group, warned that it might no longer be able to continue as an Aim stock after a disagreement between Robert Marcus, chief executive, and Fred Mulder, non-executive chairman over financing strategy.

AT said that it was seeking advice on the merits of the claims from Nimans Holdings, which it estimated at £3.62m. The deal, agreed in March for £12.45m, is crucial to the group's reducing its net debt of £18.1m.

AT Communications is to date the most significant company to hit problems in the sector.

Multi-year contracts signed in boom years have continued to deliver revenues. But as customers delay decisions on new projects or clamp down on discretionary spending on existing ones, there is pressure on volumes, prices and cash flow.

Micro-cap Cantono was forced into administration after selling its last asset to Scottish & Southern Energy Telecom for £4.9m, in spite of operating in hosting services, one of the strongest areas of the tech market.

"We should not kid ourselves that things are anything other than tough out there and getting tougher," said Ian Spence of IS Research. "Working capital management is becoming a real headache."

As a late cycle industry, many fear that the hard times are just beginning. "We continue to believe there will be a 'double down' in the second half as the recession really starts to bite," said Mr Spence.

Simon Russell, managing director at boutique technology investment bank Thomas Weisel Partners, said: "We're seeing a Darwinian and discerning market in both debt and equity capital markets. Some, such as Micro Focus, are getting debt or equity financings away. Other placings are not finding the funding."

Source: FT

Sean Duffy, head of technology, media and telecom at Barclays Commercial Bank agrees: "It's always been harder at the small end of the market to secure debt for small companies as cash flows and balance sheets are so much weaker," he said.

Companies have learned from the technology recession at the start of the decade.

"Many learned then to survive without much cash, but strong cash management and operational delivery have never mattered more than now," Mr Russell said.

MSN seeks long-form content sponsors

2009-06-25T09:50:00.002+01:00

Microsoft is on the hunt for sponsors for a UK trial of long-form video content on MSN, according to Ashley Highfield, MD & VP of consumer & online at Microsoft UK, reports Danielle Long from Cannes

Speaking to new media age at the Cannes Lions international advertising festival, Highfield said the pilot would gauge consumer interest in the service, but added it wouldn't launch until content and technology deals had been struck and a launch sponsor had been found.

Microsoft has been rumoured to be mulling over long-form content on MSN since appointing the former director of BBC Future Media & Technology, as which he launched the BBC iPlayer, and MD of the now-defunct video-on-demand service Project Kangaroo. However, this is the first time Highfield has revealed solid plans.

"Clearly video is a particular passion of mine and I think, as we enter the third age of the web, it's only going to get bigger," he said. "MSN Video is the UK's third-largest site for video viewing but it's all short form, so we'll look at whether it's compelling to advertisers and consumers to move into long form.

"We’re certain we're not going to use UGC – we want all our content to be decent," Highfield added. "We know there's audience demand for long form but before we launch anything we want to get the content lined up, the technology in place and a launch sponsor then we'll see how it goes."

Source: NMA

Twitter grows 93% in H1 2009

2009-06-25T09:47:00.002+01:00

Twitter has seen UK traffic grow 93% in the first half of 2009 as popularity of the micro-blogging site escalates, according to Hitwise.

During May, Twitter ranked as the 38th most visited website in the UK and the fifth most visited social network, compared with May 2008 when it was the 969th most visited site and 84th most visited social network.

The research also found Twitter is the 30th biggest source of traffic for other sites in the UK, accounting for one in every 350 site visits on average.

Over half (55.9%) of trafic from Twitter is sent to other content-driven online media sites, such as social networks, blogs and news and entertainment sites. However, just 9.5% of Twitter's downstream traffic is sent to transactional sites.

Robin Goad, director of research at Hitwise, said, "Media coverage of the site has escalated significantly this year and high-profile celebrity endorsements, by everyone from Stephen Fry to Ashton Kutcher, have come rolling in.

"If anything, the service is even more popular than our numbers imply, as we're only measuring traffic to the main Twitter website," he added. "If we included people accessing their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third-party applications, such as Twitterific, Twitterfeed and Tweetdeck, the numbers could be even higher."

Source: NMA

Nokia and Intel strike research deal

2009-06-24T14:31:00.002+01:00

Intel and Nokia unveiled plans on Tuesday to work together to create a type of mobile computing device beyond today’s smartphones and netbooks.

The move takes Intel a step further towards a breakthrough into the highly prized mobile phone market. Nokia typically works with potential suppliers on joint research for several years before deciding to adopt a particular technology.

For Intel, a partnership with a leading mobile player is crucial to adoption of its chips although the announcement suggested the groups would focus on niche products initially in categories of devices yet to be developed.

"We believe that this will allow us to create an entire new category of devices," Kai Öistämö, Nokia executive vice-president in charge of the group's devices unit, told a media conference call. "The mobile and computing industries are coming together and we, as leaders in our respective industries, are taking the responsibility to really be the enablers to create this brave new world."

His counterpart, Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice-president of Intel’s ultra mobility group, described the partnership as "this year's most significant collaboration in our respective industries."

Source: FT

MySpace halts global growth and cuts staff

2009-06-24T14:22:00.001+01:00

MySpace, the social networking site owned by News Corporation, is reversing a strategy of international expansion in an attempt to slash costs and improve profits amid a global advertising slump.

The move follows last week's restructuring in the US, when MySpace said it would cut its workforce there by 30 per cent.

In the past two years, the company has striven to open offices in new countries, hiring new staff and launching country-specific MySpace sites.

But following the recent hiring of Jonathan Miller, the former AOL chief executive, to run News Corp's digital division, the strategy has been thrown out.

Operations in London, Berlin and Sydney are to become primary hubs for MySpace's international operations. Offices in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and Spain are "under review" and face possible closure.

The change of plan comes as the company faces intense competition from rival Facebook, which recently overtook MySpace in the number of unique visitors it attracts to its site.

Meanwhile, new sites such as Twitter have challenged the traditional social network model, which is an additional problem for MySpace.

The international job losses form part of a range of cost-cutting measures implemented by Mr Miller and Owen Van Natta, MySpace’s chief executive. They have also scrapped a move to a new "campus" facility in Los Angeles that had been planned by Peter Levinsohn, the former head of Fox Interactive Media, News Corp’s digital arm.

The cuts announced on Tuesday will reduce the company’s total number of employees in the US and internationally to about 1,150 from about 1,900.

Source: FT

Habitat caught out with Twitter spam

2009-06-24T13:04:00.002+01:00

Furniture retailer Habitat has come under fire after it spammed Twitter users through the use of hash tags.

The retailer had been using hash tags, which help users track conversations on the microblogging site, to promote marketing messages that had no relevance to the topics used.

The company’s Twitter feed, HabitatUK, was putting out marketing messages such as 'Our totally desirable Spring collection now has 20% off!' on Friday, using tags such as #mms, #Apple, #iPhone and even used an Iranian election hashtag #Mousavi.

The brand pulled all the messages the next day and replaced them with standard marketing and sales tweets, but many members of Twitter had already seen the messages and publicly spoke of their annoyance.

A spokeswoman at Habitat said, "This was a mistake which we’re looking into. What's important to us is that we always listen, take on board observations and welcome constructive criticism. We will do our utmost to ensure any mistakes are never repeated."

Rhys Willians, managing partner at Agenda21, said it was another example of a big brand poorly executing a social media idea.

"In its response it has also gone for corporate behaviour, which doesn't really work," he said. "It made a mistake. There's a general acceptance from Twitter users that it won't operate for free and that there are going to be ads, but brands need to know what they're doing and execute it correctly."

Antony Mayfield, head of social media at digital agency iCrossing, said brands need to understand social networks before using them for marketing.

"You need to understand your networks and Habitat understood on a technical level but not on a social level," he said. "Brands also have to understand that just because it happened on a social network doesn't mean people outside it won't know about it too."

Source: NMA

Top 10 tips to make better use of business intelligence - Maximising Business Intelligence at Silicon.com

2009-06-23T10:58:00.001+01:00

Business intelligence is getting a lot of attention amid the economic downturn as organisations try to use data they gather to become more efficient and compete more effectively with rivals.

With this in mind, silicon.com interviewed analysts specialising in BI to come up with some top tips about how you can make the most out of this growing area.

1. Know what you want to get out of it
"The point is, businesses need to understand what they are lacking, and what they are trying to achieve first, and then see how it might be addressed, rather than starting with a piece of software and seeing how they can fit around it."
Martin Atherton, research director, Freeform Dynamics

2. Make it relevant
"Some kind of link or integration is required between the strategy and dashboard. Without this link there is little way to know whether the information and indicators being displayed are the most appropriate."
Sarah Burnett, lead BI analyst, Butler Group

3. Share the knowledge you have
"Consider setting up a BI competency centre (BICC) - to engender a more strategic approach to BI and analytics that is formalised, auditable and its benefits measurable. The BICC addresses not just technology but (perhaps more importantly) people and processes. It provides a centralised base for standardisation and consolidation of BI tools and technologies' assets, as well as a bank of best practices around methodologies, processes, definitions and skills for effective knowledge transfer and reuse."
Madan Sheina, principal analyst, Ovum

4. Start small
"Break up BI initiatives into lots of small projects with a maximum length of about three months. But keep an overall strategy in mind - don't create information silos on top of your application silos. BI projects need to be delivered quickly, otherwise the business requirement may change, or users will start to find other ways of obtaining information.
Alys Woodward, programme manager, European business analytics markets and strategies, IDC

5. Work out what you're already doing
"Revisit how you use your existing system. Are some users over or under provisioned? Are the reports the business gets really adding value, or telling it things it needed to know sooner? At the moment, for example, is the CEO getting their monthly financial reports, while the customer retention team is crying out for better visibility?"
Martin Atherton, Freeform Dynamics

6. Don't baffle the users
"The information that BI delivers should be displayed in an easily digestible manner and with maximum impact to help expedite the decision-making process. For example, the information displayed on a dashboard should not just be a 'free-for-all'; it needs to be reflective of the organisation's strategy and of the user's role within the organisation. This means that the information has to be specific, relevant and analysable."
Sarah Burnett, Butler Group

"Anything that requires a user to keep going back to administrators or IT to provide new reports is not responsive enough to the business' needs. Look at making sure that the tool can access all the various data stores that a user will need to connect to - including Excel spreadsheets. Make sure that the way a person can identify and deal with data is simple - they should not need to understand anything to do with SQL, for example."
Clive Longbottom, business process analysis service director, Quocirca

7. Keep it clean
"Manage data quality. Once users lose trust in the data in the BI system it can be almost impossible to get it back. Make sure there is a communication path for users to report data quality errors - even if there is no underlying problem with the data but only misinterpretation by users, this can lead to bad decision-making so it needs to be sorted out."
Alys Woodward, IDC

"Cleansing data, ensuring that multiple versions of an entity are rationalised, is important. Moving to master data management will give ongoing benefits and move away from the need for major data cleansing on an ongoing basis. Reporting then becomes far easier, and so BI becomes a great deal more simple. "
Clive Longbottom, Quocirca

8. Share your knowledge
"Developing BI expertise takes time - often requiring BI specialists to work with subject matter experts. If some expertise has already been developed in-house then it is a good idea to make the knowledge available to other parts of the organisation, for example through a BI competency centre. The centre can also act as a central hub for managing/maintaining BI suppliers/products and licences."
Sarah Burnett, Butler Group

9. Open up to others
"Open up the BI environment - a business no longer can be constrained within its own four walls, so should be looking at how BI can be used in a secure and suitable manner with its suppliers and customers."
Clive Longbottom, Quocirca

10. Keep your eye on use
"Monitor who logs onto your BI system and what they look at. This will give you invaluable information about what users are using, and how often. Design issues such as over-complexity are often spotted through usage monitoring, as are training issues. It will also help you plan for capacity."
Alys Woodward, IDC

Source: Silicon

UK consumers hang on to satellite TV at any cost

2009-06-23T10:55:00.001+01:00

Recession may be biting, but there is one thing that the UK consumer is still not willing to give up on and that is their satellite package.

Pay TV is now taking precedence over going out and even holidays, according to Legal & General's 'Changing Face of British Homes' survey, which found that only fourteen per cent of UK consumers would consider reducing their satellite TV spend.

To add some value to how much satellite TV is worth to people, the survey found that forty two per cent would rather cut back on eating out than on their TV channels.

It is amazing what lengths consumers are willing to go through to keep satellite TV going.

Thirty per cent of the people asked would rather go without holidays and twenty eight per cent would put off home improvements in order to keep satellite TV.

Source: TechWatch

India's IT growth to slow down in 2009

2009-06-23T10:49:00.002+01:00

NDIA--The global financial meltdown is expected to finally reach local shores this year, dragging India's IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) industry to its lowest growth in five years, according to IDC.

The research firm's local analysts said at its Directions conference Saturday, the overall growth of India's IT-ITES industry will crawl to 10.8 percent in 2009, generating revenues worth some 3,095.73 billion rupees (US$64 billion). Exports are projected to expand 11.2 percent to over 2,000 billion rupees (US$41 billion).

Last year, the Indian IT-ITES industry grew 14.4 percent with revenues of US$58 billion (2,790 billion rupees).

IDC India's country manager Kapil Dev Singh, said: "Though certain signs of a revival can be seen in the domestic market, spending is unlikely to pick up before mid-2010.

Source: ZDNet

IT spending behavior would remain conservative throughout 2009, due to uncertainty in the economic environment, Singh said at the conference. "Several factors augur well for the Indian economy, such as a stable government at the center, economic reforms, buoyancy in the stock markets, and the fact that inflation and global oil prices are under control," he said.

Despite these positives, IDC predicts the hardware market to remain under pressure throughout 2009. The analyst firm expects the hardware and software segments to see a resurgence in demand only in the second half of 2010.

"The biggest [IT] spender today is the end-consumer," Singh said.

From 2009 to 2010, IDC expects high growth to come from verticals such as government, through various e-government initiatives currently underway, education and telecom. Between 2011 and 2012, sectors such as retail, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, would also join these high-growth verticals.

Enter "Growth Phase 2.0"
The domestic IT-ITES market growth projection from 2008 to 2013 is expected to moderate at 15.8 percent, compared to the average growth of 25 percent recorder between 2003 and 2008

Singh said: "This signals the onset of a new phase of growth, Growth Phase 2.0, that will be marked by moderate growth and a much larger industry base."

This growth phase will see IT vendors helping enterprises design and deliver "new age" services to their customers by leveraging the existing IT infrastructure.

IDC expects the ICT vendor community to offer innovative products and services in Growth Phase 2.0 that will be fundamentally different from the past in the way they are delivered and consumed.

"These shifts and changes in the technology-product-market landscape will be further shaped by the economic recovery through 2009 to 2010, and is expected to build up after 2010," Singh said.

Praveen Sengar, IDC India's senior manager of software and services and industry verticals research, said: "During these recessionary times, green IT is being sold to Indian companies as a cost-cutting measure."

Indian companies are fast embracing concepts such as virtualization, unified communications and cloud computing, in order to bring down their capital expenditure, he added.

Domestic market to grow faster
IDC expects the Indian IT-ITES industry to cross 5,281 billion rupees (US$110 billion) by 2013, with the domestic market growing faster than exports and will account for 41.9 percent of the overall market in 2013, compared to 31.7 percent in 2008.

Between 2008 and 2013, the India IT-ITES industry is projected to expand at an average growth rate of 13.9 percent with the domestic market growing slightly higher at 15.8 percent, compared to exports growth of 12.7 percent.

Singh said: "This changing trend signals increasing focus of enterprises to leverage capacities they have built up over the last few years."

Sengar added that the top five business priorities of Indian companies today are focued on cutting costs and expenses, increasing profit margins, improving customer service, gaining operational efficiencies and managing business risks.

Their top five IT priorities, on the other hand, are to improve access to relevant information, improve availability and performance of IT infrastructure, lower cost of underlying IT infrastructure, improve security of data and IT systems, and deploy applications that better fit the businesses processes.

Source: ZDNet

More bad news for Blu-Ray

2009-06-23T10:43:00.001+01:00

I can't help but feel sorry for Sony. A recently undertaken poll by Harris Interactive has found that Blu-ray's penetration in the US has only slightly risen over last year, despite its victory over HD DVD, from 4% in 2008 to 7% in 2009. The same goes for the PS3 (with its Blu-Ray capability), with 7% of Americans now owning Sony's gaming system.

Another Harris Interactive poll has found that 93% of American consumers are "somewhat/not at all likely" to buy a Blu-ray player in 2009. Last year, 91% of people said that. Plus, a third poll conducted found that consumers are only planning on buying 3.4 DVDs over the next six months versus the 6.2 that they purchased over the last six months.

Source: Crunchgear

Over 1 Million iPhone 3GS Devices Sold

2009-06-23T10:33:00.001+01:00

In a news release on Monday Apple claims that 3GS sales have exceeded 1 million units. In addition, the company says six million customers have downloaded the new iPhone 3.0 software in the first five days since its release.

Source: TechCrunch

Record industry - no more lawsuits planned

2009-06-22T11:55:00.004+01:00

The US record industry has no plans to resume suing individuals who use online file-trading services to share digital music files, despite an unprecedented $1.9 million verdict returned by a civil jury last week.

The Recording Industry Assn. of America told Congress in December that it would stop suing consumers. In the wake of the verdict last week, Trade group spokesman Jonathan Lamy told the Financial Times that the body saw no reason to change its position now.

Their reluctance to capitalise on the outsize verdict makes clear that it will not mark a turning point in the decade-long war on piracy that began with the birth of Napster in mid-1999.

All of the industry's litigation – from the campaigns against Napster and its successor companies to the past few years' worth of suits against file-sharers themselves – has failed to cut into the enormous amount of copyrighted material circulating on peer-to-peer networks.

Record label executives said the suits have managed to spread the word that file-sharing is against the law, a fact that many teenagers and young adults didn't understand.

Last year, according to market researcher NPD Group, the proportion of US internet users who downloaded music legitimately for the first time exceeded the percentage relying on file-sharing networks.

The driver for that shift has been broader licensing, especially to Apple's iTunes. Eight of the twelve jurors in the Thomas-Rasset case told the lawyers they used iTunes, making them unlikely to agree that people still turned to piracy because they couldn't find what they were seeking on authorized channels.

Source: FT

Second Android phone launches on T-Mobile

2009-06-22T11:37:00.004+01:00

The latest smart phone to hit the market this Summer is T-Mobile's new Google Android device, called the myTouch.

The myTouch is the second smartphone the network provider has introduced that uses Google's open-source mobile operating system, Android. It's first device, the G1, has sold more than one million devices according to T-Mobile.

The myTouch is manufactured by HTC, and has the same hardware design as the Google Ion, also known as the HTC Magic.

The carrier will announce a few more Android devices later this year but it will be focusing much of its marketing efforts promoting the myTouch.

According to T-Mobile, the key to the myTouch standing out among an increasingly dense market is personalisation. While the basic hardware design of the myTouch is the same as the HTC Magic, T-Mobile has made enhancements to the device both in terms of hardware and software.

Software wise, users will be able to customise their myTouch device with various Android applications. In retail stores, T-Mobile sales representatives will help customers set up their own personalised device before they leave the store.

Sherpa, created by Geodelic is an example of application that will enable customisation. This application is a location-based service that uses GPS to enable users find restaurants, cinemas, and other businesses or points of interest that are nearby.

Source: Silicon

Apple's problem is AT&T

2009-06-22T11:28:00.004+01:00

Some iPhone users in the US have received emails from Apple offering them a $30 iTunes Store credit, in response to problems they have experienced activating the iPhone 3G S.

According to Apple, it is working with AT&T to resolve why some new iPhones are not activated, even two days after the device launch.

Simply, this is another reason why Apple needs to move away from its exclusive agreement with AT&T.

Find the email below:

Dear Apple Customer,

Thank you for your recent Apple Store order. We appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience caused by the delay in your iPhone activation.

We are still resolving the issue that was encountered while activating your iPhone with AT&T. Unfortunately, due to system issues and continued high activation volumes, this could take us up to an additional 48 hours to complete.

On Monday, you'll receive an email from Apple with an iTunes Store credit in the amount of $30. We hope you will enjoy this gift and accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience this delay has caused.

Thank you for choosing Apple.

Sincerely,
Apple Online Store Team

IBM set to invest $100 million in mobile research

2009-06-19T10:18:00.004+01:00

IBM announced on Wednesday its plans to invest in a five year mobile research project to design and create technologies that will bring services to people who have bypassed PCs for mobile phones as their primary method of accessing the Internet.

The $100 million investment will cover three areas: mobile enterprise enabling, emerging market mobility and enterprise end-user mobile experiences. Analytics, security, privacy and user interface, and navigation will be studied alongside these

According to IBM, the number of mobile users will grow to reach approximately one billion users by 2011. The ubiquity and relative affordability of mobile phones as an information platform, combined with increases in processing power and accessibility, serves as a basis for the investment.

For business and the enterprise, this implies examining how to deploy and manage mobile devices and applications to a large force of enterprise field workers. It also means altering how the enterprise interacts with end-users, such as gaining insight into customer preferences and collecting historical data.

For emerging markets this implies building technological and language literacy, infrastructure and the exchange of information, such as public transit schedules, weather, product prices, advertisements and financial transactions.

Source: ZDNet

BT moves to the cloud

2009-06-19T10:13:00.002+01:00

BT is about to formally launch BT Virtual Data Centre. This virtualised infrastructure service will form the basis of its cloud-computing strategy.

VDC involves the virtualisation of servers, storage, networks and security delivered to customers via an online portal as cloud-based services. On Thursday, BT's Global Services division announced the customer rollout of VDC, which will initially target multinational corporate customers and the public sector.

"VDC is the basis of our cloud-computing offering," Neil Sutton, BT Global Services' product chief, told ZDNet UK on Thursday. "We've begun to deliver communications-as-a-service and hosted services for voice, unified communications and CRM, and we see a roadmap where people want to be able to provision an infrastructure end-to-end. We want to deliver those things as a service in a predictable and flexible manner."

The company has been using VDC internally since early last year to cut costs within Global Services, and has been trialling it with selected customers over recent months.

BT's UK and European portfolio of datacentres allows for "true enterprise-class services" in its cloud-computing package, the company said.

Whereas companies such as Amazon base their cloud strategy on the web, VDC is more about setting up private clouds within the enterprise, Sutton said.

"This is designed for putting a number of the types of applications you see in a typical enterprise onto an infrastructure-as-a-service environment," Sutton said. "We wouldn't deliver that over the web currently. If you had certain applications - say a hosted CRM application - and that's supporting a contact centre, then you'd want to keep the delivery of that typically within your own enterprise and own network. The web doesn't come with quality-of-service."

BT hopes to launch VDC in the UK at the end of July, followed by launches in other European countries in the months after that, Sutton said. He added that the company's biggest customers in Germany, Spain and France will be among the first to be offered the service.

In addition, BT intends to start offering VDC to its small-business customers at some point, Sutton said, but could not specify when this will happen. Pricing depends on specific customer requirements.

Source: Silicon

Bad news for Blu-Ray

2009-06-19T09:50:00.003+01:00

Coda Research argued in its recent VOD report that broadcasters, distributors and rights owners should think carefully about employing Blu-Ray players for VOD. A major reason for this is that consumer interest in Blu-Ray is declining.

This is backed up by research by Harris Interactive. The press release is below.

Interest in Blu-ray Remains Lukewarm. Few likely to purchase a Blu-ray player within the next year

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – June 18, 2009 – While Blu-ray was declared the big "winner" in
the high definition format war last year, consumers may be slow to be part of the winning team. In fact, Americans are not jumping on board with any of the high definition DVD players. Just one in ten Americans (11%) own a HD DVD player while 7% own a Blu-ray player. Looking at the other devices for playing HD DVDs, 9% own a Sony PLAYSTATION 3 (which plays Blu-ray ) and 3% have the external HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 (which plays HD DVDs).

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,401 U.S. adults surveyed online between April 13 and 21, 2009 by Harris Interactive. While slow to catch on, ownership of all these high definition disc players is up from May 2008.

Interestingly, while Blu-ray was the clear "format war" winner over HD DVD, sales of HD DVD players (11% in 2009 vs. 6% in 2008) are up over 2008 by about the same margin as Blu-ray players (7% in 2009 vs. 4% in 2008). Both were rivaled by the Sony PLAYSTATION 3 (9% vs. 5%). However, only 3% purchased the external HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360, up from 1% in 2008. There is no expected surge of interest pending -- only 7% of non-Blu-ray player owners report a likely purchase of a Blu-ray disc player within the next year, down from 9% in May 2008

Ownership of HDTVs
Looking at high definition television sets, almost half of consumers now report owning a high definition television (47%), up decidedly from May of 2008 (35%). HDTV ownership rises dramatically with household income (27% for those with less than $35K vs. 62% among those with more than $75K).

Are Blu-ray Player Owners Switching from Standard DVDs to Blu-ray Discs?
On average, consumers purchased approximately 6 Standard Format DVD’s in the last six months compared with 1 in HD format (HD DVD .7 vs. Blu-ray .5). However, plans to purchase Standard Format DVDs is down by half compared to past six month purchases, while interest in HD DVDs (.6) and Blu-ray (.7) are holding their own. Notably, HD DVD format purchases reflect the continued sales of the HD DVD players within the past year.

When Blu-ray player or PS3 owners are asked specifically about standard versus Blu Ray format purchases, the results suggest a mixed bag of behaviors with some price sensitivity indicated:

Only one quarter plan to switch to Blu-ray completely (25%), while one third of Blu-ray or PS3 owners claim that most of their movie purchases are now on Bluray format (32%);
Two in five are waiting for Blu-ray format prices to come down before they buy more (43%) – and a quarter buy Blu-ray regardless of price (25%); and,
Only 1 in 5 appear to be replacing or duplicating their existing standard format DVD library with Blu-ray format (21%), and over a third say they only buy movies on Blu-ray format that they currently do not own on standard definition (37%).

So What?
In addition to financial issues that may be slowing consumer adoption, Milton Ellis, Vice President and Senior Consultant, Harris Interactive Technology, Media, and Telecom Practice added, "Blu-ray also faces competition from alternative technologies such as cable, satellite, and the Internet. Consumers today can easily watch high definition TV channels or use the Internet or video-on-demand to access high definition movies. In the near future, access to high definition movies may be a download or streaming delivery of one’s favorite movies to a home media server that eliminates the need for a Blu-ray player and Blu-ray disc. One thing is for sure, the market will be highly competitive and consumers will have a wide variety of choices for their entertainment experience."

Rise in social gaming - look at what top execs are doing

2009-06-19T09:48:00.003+01:00

A sign of the rising importance of social gaming is how some top executives are moving into the emerging market.

John Pleasants - Chief Operating Officer at Electronic Arts - is leaving the company to become Chief Executive at Playdom, the leading social game developer on MySpace.

On Monday, Simon Jeffery, former president and COO of Sega America, joined ngmoco, the iPhone game publisher which itself is led by former EA executive Neil Young.

Simon Jeffery will lead its Plus+ Publishing group. This is a new initiative designed to take advantage of the latest OS 3.0 software for the iPhone, which will boost social networking in games.

Mr Pleasants, who had been at EA for just over a year in his key strategic role, said in a press release:

"I’m thrilled to join Playdom. Online gaming is the fastest-growing sector of the gaming industry, and social gaming, in particular, is transforming the way people play and experience games."

Source: FT

Apple Rolls Out iPhone 3.0 OS

2009-06-18T11:44:00.004+01:00

Apple released iPhone 3.0 on Wednesday. This is a a major upgrade for the iPhone operating system, and enables users to take advantage of some long awaited functionality, such as MMS, copy and paste and universal landscape mode.

The update is free for original iPhone and iPhone 3G owners, whilst iPod Touch users must pay $10.

iPhone 3.0 is a response to complaints concerning the current and previous iPhone operating systems.

Here are some other noteworthy end-user features noted in Wired:

MMS support, although AT&T customers will be disappointed because AT&T will not support MMS until late summer.

Support for peer-to-peer Bluetooth. This will enable the iPhone to connect with other Bluetooth devices, including stereo Bluetooth headsets. Previously, the iPhone only supported Bluetooth for connecting to monaural phone headsets.

Global search feature. Enables users to search content in various applications on the iPhone from a single interface. Like the search feature in Mac OS X, this is called "Spotlight."

Compose in landscape mode.The ability to compose e-mail messages, text messages and notes in landscape mode gives the user a larger, easier-to-use keyboard.

Source: Wired

Critics slam Digital Britain over file-sharers and tax plans

2009-06-18T11:37:00.002+01:00

The Digital Britain report has drawn criticism from politicians and technology experts over its proposals for dealing with fibre rollouts and illegal file-sharing.

The report, published on Tuesday, outlines the government's plans for the UK's telecommunications infrastructure and digital economy. Shortly after its publication, Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative Party's shadow secretary of state for culture, media and sport, called Digital Britain a "colossal disappointment" and lambasted the plan's proposal for a monthly 50p tax on fixed copper lines

Lord Carter, the report's author, proposed the levy as a way of funding the rollout of fibre-based next-generation broadband to areas of the country where operators might not see a business case for investment. Speaking in Parliament, Hunt said a better tactic would be to stimulate investment by changing regulations to encourage providers to spend on fibre development.

"The cable revolution happened without a cable tax. The satellite revolution happened without a satellite tax," Hunt told Parliament on Wednesday. "Everyone recognises that public investment may be necessary to reach more remote parts of the country but simply slapping on an extra tax is an old economy solution to a new economy problem."

Hunt also pointed out that Digital Britain announced 12 new consultations, and called the report "government of the management consultants, for the management consultants, by the management consultants".

The tax will benefit the biggest existing providers in the UK, according to Chris Smedley, chief executive of fibre-optic network company Geo."The tax will only raise around £170m per year from consumers, and [this will] be presumably handed straight back to BT and Virgin Media - who will still have the UK market in a stranglehold - and then only [used] to deliver fibre to the cabinet," Smedley said in a statement.

"Just as importantly, the government will still levy rates on fibre once it's in use, perpetuating the problem of cable lying dormant in the ground. Removing these [rates] would have been a quick and easy way to promote a fibre future for the UK."

Smedley also attacked the 2Mbps base speed for universal broadband coverage proposed by Carter, saying it leaves the UK open to ridicule. "The UK is the world's sixth-largest economy, yet this report says it cannot justify similar investments to those already promised in the US, Australia, Singapore, Korea and Japan, which are aiming to deliver 100Mbps as standard," he said.

The base speed was also a sore point for James Parker, manager of broadband at moneysupermarket.com. "Internet users are increasingly accessing bandwidth-heavy services like streaming high-quality video, and our research shows a significant majority already find 2Mbps too slow for many of these services," Parker said in a statement.

Source: Silicon

Yahoo's 'Real-Time Toolbar

2009-06-17T20:16:00.002+01:00

As I've mentioned before, I think web sites are going to gradually lose much of their importance in terms of places that you 'visit'

Yahoo's release of a new browser toolbar today for IE and Firefox is a case in point. This lets you add icons for your favorite Yahoo apps and websites, and when you click on the icons, you get a drop-down preview of your favorite sites, mail, stock quotes, or news feeds without having to go to those sites directly.

The toolbar is completely customizable, so you add from a large Websites or apps you want to keep handy.

Yahoo has also made search faster from the toolbar, incorporating some search assist technology from its Inquisitor acquisition. It suggests refined queries as you begin typing and sites that you've clicked on in the past.

Source: TechCrunch