The Land Mines of Mobility: What my kid taught me about $1 trillion worth of m-stuff - FierceCIO

August 5, 2011

So I'm enjoying a relaxing summertime meal with my son when, suddenly, he slices his finger.  Like any parent, I went into crisis-management mode.  I rushed him to the ER to have the situation taken care of. And as I waited for the various specialists to evaluate and repair the gushing digit (thankfully no serious, long-term damage) I had time to ponder the wireless quotient of my surroundings.  I was in one of the world's preeminent medical centers, but there was no trace of the smart health technologies that, since the late 90s, have been "poised" to revolutionize modern medicine.  What had gone wrong?

I asked one of the technicians why all the gurneys weren't rigged with m-health devices, and his answer was simple:  "It's because patients vomit on the equipment."

For years we've had visions of smart cabinets that order refills when medications run low, phones that double as payment mechanisms and closets that order new socks when matches mysteriously disappear.  While the technology for all this exists, the solutions simply have not materialized.

The fact is, the road to m-everywhere is littered with landmines.  In the hospital scenario, an entire ecosystem of operators, paramedics, doctors, patients, equipment manufacturers and applications developers loses out on a host of opportunities, not least of which is improved health for patients and increased revenue for all the other stakeholders.  Whether the issue is trust, security, integration, design or projectile hazmats, it's time for mobile rollouts to stop exploding on the sectors that need them most.

In my opinion, we solve this problem by revisiting some basic principles in policy, technology and best practices-and by extending that knowledge to three core verticals: health, finance and retail.  If we put the right heads together in the right setting, we can jumpstart an entire industry.  But more on that in a second.

There's no doubt the mobile industry has done a great job of establishing infrastructure from an end-to-end standpoint.  And admittedly we've made progress.  The evolution of networks, devices and their respective technologies did a great job of setting the stage for a company like Foursquare, for example, where simple, location-based triangulation allows us to check into places, collect badges and win prizes for coming back.  Foursquare's success demonstrates a market that's ready for action.  The question is how to activate it.

How does an enterprise set about creating a mobile solution that's secure, easy-to-use and serves as a faithful brand extension?  Would the CIO start with technology vendors?  Or UI designers?  Or end users?  What role do policymakers and regulatory bodies play in this equation?  In many ways, asking an enterprise to go out and deploy a mobile storefront is like asking a person to go out and build their own car-starting with steel, rubber and glass.  A CIO would have to browse menus of devices, applications, security protocols and compliance measures until they had something even reasonably workable.  Impossible?  Not at all.  Prohibitive?  Completely.

But the fact remains: If you knew the refrigeration on your organ-donor van had failed, would you follow through with the transplant?  Would you like to pay for your groceries by holding your phone to the register? If you knew the truck carrying your new computer slammed on the brakes at 70 mph, would you accept the delivery?   In my opinion, all we need is a simple roadmap, the one page at the beginning of the book that sets out all of the components-and all of the solutions.

Earlier I mentioned the importance of putting the right heads together.  To that end, I've gotten together with industry luminaries Tom Boyle, Daniel Csoka and Andrea Farris to found the M3 conference, the first invitation-only event to focus on mobile solutions for health, finance and retail.  M3 is not a trade show!  Rather, it's a world-class networking and business information exchange where we bring in no more than 100 pre-qualified buyers from the mobile industry supply chain-all expenses paid-and personally introduce them to a group of hand-picked sellers. 

Once there, we'll treat the buyers to the best and brightest strategies for leveraging mobile as a reliable business driver.  Using case studies, fireside chats and targeted keynotes, M3 will lay out the obstacles to adoption that typically hijack mobile deployments and that account for a long list of corporate casualties.  Most importantly, our guests will return home with the toolkits they need to handily pull off mobile deployments well into the foreseeable future.

Furthermore, M3's proven, "hosted" format provides sellers with the ultimate opportunity to speak directly to pre-qualified decision makers who can increase their ROI.  Buyers get an efficient method to speak with C-level executives from supplier firms, witness new technologies firsthand and accomplish objectives in a focused timeframe.  M3 takes place November 29th to December 1st at San Diego's beautiful Grand Del Mar.

Right now, non-traditional mobile companies have virtually unseated mobile incumbents.  We've seen carriers get snapped up in fire sales and handset manufacturers plummet from world domination to the bargain basement.  But as m-health, m-finance and m-commerce rumble to life, the industry's earliest players can return to a seat at the table.  The Yankee Group predicts the mobile transaction ecosystem will be worth more than $1 trillion by 2015.  For the operators, device manufacturers and platform architects who invested billions in networks, spectrum and advocacy, suiting up our three verticals in mobile will do more than put them back on the map; it will create a new map altogether.

Rising smartphone tide washes away old handset order in Q2 - FierceWireless

The second-quarter earnings season is over, at least for the world's handset makers, and what's clear is that vendors that managed to innovate and sell lots of smartphones distanced themselves from the pack. Meanwhile, those that did not fell further behind as smartphones continue to make up a growing percentage of overall handset sales.

The central drama of the quarter--whether Samsung would claim the world's top smartphone spot--remains somewhat unresolved, unfortunately. Samsung did not report its handset or smartphone shipments for the second quarter. However, Strategy Analytics estimated that Samsung shipped 74 million handsets in the quarter and 19.2 million smartphones, just behind Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) 20.3 million iPhone shipments. Apple also passed Nokia (NYSE:NOK) for the first time in smartphone shipments in the quarter--a crystallization of the downward trajectory Nokia has been on. What makes Apple's growth remarkable is that it has charged to the front of the smartphone pack with just two models: the iPhone 4 (more than a year old) and iPhone 3GS (more than two years old). Further, Apple captured two-thirds of the handset market's profit in the quarter, according to asymco.

Sign up for our FREE newsletter for more news like this sent to your inbox!


According to Strategy Analytics, Apple shipped the largest number of smartphones in the second quarter, followed by Samsung and then Nokia.

Yet it is Samsung's growth that is truly astounding. "Although Apple's 142 percent year-on-year growth placed it as No. 1 this quarter, Samsung's 500 percent year-on-year growth shows that going forward, the top smartphone OEM position is Samsung's to lose," said ABI Research analyst Michael Morgan. Samsung has more models, is using more smartphone platforms and has more of an opportunity to outpace Apple in the months ahead.

As for the overall handset market, the distance between market leader Nokia and No. 2 Samsung continued to shrink. Research firm IDC said Nokia's lead shrunk to 18.3 million units; Strategy Analytics estimated the gap is even smaller at 14.5 million units.

Nokia's transition to Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone as its primary smartphone platform is still underway, so it is not surprising that the company hit an especially soft patch in the second quarter. NPD Group analyst Ross Rubin warned that it will be quite some time before the market can gauge the success of Nokia's transition.

"We'll see the fruits of their labor before the end of the year," he said; Nokia will release its first Windows Phone device year-end. However, Rubin warned that Nokia's future shouldn't be judged on its first Windows Phone handset, and instead the market should look at "what is the potential for Nokia to differentiate and build on the platform."


According to IDC, Nokia remained No. 1 in overall handset market share in the second quarter, followed closely by Samsung.

And what about the rest of the pack? In the overall handset market, Chinese vendor ZTE once again muscled its way into the top 5 rankings, claiming the No. 5 overall handset spot, just behind Apple. ABI analyst Kevin Burden said ZTE could continue to gobble up low-end sales away from Nokia in emerging markets. 

LG posted a narrower loss in its handset unit, and the company expressed hope that its transition to selling more smartphones will start to pay off later this year. However, the company continued to post weak overall handset sales figures, and, according to IDC and Strategy Analytics, its global handset market share slipped below 7 percent. Burden said LG's brand is suffering in the minds of consumers, especially in the U.S.

"The LG brand isn't inspiring this feeling that you are buying a high-end piece of electronics with a lot of forethought," he said. "What can make you win or lose in this game is brand and brand perception. And I think it's losing." Rubin noted that LG faces intense competition from HTC, Motorola Mobility (NYSE:MMI) and Samsung on Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android platform, particularly at Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ).

Meanwhile, Motorola continued to chug along in the second quarter, HTC wowed, Sony Ericsson struggled as it recovered from the March disaster in Japan, and Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) posted weak BlackBerry shipment numbers, and then said it will cut 2,000 jobs, as it tries to manage its transition to using QNX software for its smartphones.

The story of the second quarter is largely between the smartphone have and have-nots. Those that have been able to make an impression on consumers as they transition away from feature phones--IDC said the worldwide feature phone market declined for the first time in nearly two years--and to smartphones were able to make gains. The companies that could not saw their market share shrink and the pressure to perform grow.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, Burden predicted a major clash between Apple and Samsung. Apple is expected to release a new iPhone while Samsung is likely to unleash its Galaxy S II on U.S. carriers. It looks like it will be a heavyweight fight. I can't wait. --Phil

via fiercewireless.com

Wireless carriers looking to tap government spectrum | Wireless - CNET News

In their most direct plea yet, the U.S. wireless carriers are directly asking President Obama to clear some government-controlled spectrum for commercial use.

(Credit: CTIA)

The CTIA Wireless trade association said yesterday that it had sent a letter to President Obama asking him to direct the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Association to clear unused and underused spectrum held by various government agencies. More specifically, the trade group is asking for spectrum in the bands below 3 gigahertz, which are optimal for cellular use.

The letter represents the latest action taken by the wireless industry as it looks to free up more spectrum. Some of the wireless providers are facing impending spectrum shortages, and AT&T's primary justification for its acquisition of T-Mobile USA is the ability to pool their spectrum resources together.

The CTIA said that the letter was signed by many of its carrier members, including the heads of all four major wireless carriers.

The group is also looking for spectrum to free be paired, which means that communications can go both ways, and that the bands be compatible with international standards.

The wireless industry has felt the opening to press for more spectrum because President Obama has made it a priority to get broadband access to more people in the U.S. The Federal Communications Commission also has a national broadband plan with the same goals.

via news.cnet.com