Seppo Heikura - Trends and thoughts

Mobile traffic to local sites is growing faster than total internet traffic – is there any difference anymore?

The share of Non-PC traffic has grown from 7% to 15% during last year compared to total internet traffic as illustrated in enclosed analysis made by comScore. During same period of time tablets and smartphones have developed significantly what comes to their internet capabilities and display sizes.

I would tend to argue that basically most of mobile traffic to websites is quite similar to traffic created by PCs. I even locations might be similar. What is the difference between me reading newspaper with smartphone at my breakfast table compared me reading it with PC in my study? In many cases mobile users are also consuming content with same layouts as PC users.

PC is dying, no doubt about that. Does this shift of consumption have any impact on way how web sites are designed in future? I think it is about time to stop thinking mobile and fixed internet as separate things. It seems more academic question out of reach for people creating the web traffic.

http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2012/10/mobile-phones-and-tablets-now-account-for-1-in-8-u-s-internet-page-views/de-traffic-share-data_september-2012/

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Best technlogy does not always win – ecosystem plays significant role

An example of this kind of battle during last century was the one between IBM and Microsoft. OS/2 was more stable and advanced (multitasking) compared to Windows versions available at that time. It was taken quite well in corporate environment, but did not really ever take of among wider consumer audience.

I have a bit same feeling when observing current struggle between platforms for smartphones. Being able to figure out what is the appealing thing for consumers may again play crucial role for future of winning platform. Interesting to see if history replays itself and there will be one dominant platform complemented with few special interest group platforms and naturally open source platforms.

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On demand streaming vs scheduled TV – technology disruption challenges old business model

Companies like focused streaming content providers (ie. Neflix, TV-kaista) and TelCo’s (ie. TeliaSonera, Elisa) are expanding their role among end users time consumption. Citi claimed that

Streaming is already nudging out regular old TV.

This might already be true in some markets and it continues to develop. Some TV broadcasters have already reacted to this (ie. ABC, YLE) by creating their own streamed offering.

Interesting thing here is, what happens to the money spend on TV advertisements? There are no more so many minutes of spare time, that people would consume watching commercial breaks. You could try to add commercial breaks into streamed content too, but user adoption of that might be difficult to achieve.

For example there was a projection that TV-advertising will continue to grow from 65B (2012) to 72B (2016) in US market. My question is why it would grow if people are moving more towards new way of consuming streamed content. I would expect to see heavier shift towards online advertising here.

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Mobile payments – an opportunity, but to whom?

Business Insider was writing lately about Citi’s view to disruptive technologies. The picture they have drawn about this payment ecosystem is quite interesting. This ecosystem or value chain has many players and many roles. Most of them have their own old positions to protect and there are only few new players visible who have nothing to lose. Maybe some of the potential players are left outside of this picture? Interesting equation for future is who will have power combined with interest to create something tangible about mobile payments?

Second part of equation is the tricky end user. When considering the issues related to end user acceptance of mobile payments most crucial roles are played by easiness and availability. I experienced mobile payments at beginning of this century, while queuing to lunch at premises of an innovative and advanced company. Only reason for queue there was the test drive of mobile payments, which was taking considerably more time to process than just wiping the debit card. This experiment was disappearing after few months trial period. Availability (solution was based on SMS) of solution was secured, but easiness was forgotten. These are the same issues todays mobile payment solutions are challenged with: you need to deliver the key (currently credit or debit card) of some sort that is widely accepted among users and utilization must be easier than earlier. I think Google, PayPal, Apple or similar companies could have chance to challenge global banks and credit card companies because of their current user base.

Third part of equation is the merchant: what is it there for them? New solutions definitely should increase competition, but in stable markets where debit cards are widely used cost structure for merchants is already quite bearable compared to highly charged credit cards. This will increase the challenge for new comers: get high availability fast with competitive pricing.

Definitely interesting opportunity for players in different parts of value chain, although i think credit and debit cards were already quite mobile. Now all players in related industry need to think out of the box to pick the benefits of this disruptive trend and its impacts into payment value chain. I believe that end results will be easing up everyday life of consumers.

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Enterprise architecture as strategy – measure progress and make it visible

This book has introduces nice way to analyze current architecture level of an organization. I find it helpful as with this kind of model you can turn an abstract thing like enterprise architecture more tangible and it also provides means for pointing out the progress while you are seeking higher levels of maturity of architecture. Naturally you may need to adjust some of the measures defined in the model, but basic principles introduced in this book provide clear and good starting point.

We have utilized the ideas from this book successfully at same time also taking benchmark of our architecture maturity level in iCMG’s competition. The category we participated was “New service offering”. Basic story from us was business transformation that is supported by growing enterprise architecture maturity level. Naturally you need also committed and capable people to utlize the framework, it is not working alone.

This book was definitely interesting and useful reading. One open ended though after experiencing this book was: is there another stage after business modularity, which was defined as highest stage here. Also it would be interesting to figure out, if organizations in different industries actually can be happy with some of the earlier stages in this four level model.

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Cloud works well in some cases, in other cases you might want to avoid it – all though there is always a middle way

Cloud is good for services that are independent and do not have direct relations to components placed into other environments. If services have good interfaces, which can isolate the parts located into cloud then flexibility is increased.

Cloud is an excellent option when you are seeking scalability and want to avoid excessive initial investments to infrastructure. Most optimal case for cloud is, if you can utilize software as a service (SaaS) model. For example in case of using CRM (like salesforce.com ) additional benefits include availability of solution also outside company network, which is quite convenient for mobile salesforce.

Cloud is not good for cases where solutions are business critical or they are not planned for virtualized environments. With business critical i mean here situations where network connectivity and availability are really cruicial, like call center solutions. Also if you want to keep your vendor close to you, it might prove to be tricky with international cloud providers.

Cloud has also security related challenges, which mostly connect to local legistlation. In some cases there are strict rules where data is located and how utiliztion is limitted. Some times security levels are set so that you need to be able to prove how secure environment is. In thiskind of cases it most often makes sense to forget cloud and stick with traditional approach.

In real life there is always a solution for thiskind of issues. You always have an option to choose hybrid solution, where you cherry pick best sides of both worlds (this naturally comes with prise of compromise in some potential benefits).

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