This test was not science, just and observation while driving through Finland during Christmas time.
Continue reading Jolla seem to be working in countryside too
Category: technology trends
How to define and measure mobile web usage – or does it actually matter?
Just run into curious page with statistic for many purposes. The one illustrating mobile web usage made me wonder the actual definition of it.
If you just think about megabytes, then i would understand the ratio. On the other hand the time spend by end-users in web should be different ball game. I would imagine that the ratio should already be opposite. Continue reading How to define and measure mobile web usage – or does it actually matter?
Cloud is waste of money? – Seeing the big picture
Found a curious article from Wired discussing about an idea to have cheaper infrastructure with physical servers than from IaaS-providers. Approach of the article is curious as it is against current trend where companies are trying to virtualize their infrastructure. Scope of discussion makes it even more curious: “Why Some Startups Say the Cloud Is a Waste of Money”. Continue reading Cloud is waste of money? – Seeing the big picture
Speed of internet connection – good position for consumer to be is in middle on trends, but what is operators next move?
Living in area close to city, but too far for proper fixed line connection. All operators offer 8M/1M connection and the actual measured speed will remain at level of 4-5M.
I am watching TV through that connection and began to wonder, if I could achieve a bit better quality for movies. 1M stream is ok, but I would prefer to get 2M stream for bigger screen.
I took a mobile phone capable to 4G connection. Made it distribute WLAN network and measured the speed. For my supprise I got almost symmetrical connection 25M/24M!
Naturally this luxury will not last as my neighbours figure the same thing out and start to utilize 4G, but for time being I can enjoy speed. So in some cases it is usefull to be early adopter moving from fixed to mobile connection.
Other thing that might change the situation in future is new pricing models of mobile subscriptions, that operators are talking about. Data buckets and other pricing limitatios will make it too fuzzy for consumers. At the moment mobile subscriptions are charged on fixed monthly basis similarly to fixed line connections.
Interesting to see what happens. I naturally understand that operators have to earn they money, but i am worried how pricing change will affect end user behaviour. Hopefully they will find a balance and we will not fall back to stone age. Like earlier times of mobile usage in USA: people did not dare to answer their phones as they felt uncertain about the expenses and stick with fixed line phones.
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.
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.
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.
Big data demystifies and utilization of it becomes necessity
Real time utilization of analyzed data provides new opportunities for solutions. Collection, combination and modeling capabilities are critical for success and need to develop significantly from current stage. What we would like to do and what we can do might differ when we take in real time as parameter.
Social media will find its role as part of data flow and contact channel. Enormous ammount of data is daily created in social media, which can and most probably will be used commercially at the end of the day.
Opening data sources and developing tools are easing up enrichment of data. Many governmental organizations all over the world are opening their data sets for public use. Good set of available data now is visible in www.data.gov
Cloud matures as concept
Scope and efficiency of cloud based solutions and developmet are boosted up. As integration to cloud environments becomes easier and safer through cloud interface, new innovative ways to utilize cloud become possible. We get over either or attidude.
Real time capacity scaling is now treat for few, but soon it should be part of any cloud set up. At same time platform virtualization standardizes and we start to see real offering in arena called platform as a service (PaaS). Currently many offering are developing, but each has their different merrits and handicaps. Business solutions offering as software as service (SaaS) becomes mainstream. In this arena we already see many significant moves, but so more focusing into few specific processes like CRM or billing.
To BYOD, or not to BYOD – that is the WRONG question
Discussion around “bring your own device” is quite heavily focused into devices and whether those should be allowed or not. I think the key question is do organisations want to make their services available any time, any where. After answering yes to that question, it really does not matter any more who brings the device (naturally the security concerns need to be taken care).
I think that services that are openned to be available out side organzations office network are increasing productivity. They are not so weird thing either anymore as there are readily available services like salesforce.com and other real SaaS solutions also handling companies key assets: customer information. So why not consider similar approach for other services too?