Tag: smartphones

Google’s Android problems point the way for the Internet of Things

How Google handle ongoing Android security issues will be a pointer for protecting the Internet of Things

As regular security problems are being exposed in the Android operating system, Google and Samsung have announced regular updates to their devices and software.

For long timers in the IT industry this is a return to the Microsoft days of Patch Tuesdays, the monthly bundle of updates for Windows and Office the company used to issue on the first Tuesday of each month.

While Android has nothing the like the problems Microsoft did in the early 2000s with the explosion of malware that crippled millions of users, the risks to the Google system are real with some predicting a security armageddon.

For users, there’s a serious question in the problems facing Android system in that unlike the Windows systems the rollout of updates is controlled by the telcos or handset vendors rather than the software developers.

As a consequence many older devices simply aren’t being updated leaving millions of smartphone users exposed to malware and having no way of fixing known security problems.

The problems facing Android are common across the entire Internet of Things, how Google respond the current smartphone security problems is going to be a pointer for the rest of the IoT sector.

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Microsoft builds its future

Microsoft makes a statement on its future

A billion devices running Windows 10 was the promise made by Microsoft at the company’s Build Conference in San Francisco yesterday.

The ambition is based upon delivering the system on devices ranging from desktop computers down to the embedded systems on Internet of Things devices.

 

As part of the drive to get onto the IoT, Microsoft also announced Windows 10 initiatives for the makers’ community with various programs for Arduino, Raspberry Pi and Intel’s Minnowboard.

At the same time the company announced how some software will soon be able to run on iPhones and Android devices with an extended Software Developers Kit.

While this makes Windows more attractive for developers who no longer have to develop different versions for the Microsoft product, it’s also an admission the company’s phone strategy has failed.

For Microsoft yesterday’s Build Conference was the opportunity for the company to show their vision of the market’s future that involves computers, mobile devices, the cloud and the Internet of Things.

Whether Microsoft is part of that future is the main concern of CEO Satya Nadella.

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Apple keeps ticking over

Once again Apple beats the market and shows the way to its competitors

Once again Apple keeps surprising the market with Apple second quarter results beating the analysts’ estimates roundly and putting the company on track to becoming the first US corporation to have a trillion dollar market valuation.

Coupled to nearly fourteen billion dollars in profit for the last quarter is that the company is looking to return $200 billion of cash back to shareholders.

A particular high point in Apple’s results are its China sales with the company showing seventy percent year on year growth, showing it’s possible for western companies to sell into the PRC.

Those results are from iPhone sales and, given the Chinese smartphone market is ruthlessly competitive, it puts the managers of all US and European companies on notice that there are no longer any excuses about not performing in the Middle Kingdom.

Another key takeaway from Apple’s results is the tablet market is limited with iPad sales down 23% compared to last year.

The question now is how big are watch sales going to be? It may well turn out that the Apple Watch is similar to the iPad – a market defining product but one that isn’t the company’s mainstay.

Regardless of how well the Apple Watch, the iPad or the iPhone’s Chinese sales perform next quarter, it’s safe to say Apple will probably break more records over the next year.

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Facebook’s and Google’s enlightened self interest

Facebook and Google both put their users first in their latest updates. It’s something other business should consider.

Over the last few weeks much has been written about Google’s mobile search update that went live on Wednesday, some said it would be the death of small business on the internet while others claimed it would be the end of corporates online.

While all the focus has been on Google’s search changes Facebook quietly made a change that will probably be more vexing for many businesses.

Both Facebook and Google are struggling with making their services more useful for users, with the Google changes the intention is to make search on mobile devices more useful in giving preference to websites that work on smaller screens.

In a post on Google’s webmaster blog, Developer Programs Tech Lead Maile Ohye answered the basic questions about the search engine changes which dispelled much of the hysteria and myths about the update. The main point of Ohye’s post is that Google want to show users useful information.

Facebook have a similar problem, they have to balance the often competing interests of their users and advertisers with the main aim being keeping visitors on their site for as long as possible.

The objective of keeping users engaged is the reason for a series of tweaks Facebook announced this week that change the newsfeed visitors see.

The goal of News Feed is to show you the content that matters to you. This means we need to give you the right mix of updates from friends and public figures, publishers, businesses and community organizations you are connected to. This balance is different for everyone depending on what people are most interested in learning about every day. As more people and pages are sharing more content, we need to keep improving News Feed to get this balance right.

Facebook are putting their users priorities first in making sure the news feed is interesting and relevant, which the company believes will entice visitors to spend longer on the site and make advertising more attractive.

If it works then it’s a win for Facebook, their users and those who pay to advertise on the site. Again though, the losers are the companies and brands not advertising who thought they could get views by the quality of their content.

Unless the content is very good, those companies not paying Facebook are in for more disappointment as their reach collapses even further than its current pathetic rates.

Google’s change too is something that puts users first; rather than dumping mobile web surfers onto an unreadable page, they are making sure people get to sites that are useful.

In many ways Google is only encouraging what has been best practice for at least five years, that every site should work equally well on mobile devices as they do on desktop computers.

What Facebook and Google are showing us is the value of putting users’ needs first. If your guests are happy then your business model has a much better chance of succeeding, regardless of who the eventual customer is.

Making business more user friendly should be a priority for all companies in a competitive world.

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Apple continue to win the smartphone wars

It remains to be seen if Apple win the watch market however they safely have the smartphone business firmly under control says Kantar Worldpanel ComTech

As the annual Mobile World Congress begins to wind down in Barcelona, Kantar Worldpanel decides to stir things up with its quarterly report on the market share of mobile phones.

The news is mixed; Apple continues its rampage in the Chinese market with a quarter of phones sold in the PRC being iPhones while Android slips in Europe but picks up market share in the US.

At the top end of the market it’s clear Apple is beating Samsung and the other manufacturers are deciding to avoid entering the battle of the market at all, instead focusing on lower and midrange devices.

Competing at the price points which don’t interest Apple may not be easy though suggests Carolina Milanesi, ComTech’s Chief of Research & Head of US Business; “while mid-tier consumers might be more accessible than high-end ones, manufacturers will have to work harder than ever to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace.”

Diversifying away from a tough smartphone market is one reason for the focus on watches at Mobile World Congress although even in that market Apple is about to launch a blitz around its upcoming product.

It remains to be seen if Apple win the watch market for the moment though they safely have the smartphone business firmly under control.

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Preparing for the mobile data explosion

Cisco’s Visual Networking Index predicts massive growth for mobile data use as smartphone use and the internet of things grows.

Late last month Cisco Systems released its annual Visual Networking Index that tracks the company’s predictions for the growth of global network traffic over the upcoming five years.

It’s no surprise this year’s report predicts global data traffic will grow at over fifty percent compounded each year with Cisco expecting 24.3 exabytes to be pushed around the world’s networks each month by 2019.

Most of that network traffic will come from tablet and smartphones with Cisco predicting data use will grow by up to a factor of five on those devices with devices like wearables growing fourfold.

This growth creates a challenge for telcos as they invest in capacity to deal with the increased traffic and Cisco sees half of all smartphone connections will be handed off to WiFi networks by the decade’s end.

Summary of Per-Device Usage Growth, MB per Month

Device Type

2014

2019

Nonsmartphone

22 MB/month

105 MB/month

M2M Module

70 MB/month

366 MB/month

Wearable Device

141 MB/month

479 MB/month

Smartphone

819 MB/month

3,981 MB/month

4G Smartphone

2,000 MB/month

5,458 MB/month

Tablet

2,076 MB/month

10,767 MB/month

4G Tablet

2,913 MB/month

12,314 MB/month

Laptop

2,641 MB/month

5,589 MB/month

Source: Cisco VNI Mobile, 2015

Handing half the growth in mobile traffic over to Wi-Fi connections, most of which will be connected to fiber or ADSL services will provide challenges for fixed line operators as well who will see the demand for capacity also explode over the rest of the decade.

Much of this explains the moves by companies like Telstra to roll out public Wi-Fi services to start locking users into their services. It also gives them, and consumers, an opportunity to understand how networks that mix both cellular and Wi-Fi behave.

Cisco_M2M_connections_to_2019

Another aspect of the Cisco VNI survey is the Internet of Things which is going to see exponential growth as industrial and household devices start being connected either directly through the telco networks, across unlicensed radio spectrum or over private Wi-Fi systems.

While Cisco predicts the bulk of that traffic as being generated by smartphones, the company sees connected devices as growing by 45% per year over the next five years with 3.2 billion sensors connected to the internet by the end of the decade.

Cisco-2015-VNI-M2M-connections

Notable in the prediction that Low Powered Wide Area (LPWA) networks – non cellular systems mostly operating in the unlicensed spectrum used by Wi-Fi networks – will provide nearly a third of the connections by 2019. At the same time we can expect many M2M deployments to consolidate traffic locally with much of the data processing down locally before the residual information being passed up the network.

As usual the Cisco VNI report underscores, and possibly understates, the growth in mobile data usage we’re going to see over the rest of the decade. For businesses, it’s time to plan for managing both the flow and application that smart devices are going to generate in our daily operations.

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