Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - iPad Archives

Turns out Cisco Cius Can't Compete With the iPad Either

2012-05-25T18:42:12Z

Company after company is learning what most of instinctively know already – competing with Apple head-on is like trying to tackle a freight train with your bare hands as it is barreling down the tracks in your direction. Amazon with its Kindle Fire competed on price and used its services to subsidize the device. Other tablet makers are finding it virtually impossible to compete without such advantages.

So finding out the news that Cisco is discontinuing its Cius tablet isn’t a surprise. I have mentioned before that Cisco is not good at consumer products and although the Cius was targeted at the enterprise, we know IT has become “consumerized” meaning the CIO doesn’t drive tablet decisions. As a result, Cisco has to compete with Apple head-on which as described above is virtually impossible to do.

Cisco’s OJ Winge had this to say about the company’s tablet and software strategy going forward:

Over the last year, Cisco has demonstrated a commitment to delivering innovative software like Cisco Jabber and Cisco WebEx across a wide spectrum of operating systems, tablets and Smart Phones. We’re seeing tremendous interest in these software offerings. Customers see the value in how these offerings enable employees to work on their terms in the Post-PC era, while still having access to collaboration experiences.

Based on these market transitions, Cisco will no longer invest in the Cisco Cius tablet form factor, and no further enhancements will be made to the current Cius endpoint beyond what’s available today. However, as we evaluate the market further, we will continue to offer Cius in a limited fashion to customers with specific needs or use cases.

Moving forward, we intend to double down on software offerings, like Jabber and WebEx, that provide the anytime, anywhere, and any device experiences. We will leverage key learnings and key collaboration experiences native to Cius in our other collaboration products.

Experience matters, and Cisco is focused on empowering individual collaboration styles more effectively and securely, while providing the broadest choice of collaboration options based on preference, location, and device.

To give you a sense of just how fast the market moves it was 11 months ago where the press was invited to a Cius launch event. After the meeting I posted the video above and an entry titled Cisco Cius and the Need for an Enterprise Tablet. One of my concerns from the post was the following:

The challenges here are how many people want a seven-inch tablet when they can get a ten-inch tablet at a similar price? It is worth noting in my tests with the Cius and the Blackberry Playbook that you get used to the smaller form-factor and obviously there are some portability benefits to a smaller device.

Is Cius a winner? Yes – absolutely but that doesn’t mean it will be successful. Hear me out. The Cius and the Avaya A175 with the Flare interface are building a category called enterprise tablet and to date it isn’t clear if this is a real category or not. By real I mean – substantial in terms of the number of devices sold. In other words, other than some vertical markets like hospitals where IT generally directs such device rollouts, most other industries have seen the BYOD-effect of the consumerization of IT meaning IT doesn’t dictate as much as they used to. Moreover, many workers are purchasing their own tablets and bringing them to work – reducing corporate expense while keeping workers happier.

One final issue is the tablet market right now is pretty much all iPad and Android devices haven’t made much of a dent. Analysts believe this will change but some people of note believe it is possible for Apple to own the tablet space. Moreover, with the close synergy between iTunes and iCloud, Apple makes it that much more desirable to have your tablet come from the same company.

On the way to the event I wrote a post How Cisco Needs to Sell the Cius Tablet which also outlined the risks:

The downside risk is fairly obvious though and that is that software is cheaper than hardware and most anything the Cius can do, an iPad or other Android tablet can as well.

And then there is the consumer electronics angle - Cisco purchased Flip and shut it down a few years later because the company isn't very good at competing in the consumer space where margins are razor-thin. Obviously the growth of smartphones helped kill the pocket-sized video camcorder market as well.

So for Cisco the obvious sales angle is to sell the Cius as an IP-phone which can do so much more. Avaya will obviously be doing the same with its A175 tablet. The challenge in the long-term will be convincing users that they want an Android tablet instead of an iPad. Which means both Avaya and Cisco need to be much better at doing consumer electronics - potentially partnering with a tablet maker like Samsung or HTC to one-up Apple.

I stand by my suggestion that the company should have partnered with a consumer electronics company. Now that Google Owns Motorola Mobility they could be a likely partner as well.

My sense is however that Cisco is so upset about its consumer electronics losses between Flip, Umi and Cius that they won't be open to any such partnerships unless they have little or no risk associated with them.

I reached out to Avaya regarding their strategy and spoke with Joel Hackney, President of Sales and Field Operations. He told me they remain committed on extending video to all employees in the enterprise including mobile video and SIP leadership are very important areas for them. Their pending RADVISION acquisition gives them a full video offering allowing you to enhance your own device or purchase a complete solution.

The question now is will any other company be able to compete with Apple as a pure-play tablet maker. Google should be coming out with their solution soon and we will see what sort of acceptance there is in the market.

Yahoo Reinvents Mobile Browser with Axis

2012-05-24T01:26:27Z

Yahoo has taken the mobile browser and improved it dramatically by integrating search and allowing users to view results rapidly without the need to open page after page. While Google allows similar functionality on a desktop what Yahoo has done here is put the results of browsing up top where they should be. And with the simple swipe of a finger a user can scroll through pages after page to see the site they are looking for.

If you take the best parts of Google Instant and the now defunct visual SearchMe bowser and put them together with some added features you get Yahoo’s Axis.

Available on iOS in an iPad and iPhone version as well as a Firefox extension, expect the browser to have broad cross-platform support. One definite plus is the browser makes it much easier to research. When you are ready to search in fact the top 40% of the iPad screen (the device I tested on) is devoted to suggested search terms, latest news and pictures of results pages.

The company has radically rethought the search/browser relationship.

One downside is the Firefox extension on a PC semi-lockup up my browser on install. After I killed the Firefox process tree all was well again. A simple reboot would have also done the trick. Once installed I noticed that all the coolness of the browser such as screen shots of results pages appeared along the bottom – with a search box.

The only downside is this effectively means that in certain instances you won't be able to access clickable areas at the bottom of the screen. I had to use F11 to get a full-screen browser in fact to allow the blogging software I use based on Moveable Type to work properly when adding pictures.

Is Yahoo now relevant again? I can’t answer the question but I am very impressed with this accomplishment and if it gains traction it could position the company very well as a mobile play – not to mention having even more influence in the browser market – beyond just a toolbar play. IBM had a near death experience and came back stronger than ever – ditto for Apple. If Yahoo does return to its former glory – and it is way way too early to even consider this a possibility, it will be a product like Axis which will be responsible.

It is worth pointing out that others think this browser is great as well. Check out what Jolie O’Dell has to say over at VentureBeat.

And now that Chrome has overtaken IE as the dominant browser, it is as good a time as any to add some serious competition into the mix.

See Yahoo Axis Search in Action

Yahoo Axis Swipe to See Other Results

Yahoo Axis Cool Start Screen

Yahoo Axis Lets You Share on Pinterest

Yahoo Axis Local Mode Protects Privacy to Some Degree

Gadgets to Have Integrated Welcome Ads Soon?

2012-05-18T13:50:24Z

If ads on the Kindle Fire Welcome Screen are successful, others will follow

There are a few things which are well known about Amazon’s Kindle Fire. First of all at $199 the company either loses money or at best breaks even depending on which analyst you speak with. We also know the version of Android the device runs is unusual as Amazon has its own proprietary shell around it.

And just like a company can pay to have a promotion on the Amazon PC home page it is being reported that Amazon is considering charging between $600,000 to $1 million for the rights to have ads displayed on the welcome screen.

Will this ad be shown on current Kindle Fires or perhaps a new ad supported model? Well the answer is not known at this point.

This approach is far different than that of Apple who has implemented ground breaking minimalist designs not only on its devices’ home pages but in its retail stores.

But consumers have shown a willingness to be flexible when it comes to saving money. Witness the success of the Kindle Fire as an example.

If Amazon is very successful selling home page advertising and such ads become popular and the consumer likes the model, there is a natural industry progression we can expect.

First off, a question… What company comes to mind when I say Internet ads. OK, I get it – today the answer is Facebook but in general, Google – right? And what company has the market-leading smartphone OS? You guessed it – at least till Facebook develops one, its Google again.

So doesn’t it make sense that Google will want in on the action and will start to integrate ads into the home pages of Android phones allowing consumers, carriers and equipment makers to subsidize the price of the phone with honest to goodness product pitches?

This potential trend is a real possibility and consumers have shown themselves to be very willing to take subsidized devices in exchange for long-term contracts. They also tolerate ads on TV, radio and even their streaming radio courtesy of services like Pandora. Ad supported gadgets may be the next frontier and if Amazon is successful, we may see the market scramble to emulate and/or improve upon its model.

Intel Finally Gets Mobile?

2012-05-17T15:08:44Z

Intel is selling its computers quite nicely into PCs and servers and although we are in a so called "post-PC era" people keep buying computers by the tens of millions. The long-term challenge is in-part ARM, the instruction-set architecture which is being turned into highly efficient chips used in most mobile devices.

The challenge of course for Intel is the typical one of disruption from below. An example is how RAID allowed inexpensive and less reliable hard drives to replace larger disks in the market.

Likewise, the ARMv8 64-bit architecture application profile was defined two months ago and at some point soon we will see these chips in the field. Moreover, expect them to rapidly go multicore if not initially. From a price/performance standpoint as well as in the power consumption arena we can surmise this processor to be something Intel should worry about. After all, companies like HP are known to be experimenting with ARM chips in their HPC initiatives.

The good news is Intel says they finally understand operators. More specifically, Herbert Weber, EMEA marketing director for mobile and communications at Intel, told Telecoms.com that they finally see the differences between mobile and the PC market.

Moreover he says Intel will begin to integrate a variety of connectivity technologies into its mobile chipsets such as WiFi, GSM, GPS, LTE.

But it isn't like companies like Broadcom haven't been doing the same thing for many years, allowing them to grow more quickly as mobile supplier. Moreover, Intel started to integrate GPUs and WiFi onto CPU chips and motherboards many years ago - certainly this isn't a new concept.

It is obvious the main problem Intel has keeping it from becoming a dominant mobile supplier has been and will continue to be size and power consumption and to that end Weber had this to say:

We have made significant improvements into our design and architecture and now we don’t need to hide behind anyone in terms of battery lifetime of our phones and power consumption. We are now on par with where the market is today and we intend with our next devices – the Maryville chipset going to 22nm and the next wave of chips coming in the 14nm platform – to be better than the rest of the market in terms of power and battery lifetime.

Although Intel has given up much of the mobile market its efforts in the Ultrabook space have been fantastic and in my opinion severely under-reported by the media in general. Intel finally seems to get the concept that if they don't make more efficient chips their days will at some point be numbered. And based on my usage of a Asus UX31 Zenbook Ultrabook, I can tell you that Intel has come a long way.

In fact this powerful yet featherweight computer lets me work for about 9 hours without wireless turned on and with the screen pretty dim.

But they better keep going as Apple is likely looking for ways to switch entirely to ARM to lower its costs as it makes its own processors already for the iPhone and iPad.

There is no way to know Apple's future plans for sure but Intel is keenly aware that the loss of the fastest market-share gaining computer platform won't be good for its company or share price. And once we start to see these chip roll outs being released as planned, we can believe that Intel finally does really get mobile.

Microsoft Working on Skype Everywhere Initiative

2012-04-20T12:37:01Z

The fact that Microsoft would want to integrate Skype everywhere shouldn't be too surprising, Office/Lync and Windows Phone are obvious areas and so is Xbox. That's why news of the company looking for engineers who can delve into the hybrid world of video games and IP communications shouldn't be too surprising.

When Microsoft integrates Skype into Xbox and bundles some free calling into the solution, what's to stop them from offering a DECT phone as well? With retail prices of DECT 6.0 phones starting at less than $20, the idea makes more and more sense.

Sure, you can use a cordless/wireless phone with Skype today but if Microsoft integrates it all seamlessly and video is added for free, what happens to the business models of Ooma, netTALK and magicJack?

And what about the cable companies, AT&T and Verizon? Sure, a Skype home phone calling solution will be inferior as it doesn't allow emergency calling due to a lack of E-911 support but still, if it is part of a bundle and has HD voice support, why pay for phone company or cable calling? Especially if it has video as well and other great Skype calling features, presence, etc.

Additionally, a benefit of the Skype purchase will be potentially becoming the phone provider for hundreds of millions of consumers. Of course Skype already has hundreds of millions of users but when I say "phone" I mean the actual physical phone, not the computer to computer experience.

Moreover, if Microsoft is successful, it will be achieving what Cisco couldn't with Umi. And remember, one of the reasons I said Umi wouldn't make it was because of Xbox Kinect. I also mentioned Skype's deal with Panasonic, Sony and others as another reason. It would be ironic if Skype and Xbox together were to fulfill the market niche Umi was looking to exploit.

The challenge for Microsoft is the tablet market - which today means iPad, is eating the video game space. So the next version of Xbox better have some really compelling features to draw the gamers back. I would think they believe tight Skype integration will be one of these features.

Apple's New TV to Force Tech Refresh and Cause More Apple Dominance

2012-03-19T16:36:59Z

Early in the year Samsung wowed users at CES with it’s unveiling of the Galaxy Note, a 5.3 inch wonder with WXGA resolution or 1280x800. To put that in perspective, there are many 15 inch laptops with the same resolution. Apple for its part countered with the New iPad sporting a 9.7 inch display with 2048x1536 pixel density or a full 264 pixels per inch – the same as the iPhone 4s. The iPad boasts four times the number of pixels as the iPad 2 and one million more pixels than HDTV at 1920x1080 pixels.

It is worth pointing out that the iPhone 4 and 4S have a whopping pixel density of 326! The Samsung Galaxy Note has 285 pixels-per-inch but uses Pentile Technology using two sub-pixels instead of three which is said to make these numbers not directly compatible with other manufacturers.

There has been a great deal of talk about a new Apple TV – one which incorporates a screen and there is certainly a division between people who believe it will be wildly successful and others who think it isn’t needed.

But if we look at the progression of the Retina Display from the iPhone 4S to the New iPad – doesn’t it make sense that this same technology innovation will come to a new Apple TV?

And if the argument can be made that more pixels are better on small screens which are used a few feet from your face, wouldn’t it also make sense to use this argument for a TV which usually is 8-12 feet away?

But the problem is that there isn’t programming to drive this resolution.

But will this stop Apple from being successful? Maybe not.

I believe the company is likely in talks with numerous content producers about producing higher resolution content to take advantage of not only the retina display on the iPad but future formats the company is working on.

And when this happens, the demand for bandwidth will increase even faster than it is today. There will be a need for more storage, faster processors, faster pipes, new satellites, more fiber, and a refresh of DVD libraries – assuming people still want their media stored on plastic.

For all the talk of fancy new technologies which were rumored to be incorporated into new Apple devices like some sort of advanced haptic feedback system and a curved screen, the breakthrough technology of the past few product refresh cycles (aside from Siri – if you consider that a breakthrough) has been pixels. Moreover, if we do see an Apple TV, expect it to push the pixel limit and it will have to have content to power it – no doubt much of it stored in iTunes.

And if Apple finds itself in a position to not only be controlling the content distribution but setting video standards, it will make competition that much more difficult.

Richard Bloch at Seeking Alpha recently wrote that Apple could become a $2 trillion company or four times as large as it is today by market cap. And this estimate factors in “the next big thing” which he defines potentially as a new TV.

Certainly we can expect Apple’s new TV to have a simpler user interface and likely make use of speech recognition but it seems a foregone conclusion that the top three selling points will be pixels, pixels and pixels and if I am correct, we can expect a technology refresh cycle of epic proportions and most of this new buying could favor Cupertino.

Read about Apple's plans for its cash stockpile on TMCnet and ZDNet.

Disclosure: The author owns Apple shares.

Taqua Leverages WiFi, Introduces Backhaul Product at MWC 2012

2012-03-10T22:59:49Z

Taqua has a made a name for itself serving carriers of all sizes with products like the T7000 for wireless and wireline switching, the T7100 for media management, trunking and peering as well as the TCS6100 for small cell and voice messaging services over 4G/LTE.

At Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona I had a chance to speak with Payam Maveddat the company’s EVP of Product Line Management about the fact that carriers have become very interested in WiFi solutions. A frequent discussion at the show in fact was that carriers who wouldn’t even discuss WiFi with you a few years back are now actively asking for the technology to help alleviate the spectrum crunch they are all facing.

Maveddat explained that his customers are happy that they can leverage VoLTE, VoWiFi and femtocells with the company’s solutions. In addition he highlighted the company’s Android VoIP client that works with the company’s TCS6100. The app actively shuts down the wireless radio when it detects an active WiFi network and subsequently uses WiFi for not only the voice but for SMS communications. He says this solution works well for carriers who want to augment femtocells or even for carriers who can’t afford them.

I asked if he thought such a solution would ever be released by Apple – remember that Apple more tightly controls its device features and functions so a third-party couldn’t release such functionality with current levels of OS access. He thought over time that Apple would release such functionality and I tend to agree as carrier pressure to minimize spectrum usage will likely reach a fever pitch and if they don’t do anything, the impending spectrum crunch will affect all Apple users on 3G and 4G networks.

As a side benefit, WiFi is more efficient than 3G and 4G as it doesn’t need to transmit as far – so if Apple was to enable this sort of solution, many users – especially heavy talkers using its 3G and 4G iPhones would likely experience a bump in battery life.

At MWC, the company also released a non-line-of-site backhaul solution for picocells and WiFi hotspots which have a range of between 300M and 2.5 kilometers. The current solution named the W-Series has throughput in the 70 Mbps range with a product roadmap which takes it into the hundreds of Mbps.

This sort of product may be the ideal lamp post solution allowing carriers to rapidly and inexpensively provide access in areas where microwave or fiber backhaul solutions are impractical. The company explains that each small cell site is connected by Ethernet to a Taqua Remote Backhaul Module over licensed but underutilized and inexpensive spectrum to its Hub Backhaul Module. Moreover, management of hundreds of clusters can be done over a single user interface.

As you might have guessed the technology powering the backhaul is OFDM and MIMO and can work in multiple bands from 2 to 4 GHz.

It has been great to see how the company has innovated over the years and the conversation with Payam shows how Taqua is certainly addressing carrier pain points by allowing them to reduce spectrum congestion.

AirWatch Highlights MDM in a Post-PC Era

2012-03-08T22:19:58Z

Yesterday Apple CEO Tim Cook showed a chart of how the iPad alone is selling more unites than PCs from any other individual vendor. This is an amazing achievement when you consider the iPad is a few years old and that HP swallowed up Compaq making it the largest vendor in the PC market. Of course with so much device proliferation the question of mobile device management or MDM has to rear its head. As this market is so crucial I am happy I had a chance to sit with Alan Dabbiere the charismatic Chairman of MDM leader Airwatch at MWC 2012.

A good part of our meeting centered around Dabbiere explaining how dominant his company is in the space – with over 500 employees and over 2,000 customers. He went on to say companies like Apple have to share the details of their new products to MDM vendors in advance and they want the market to consist of fewer large vendors. Other growth data points worth noting are the company has seen sequential MDM growth numbers between 30-100% in each quarter in 2011.

Moreover, the R&D team is now 175 people with R&D expense running at about 25% of revenue – a healthy number. Some of the differentiating features the company touts are support for all major OS versions as well as scalability, intelligent notifications, an SDK, an HTML5 console, an enterprise app catalogue and a multi-lingual console.

What Dabbiere spent considerable time discussing is the company’s secure content locker which allows anyone with console access to push content to selected users. What differentiates this solution from emailing content is the inability for users to subsequently take ownership of the content and forward in an unauthorized manner.

A real world example of how it works is adding a tab in the content locker which is sent to the board of directors just prior to a board meeting and then recalled the documents after the meeting is over. In another case an investment bank can use this solution to push research reports to clients without fear of them being able to forward these proprietary research documents to brokers at rival banks.

Of course I know your next question – in the case of a company pushing out content to non-employees – can the locker be branded by the company? The answer is yes. So Goldman Sachs could brand their own content locker and tabs which their clients can access but not copy or forward.

The final use case he shared was more esoteric but certainly helpful if you at a theme park in Orlando in August. Let’s assume you run a theme park where characters with big ears are prominently displayed and you would like to get email addresses for all your visitors but they likely don’t want to share this information with you as they fear spam. So instead you ask them to download a free app which includes a park map and then notify them when a ride is under or over crowded. Utilizing GPS of course would help you target visitors before they head to a part of the park which is overflowing with people.

Likewise you can use the app to help manage restaurant capacity – in other words you can send coupons to restaurants which are under crowded to ensure visitors are more evenly dispersed throughout the part. Another idea is if the park is experiencing capacity issues at all restaurants at the same time you can send a coupon to guests telling them it will be honored at a later time like say 1:00 pm.

Mobile device proliferation isn’t slowing down and neither is the need to manage and control the content on all these devices. One can imagine the MDM space and AirWatch have significant room to grow for the foreseeable future. At the moment the application is available on iOS and Android support should be here in a month with PC access available in the next 3-6 months.

7 Wireless Data Cap Winners

2012-03-07T14:06:58Z

Yesterday I outlined 7 Wireless Data Cap Losers and today I thought I would explore the flipside – in other words, who might win as a result of carriers becoming far stingier with their bandwidth allotments. After all, devices are becoming far more powerful and quad-core tablets and smartphones could become the norm by the middle of next year if not sooner. So with all this power and limited supply of bandwidth, how might user behavior change?

Here is my list of the 7 wireless data cap winners.

Cable companies have deployed WiFi throughout the US thanks to technology from companies like BelAir Networks – now part of Ericsson. And in order to use these networks, cable companies simply ask that you continue to use their services – at least for now. So the move made by AT&T and soon others to reduce available wireless bandwidth will no doubt have consumers thinking twice before cutting their cable cords and potentially switching to FiOS or U-verse.
Hotel WiFi networks generally aren’t that great and quite often are eclipsed by the speed of 4G and even 3G and potentially 2G networks. The worst part of it all is you can’t tell just how bad a hotel WiFi network is until you pay for it – a frustrating situation for business travelers to deal with. But still, hotels will likely see increases in WiFi usage which one hopes will lead them to spend more money on their bandwidth.
Boingo/iPass should be beneficiaries of wireless bandwidth caps as both services allow users to quickly access a number of global WiFi networks available in many airports and other areas of high foot traffic. Many companies will likely see subscriptions to these services as a great alternative to relying fully on Verizon, AT&T and others. I have used both services and they are both quite useful.
Starbucks will become that much more desirable to users looking to escape bandwidth caps from carriers and we can expect users to wait till they are near the ubiquitous coffee shop before downloading large attachments, photos, etc. Ditto for McDonalds and other establishments offering free wireless bandwidth.
Slacker Radio has the ability to download hours of music on numerous stations allowing a customer to suck up content over WiFi, listen and then sync favorites and disliked content when on a WiFi network. For $9.95/month Slacker Premium Radio lets you download 25 stations worth of content and fill your favorite device with music which you can enjoy offline.
Sirius XM Radio saw a huge threat from Pandora and other streaming radio stations but in a world where listening to excess music could actually slow everything else you do down, we can expect users to explore options. And one of these is satellite radio which uses no bandwidth at all – just a satellite antenna.
Apple iTunes loses revenue to streaming radio apps like Spotify and Slacker because both services allow users to play specific music on demand meaning they don’t need to purchase individual songs. But when the bandwidth is no longer all you can eat, it becomes cheaper to buy than to rent from the cloud. Advantage Apple iTunes and Amazon MP3 downloads.

http://blog.tmcnet.com/mt/mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=entry&blog_id=13

The 7 Wireless Data Cap Losers

2012-03-06T23:08:46Z

We are in uncharted territory when it comes to mobility as this year we will see a slew of productivity-boosting 4G, quad-core smartphones like the Ascend 4D Quad from Huawei which I saw at Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona, Spain. Moreover, while devices get more powerful, we will only want to do more with them and quite often this means relying on wireless networks from carriers.

The only problem is these providers are rapidly running out of bandwidth and this means they have decided the best course of action is to cap users and slow their connections once they hit a certain threshold. Their other strategy is to just charge for bandwidth being used.

This latter method of charging will eventually lead to data use bill shock. This means we can expect to see the viral spreading of news related to parents being faced with a $5,000 bill because their child viewed 2,000 YouTube videos in a month.

There is nothing worse than that nail-biting feeling you get when you try to end that important video call before your carrier starts to throttle your bandwidth

So without further ado, here are the top 7 losers who will be hurt by wireless bandwidth caps:

Cloud vendors – all of them. Regardless of business model, you will soon start to lose one of the fastest growing markets you have – mobile users. The carriers will tell you that a small fraction of users are hogging most of the bandwidth but that just may be because the majority of users have slower devices and/or haven’t discovered the really bandwidth hungry apps which they will rely on in the future. And we know that most users aren’t on 4G yet – when they do migrate they will use more data, more quickly. You want me to name names of companies who will be hurt? OK, Amazon EC2 – as so many other services rely on the leading ecommerce and cloud hosting site as well as Dropbox and of course iCloud.
Desktop sharing companies like OnLive Desktop, GoToMeeting, LogMeIn, etc. Much of the appeal of using these service has to do with working remotely and having the full functionality of being in the office. To some degree, these services actually minimize bandwidth use because if you download a huge photo and view it – you only see a compressed rendering of the photo on your tablets screen. This of course will all change because as screens get more resolution, the amount of bandwidth use will grow.
Video Streaming companies such as Hulu, YouTube and Netflix are obvious casualties – and as more tablets are sold, the problem gets bigger. And yes, video is a huge bandwidth hog.
Audio Streaming Companies like Pandora, Spotify, etc. Sure audio consumes less bandwidth than video but with streaming radio – users have a tendency to just set it and forget it.
Social networking sites to some degree have an issue but for many functions such as tweeting and/or posting status updates which don’t include video, limited bandwidth shouldn’t be an issue. But one has to wonder about how the ecosystem of apps which enrich social networks – let’s say Twitpic for example could feel a slight pinch because users may be afraid to do anything which bandwidth-hungry because they may exceed their monthly allotment of bits. Graphics-rich Pinterest may see some pain as well.
Apple could potentially have a problem as well but the company does seem to be immune to most challenges which should hurt it like the advent of $199 tablets. The challenge for Apple is newer devices tend to have advancements screen resolution – in fact the next iPad is rumored to be called the HD, not the iPad 3. Guess what? All those pixels need to be filled with information and the more pixels you have, the more bandwidth you suck. The same is of course true for Google, Motorola, Samsung, HTC and the rest of the market. Smartphones aren’t immune to this problem either so a Samsung Galaxy Note just went from a device which can straddle the smartphone/tablet market to one which could cause users to go over their data plans more quickly.
Finally, corporations have the most to lose as they purchase all these fancy tech tools for their workers with the expectation of ROI which is usually calculated based on stable metrics. And now users are going to be in a situation where at a certain point, their telepresence calls start to have jitter and latency because they are over their bit allotment for the month. And the issue will be difficult to predict in advance as a Slingbox user could eat up a month’s worth of bandwidth in a week or even a few days.

In short, bandwidth caps may cause great pain for users over time and wireless carriers should be very careful as their policy changes begin to change end-user behavior.

Off to MWC 2012 Next Week

2012-02-23T19:34:46Z

I've got lots on my plate this week before I take off to Barcelona to attend Mobile World Congress (MWC) - which was once called 3GSM. I've got great meetings lined up and I am very interested in seeing what is happening in the world of 4G, white spaces, M2M, tablets and smartphones. Apple won't be there - formerly anyway so I consider this event to be kind of like the anti-Apple confab. Interestingly, all the major events I attend these days are devoid of the iconic Cupertino brand as well. It doesn't seem to be hurting them does it?

Yet face-to-face events like this one are crucial to get the word out and generate buzz around brands which don't have the Apple halo. Companies that will really need to shine this week include Microsoft, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Google and HTC.

I will be sure to keep you posted as I travel to the show (www.tehrani.com)- you can also follow me on Twitter at @rtehrani. In addition the TMCnet Mobile World Congress news page will give you access to articles written by 100+ TMCnet contributors.

These are some of the MWC stories produced so far today:

Blackberry PlayBook OS 2.0 is Good But Late

2012-02-22T22:31:19Z

It is clear that the Blackberry Playbook OS 2.0 upgrade which includes a first-ever email client needed to be perfect. After all, we have been waiting for this major release since May of last year. Sadly, it isn’t all it should be. It is however much better… The integrated email client is a great improvement over web-based email solutions users were once forced to use. As TMCnet’s Amanda Ciccatelli points out, the new OS allows integration with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and multiple e-mail accounts.

The good news is connecting to a corporate email account without BES was very easy. I just entered my email address and password and it synced up to our Microsoft Exchange Server immediately, filling in the necessary information such as the server address, port number, SMTP port, SMTP encryption and other information I didn’t have to be bothered with. This isn’t generally the case with other wireless devices I have connected to our email. Interestingly though it gave me an error once the info was filled in but on a subsequent retry it worked perfectly.

What is surprising however is the email client doesn’t always seem to be capable of performing real-time email display, meaning if you watch emails come into your PC live and look at the Playbook you realize they aren’t there on the screen.

On two out of three occasions I noticed this problem but on one out of three the syncing was perfect. Hopefully the issue goes away permanently. It is worth noting that a Windows Mobile device I had some years back had a similar challenge from time to time.

Other enhancements have to do with better syncing between your Blackberry smartphone and tablet – great additions to people who can’t live without their handheld RIM devices. In addition, the predictive next word completion and auto correction have improved and there is better productivity and management software as well.

You can even run specially modified Android apps – another major plus for people feeling app envy.

The challenge for RIM in my opinion is this device is good but not good enough to steal users.

Four years ago a tablet that worked seamlessly with a Blackberry smartphone would have been killer but now the appeal of these smartphones has decreased and has been replaced by the public’s desire to have an iOS or Android gadget.

But then again, pricing for the Playbook is less than half of what it once was at $225 for a 16GB version up to $329 for a 64GB version.

And in many ways with two cameras the PlayBook is far superior to the Amazon Kindle Fire which comes in at $199 and includes a year of Amazon Prime service.

But the challenge is momentum is on the side of Amazon in the seven inch tablet race. Moreover RIM not only missed the move to touchscreen devices they also missed the move to the consumerization of IT.

Point being, the entertainment options available to the Kindle Fire – from music to movies make it a better device for users who are looking for more than just a work gadget – something that they can not only use for email but also to watch a movie.

Still, the Playbook is a solid device – and as a corporate tablet is a great choice due to the better security and management options than most other tablets on the market.

The 2.0 upgrade is very good but also very late. And in my experience an OS update isn’t enough to sway market momentum. Especially when for the most part it is a catch up update.

Update Feb 22, 9:09 pm: I am having a tough time getting the PlayBook to sync with Yahoo email. It will sync with Calendar and contacts just not email. I certainly hope this is a Yahoo problem and not the PlayBook but after 25 minutes of trying and rebooting this device it is getting frustrating.

Stop the Licensing Insanity, Cable Companies Need a Slingbox App

2012-02-21T23:41:52Z

Would you move because you wanted a better cable company? The answer is probably not – especially if you live in an area of the country where you are served by a major provider. Cablevision is a relatively smaller cable company serving areas in the northeast like Connecticut and New York and even so they have WiFi-enabled much of their footprint allowing free wireless broadband to customers at many restaurants and shopping centers.

So cable companies aren’t necessarily competing against each other – they are competing against OTT providers, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube as well as phone companies.

So the competition is generally cord cutting and the cablecos have to do everything they can to make their services as sticky as they can be. This is why as TMC’s Peter Bernstein reports today, Tim Warner Cable has rolled out some great new services allowing customers to watch TV on PCs and Macs. This is even better than Cablevision’s Optimum service as it is restricted to iOS and Android. Still, like I said before – and Peter agrees, you aren’t going to move because of your cable provider.

One curious bit of information is the service requires Microsoft’s Silverlight 4, a platform which many thought was going away. Hopefully TWC will upgrade this to HTML5 soon.

Bernstein makes another interesting comment in his analytical piece and that is that what he really wants from his cable company is Slingbox-like functionality. Point being no matter how fancy and sophisticated the cable companies get with their apps and services, you are still restricted to viewing in your home. What is needed is for the industry to move beyond the licensing insanity so customers can watch their programming from wherever they are.

Logitech Zagg iPad 2 Keyboard: Do You Need a Laptop?

2012-02-14T17:00:11Z

A few months back I was in Boston interviewing a number of companies in the tech space and just before one of my interviews I was reading about the Logitech Keyboard Case by ZAGG for iPad 2 and I was intrigued. I thought having a real keyboard connected to the iPad 2 was a great pain reliever for my fingers which ache when hitting glass repeatedly but I worried the addition would limit my ability to use the tablet while standing. Quite often in my office I find myself using the iPad and I figured a fixed aluminum keyboard would make this practice cease.

Owen DeLong of Hurricane Electric is an iPv6 evangelist but I found him equally good at evangelizing why I needed a bluetooth keyboard from Zagg for my iPad 2. At first I wasn’t convinced and instead thought the new TouchFire silicon keyboard would be the best choice for my aching fingers. I even wrote about my decision to buy this keyboard and Owen commented that the beauty of the bluetooth Logitech option was you could view the entire screen while typing.

My interview with Owen Delong

He is correct and at that point I decided to purchase the Logitech as well. After charging the device via Micro-USB for over an hour you get a few weeks’ worth of battery life with light to moderate use. The case is great because it uses the magnets of the iPad and turns the tablet off when the case is used and wakes up when the tablet is lifted out of its aluminum semi-cocoon.

I feel comfortable enough with the case that I feel somewhat OK leaving the iPad in the trunk – something I would never do with the standard Apple case attached.

If there is a downside to the keyboard it is battery status information. It would be great to know when the battery was at 20% for example. There is a status light which blinks when power is low but with 2-weeks of use on a single-charge, most users will see no need to turn the keyboard off – except when they charge it. Moreover, the status light is hidden from view when the iPad 2 rests in the case.

One final challenge is if you put the iPad 2 in the case with the wrong orientation, the screen does not turn off. You have to remember to line up the hole in the case with the hole on the iPad where the 30-pin dock connector is.

Last week at ITEXPO my primary laptop died leaving me with just the iPad and Zagg combo. I certainly wasn’t as efficient as I would be with a laptop – in-part because it is easier to delete large amounts of email on the PC using Remote Desktop connected to an office machine. Moreover, finding old email on an iPad is a slow process for someone who has a very large mailbox. But the iPad was an acceptable replacement for my regular machine – which is pretty scary actually.

I say scary because many people may not see the iPad as a proper alternative to a laptop but I have found it to be a worthy replacement for much of what I do. Obviously the ability to run Flash is still an issue but the flipside is not having to worry about battery life throughout a typical day. Moreover, the iPad seems more socially acceptable on the table at lunch, in meetings and other places where a laptop may get you dirty looks.

As you can imagine, in exchange for the ability to have a more pleasant typing experience and producing content more quickly, I am no longer able to easily use the iPad while standing and/or walking. It is not impossible - just a bit awkward.

The keyboard/case combo will set you back $100 on the Zagg site, about $80 including shipping on Amazon and a refurbished unit will cost you $50 including shipping on Meritline. I have used Meritline quite often in the past and never had a problem but never bought a refurb from them. Quantities are limited according to the company so you may want to act fast.

A Dream for Alan Harper - iPads Do Increase Chiropractor Visits

2012-01-26T19:26:48Z

When the iPad was released I penned a piece titled iPad Neck – Ouch! Because I had such a neck ache, I had to see a chiropractor. Just over a year and a half later I came across a report on TMCnet which explains that yes, indeed, I am not alone. Researchers have found that prolonged use of tablets as opposed to desktop computers has led to not only pain in people’s necks but their shoulders as well.

The reason has to do with how the screen is positioned. With a desktop or laptop your head is generally up, facing forward as opposed to when you use a tablet and your head is tilted down. This is similar to reading a book which you put on the desk directly in front of you. But the book can be lifted – a tablet has to stay in front of you when you type.

What I can tell you is that my chiropractor was very happy with Apple and I was one of a few patients she was working with within a few weeks of the release of the iPad 1. And with the news that Apple sold more iPads than any computer vendor sold computers, we can expect the chiropractic business to do well for years to come. Do the writers of Two and a Half Men know about this by the way? At this rate Alan Harper will have more money than Walden.

Much to the dismay of Mr. Harper however – researchers advise you not use the tablet as a computer replacement – because if you do, you may potentially end up in a seedy chiropractic office in the San Fernando Valley.