Hal Steger : Thinking Out Cloud
Hal Steger
Vice President of Worldwide Marketing at Funambol. 20+ years of marketing & product management experience at high-growth, innovative global software companies.
| This blog is about personal cloud solutions, technology, trends and market developments. Its scope is to comment on and discuss several aspects of personal clouds.

Longview IoT Boosts Energy and Wireless Efficiency

Some of the biggest challenges slowing down the adoption of IoT are security, efficient battery usage and optimized wireless communications.One company has...

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Hallmark's Simple, Inexpensive Way to Boost Customer Satisfaction

In an effort to boost margins, companies often push more users to automated solutions such as FAQs, chatbots, voice bots and anything...

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Huawei Places the World's First 5G VoNR Video Call

Huawei recently completed the world's first voice over NR (VoNR) call. The voice and video call service was made using two Huawei...

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IGEL Advances Future of Work

IGEL is a provider of a next-gen edge OS for cloud workspaces. The company’s software products include IGEL OS, IGEL UD Pocket (UDP) and Universal...

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Tata Communications and Cisco Collaborate on SD-WAN

Tata Communications and Cisco have extended their partnership to enable enterprises to transform their legacy network to a customized and secure multi-cloud...

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How to Win the 50-Year-Old China Trade War

Today and this week in-fact is historic - the left and right in the U.S. agree that we have a major trade...

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Extreme Elements Enables The Autonomous Enterprise

Extreme Networks just announced Extreme Elements which in-turn enables the autonomous network and subsequently the autonomous enterprise. In a dynamic webinar, Dan...

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Personal Cloud Adoption: Steady March Towards One Billion Users by 2016

September 19, 2012

In the past few weeks, I have had the chance to discuss the personal cloud market with several of the leading mobile industry analysts.

A primary recurring question is how many people actually use a personal cloud service?

The answer depends on one's definition of the market and what actually constitutes a personal cloud service. For example, it could be argued that Facebook is a personal cloud service, as many people store photos and other content in the Facebook cloud.

Are Personal Cloud Services Just Glorified Backup?

September 6, 2012

I was speaking to a friend the other day about how things were going at my company.  He was surprised to learn that our business of white-label personal clouds for mobile providers has never been better.

"Haven't device personal clouds just taken over -- why would anyone use a personal cloud that is not just built into their phone and automatically activated?"

It's a question we've heard before.

Business Case for the Personal Cloud, Part 2

August 21, 2012

I wrote earlier about the business case for a personal cloud (http://blog.tmcnet.com/thinking-out-cloud/2012/08/business-case-for-the-personal-cloud.html) in which I surmised that mobile operators stood to perhaps be the largest beneficiaries of personal cloud services by using them to retain subscribers which could bear significant financial advantage.

The purpose of this entry is not one of those 'I told you so' bragging blog posts but rather, to provide an update.

My company just conducted a new survey of 42,500 people about their views on personal clouds and in particular, whether they would use a personal cloud service from their mobile operator (i.e. carrier).

Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) Update & the Cloud: like Affogato

August 16, 2012

Being summertime, my Italian co-workers have gotten me hooked onto an Italian culinary delight, affogato. It is a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a hot shot of espresso, and the combination is sweet and invigorating - sugar and caffeine, what could be better

What's this have to do with Thinking Out Cloud? Last week, my sleek & sometimes super-fast 4G Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx smartphone was updated to Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS).

Business Case for the Personal Cloud

August 16, 2012

Although a 'business' case for a 'personal' cloud may seem like an oxymoron, the bigger paradox may actually be how an operator can make money from its personal cloud service.

As an end user, you may not care if your provider makes money, but this does potentially impact you. If your provider cannot make money, it may lose interest in offering a good service. Performance and service levels could suffer.

Leaving personal cloud providers to their own devices - the impact of Verizon Share Everything Plans on personal cloud adoption

August 16, 2012

Verizon announced the Share Everything plans in June on its website:

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Today we announced Share Everything Plans that will forever change the way customers purchase wireless services. With Share Everything Plans, our customers can get unlimited voice minutes, unlimited text, video and picture messaging and a single data allowance for up to 10 Verizon Wireless devices.  

Thinking Out Cloud

August 15, 2012


Welcome to the first post of Thinking Out Cloud. This blog is about personal cloud solutions, technology, trends and market developments. Its scope is to comment on and discuss several aspects of personal clouds, including:
  • Interesting industry developments and trends
  • Common questions and issues associated with deployment of personal cloud services
  • Technology as well as business case and go-to-market considerations
  • Ways that different mobile devices and computers are used with these services

This blog is meant to be a resource for anyone who wants to learn about the personal cloud and how it is used in the real world, its related issues, and where it is heading. If you want to stay informed about these things, bookmark this blog now


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