M2M

Three over-the-horizon trends at CES

4 January 2013 by Steve Blum
, , ,

Cuanza River, Angola. Open source opens markets.

Everything about CES keeps growing, except the number of big players out on the show floor. Every year, there are fewer mega-booths and seemingly more small companies and start-ups taking 10×10 spaces or tinier ones in group exhibits. Plus side displays in mega-booths set up by big technology partners like Qualcomm or Intel.

That’s a good thing. It’s more work to find the truly new and interesting stuff, but there’s more of it.… More

Thinking forward from CES 2012

If CES 2012 produced one quote that might be remembered in years to come, it was from Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg: “Anything that benefits from being connected will be connected in the future.” It says two very important things about the consumer electronics industry.

First, going forward, mobile telecommunications manufacturers and core technology companies will be the primary innovators. Computer companies provided much of the innovation for the industry in the past ten years, but they are all but gone from CES.

… More

Qualcomm launches consumer M2M industry with 2net medical monitoring platform

12 January 2012 by Steve Blum
, , , , , , , , , ,

The first consumer-focused M2M (machine-to-machine) ecosystem is on the market. Qualcomm launched its Qualcomm Life subsidiary last month, folding in its wireless health business. QL’s flagship offering is the 2net platform, a medical-grade (it meets HIPAA standards and is FDA listed) cloud server that links personal health and fitness monitoring devices to medical professionals and, when appropriate, directly to consumers.

Qualcomm is building and managing the network and cloud computing infrastructure. The health and fitness monitoring devices on one end and the interface with health care providers and consumers on the other are provided by Qualcomm’s customers.… More

Mobile telecoms companies lead consumer electronics innovation

Consumers expect the devices they buy to be connected to their content collections, personal data, interpersonal communications and the Internet and other external data sources. That’s why innovation at CES is coming from companies that wouldn’t even have been considered part of the industry a few years ago.

Since Apple launched the iPhone and followed it up with the iPad, mobile telecommunications manufacturers and core technology providers have been driving profound changes in the consumer electronics business.… More

Unnatural opportunity in M2M

10 January 2012 by Steve Blum
, , , , , ,

Consumer electronics products have a natural limit to growth. With only 7 billion or so people on the planet, even if some people buy more than one of any gizmo you can’t get past, say, 10 billion deployed units within the life cycle of any given product category.

Of course, that’s a theoretical limit, as a practical matter even one billion is wildly out of reach for the vast majority of products. The mobile phone has hit the 6 billion range, because it’s a personal item rather than a family purchase, such as, for example, a television.… More

Embedded impulses

12 October 2011 by Steve Blum
, , , , , , ,

The machine-to-machine sector is getting a lot of attention this week at the CTIA Enterprise and Applications conference in San Diego. The growth of M2M figured into CEO keynote speeches and panel discussions. AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega called connected devices “the next big thing for mobility.”

The growth is driven in part by the decisions taken by service providers to back out of the hardware and hosting ends of the M2M business, and just provide connectivity.… More

M2M: sell the service, not the machine

10 October 2011 by Steve Blum
, , , , ,

Verizon’s approach to the machine-to-machine business is to stop selling hardware and just sell the service. Duncan Sensenich, from their M2M unit, was one of several mobile executives who spoke at Ovum’s M2M seminar at the CTIA Enterprise and Applications conference in San Diego today.

In this case, low expectations might have been the breeding ground for a lower cost, potentially higher profit way of doing business. The M2M segment was traditionally buried in Verizon’s financial reporting and its management structure.… More

The future of wireless internet service

Forget trying to build a wireless Internet business with any idea of serving people in their homes or businesses. In general, wireless technologies don’t work as well as the hard-wired options. Wireless Internet service will succeed where wireless technology holds an advantage.

Wireless broadband technology has three advantages over landlines:

  1. It is ubiquitous.
  2. It can be rapidly deployed for a far lower initial capital outlay.
  3. It excels at delivering the same bit stream to many people at the same time.
… More

Live from the Wireless Communications Association International symposium

Best quote: “Survival is the new growth”. Tim Chang, Norwest Venture Partners.

Also from the Wednesday, 5 November 2008 sessions at the San Jose Fairmont…

  • Clearwire CEO Benjamin Wolff upbeat about market for mobile Internet access, compares it to mobile phone opportunity 20 years ago.
  • Alvarion VP Mohammad Shakouri saying Wimax is about mobile service to non-phone devices at a cost per bit that’s affordable for users and profitable for network operators. Says there are 400 WiMAX networks operating now in 130 countries, with 480 devices manufactured.
… More