Here we go once again: another 2015 prediction article. This is my 8th annual predictions blog posting and I can say it never has been more difficult to prognosticate on where this industry is headed. Mobile in the context of an operating environment has never been more important to consumers and businesses, worldwide. Today, if a business or enterprise does not include mobile engagement as a priority, then I believe they are behind before they even begin.
IPX
Welcome to 2014! Before I embark on my 7th consecutive year of mobile industry predictions, let’s wrap up 2013 with a review of last year’s predictions. Overall, it has been another exciting, challenging, but overall profitable year for the mobile industry. We saw some rises and falls, new iPads, a new iPhone, new Samsung devices, new mobile OS’s, consolidations, acquisitions, as well as a myriad of new products and innovations.
NOTE: This post revisited the SAP Mobile Services 2013 Mobile Operator Guide. The link to that resource in the blog post may not be relevant. If you really want a copy of this guide, contact me. I may be able to provide either a hard copy or soft copy.
For the sixth consecutive year, I am happy and honored to offer my 2013 mobile industry predictions, along with a review of how well I did for 2012. This year has been another banner year for mobile: Everything from Apple news to networks (LTE deployments and RCS as well) to mobile commerce. Today, an ever-increasing number of subscribers are using smartphones and that is a growing, worldwide phenomenon. In fact, in many markets, smartphone penetration has exceeded 50% and continues to grow.
On November 6th, 2012, we broadcast a webinar via webinars.telecoms.com. This was well attended and generated a large number of questions. While I responded to the questions on the webinar site, I thought it would be useful to pull these questions and answers together in this blog entry.
Plumbing may seem like a strange word in a telecoms focused blog – especially one that highlights Long Term Evolution or LTE. Still, that’s what it is. Plumbing moves something from one place to another – typically through pipes. In the plumbing that we all rely on, water or gas is moved to faucets, heaters, cooktops and other other appliances. In the mobile telecom world, we have new and shiny LTE networks being deployed around the world. To move all of that data between these high speed network island, we need plumbing – and that plumbing is called an IPX. Peter Bernstein put it this way in his article: LTE and Roaming – Sybase 365 Leading the Charge: “Let’s face it, plumbing is not sexy.”
Sybase 365 recently released the results of our Global Operator Survey, covering the IP Exchange (IPX) technology. Three hundred fifty-three operators were surveyed online, with an additional eleven one-on-one interviews. This resulted in a very interesting cache of data from a variety of operators and service providers, worldwide. I intend to publish a number of blog entries, based on the results of our survey. This one is the first.
Mobility, Messaging, and More 