It has been a couple of weeks since MobileIron filed for an IPO. Writers, analysts, and anyone else interested have moved on to something else. Surprisingly, while searching on Google for any missed articles or discussions regarding the subject matter, it appears this filing was somewhat low-key compared to prior industry activity. When IBM acquired Fiberlink MaaS 360 and VMware acquired AirWatch, the Internet was abuzz with speculation about the future of enterprise mobility. Specifically, what the future had in store for MobileIron and Good Technology.

Today, Motorola Solutions announced that it has invested an undisclosed sum in Recon Instruments. This follows a similar investment by Intel in late 2013 and gives the company a warchest to expand into a variety of markets, having already achieved a lot of initial success in the skiing arena, forming partnerships with eyewear market leaders such as Oakley. In fact, in last year’s report (AN-1332)ABI Research called on others in the fitness/wearables space, such as TomTom and Garmin to look at investing/acquiring companies like Recon Instruments, given what a suitable platform it can be for many applications.

News broke last week that security researchers from SR Labs had been able to hack the fingerprint sensor on Samsung's Galaxy S5, allowing them to conduct PayPal transactions from the device.  Whilst this may be alarming to some, it should not be seen as a major security flaw for several issues.

The FCC Is Mandated with Supporting the Public Interest Regarding Spectrum

Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR is big news on many fronts. My fellow analysts are deconstructing it as we speak, whereas in this post I want to share a few words on what the purchase tells us about the future of innovation. Its symbolic significance is quite striking, and I’m not only talking about how symbolically it will bring together two innovator generations from different decades under one roof in a new decade. For someone who experienced entertainment being reshaped by the 1990s PC games and social life being redefined by the 2000s social networks, the fact that John Carmack and Mark Zuckerberg will be now working together is significant by its own merit. But it’s not as significant as that other thing I’m referring to.

The enterprise mobility market and IoT could see a very fruitful collaboration in the years to come. Enterprise mobility has been popularized with key terms being thrown around like ‘consumerization of IT’, BYOD, MDM leading to BYO’X’ and M’X’M variations. Workspace solutions (i.e., containers, app wrappers, virtualized containers) are the current buzzwords but it still feels like enterprise mobility has only begun to scratch the surface of true capabilities and efficiencies. IoT, the Internet of Things, is at a similar point in progression as it seeks to build upon CES 2014 and MWC 2014 exposure where new technologies are being displayed to connect this new technological world.

Going/deciphering through my notes from this year’s Mobile World Congress, I have as of late become growingly keen on lensless cameras. My early sightings of the concept have come mostly from Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs, which publicized some fruits of its research on the topic around mid-2013. At MWC, it was one of the key technologies for Rambus, which in general tends to be one of the show’s best sources for insight on the more forward-looking, pre-emergent tech areas – such as, for example, IoT security, which is something that my colleagues at our Cybersecurity practice have explored recently.

The latest rumor in telecom M&A arena has French conglomerate Bouygues in a hot bid for Vivendi’s SFR.   A tie-up like this will result in the largest mobile Telecom in France.  How does this concentration of market power measure up, and what will the regulator say? 

A little over two weeks ago, anon posted almost 13,000 IP addresses of vulnerable Asus routers to Pastebin. The list has been viewed over 44,400 times since posting, enough for a few malicious hackers to get their act together and start exploiting.  Another link is available containing over 10,000 lists of files stored on Asus-connected hard drives. The issue is that the vulnerabilities were first exposed more than 6 months ago and Asus had not done anything to patch it until last week. Asus is not the only culprit. Linksys vulnerabilities were exposed by the Internet Storm Center two weeks ago in 23 separate router models. The Moon, a worm targeting Linksys routers, has been happily self-replicating in the E-Series and Wireless-N product line. The exploit bypasses the admin authentication, but only works when the Remote Management Access feature is on. Linksys has published technical advice about how to prevent the routers from getting infected.