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The era of the GSM handset have reached its zenith, as 3G and 4G handset sales have captured more than 50% of the total handset market. Not only that, year-on-year percentage growth for GSM drops to zero in 4Q-2011 and thereafter GSM handsets shipments are anticipated to go into decline.
It is very much an historic moment. It means not just mobile phone users in Developed Markets but also Emerging Market end-users are purchasing 3G handsets, 3G smartphones and connecting to the internet.
Jan 5, 2012 12:00:00 AM / by Admin
As I mentioned in a recently-published Insight, 2011 saw a spate of well-documented forays into the home automation/home energy markets by service providers such as telcos, cable operators, security companies and more recently, utilities. However, today’s news that US home improvement giant, Lowe’s, will sell home automation kits from UK-based SaaS provider, AlertMe, shows that retailers are increasingly looking to enter this emerging marketplace.
Jan 4, 2012 12:00:00 AM / by Admin
I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss the state of the contactless payment card market in the US and expand upon a recent insight authored by Group Director John Devlin – US Cap on Debit Fees Impacts Both Bank Card and NFC Markets.
From the latest market data which we collect from card and IC manufacturers, it has become apparent that 2011 contactless payment card shipments in the US have dramatically dropped when comparing against quarterly shipments achieved in 2010. The drop in shipments has primarily been driven by two overriding factors:
There are many new businesses popping up to facilitate car sharing. Some (e.g. Wheelz, RelayRides, Getaround) are designed to allow existing car owners to rent their own vehicles when they would otherwise be sitting idle.
Some OEMs are also involved in supplying what is effectively a new form of rental fleet. Mercedes-Benz has Car2Go; BMW has DriveNow; VW recently launched Quicar; Ford partnered with Zipcar on university campuses.
It seems like the start of a new business model that has the potential to change the nature of vehicle ownership. And all the above examples are reliant on telematics and smartphones to manage use and provide some security.
One company that tried to do it the old-fashioned way was HiGear. Sharing the cost of owning luxury cars is a great idea and proved very popular, but now professional car thieves have effectively forced the owners to close the business. For more details on this story click here.
Telematics is moving from nice-to-have to must-have in many areas, particularly in solving the range anxiety issue for electric vehicles, and it is now the backbone for a new business opportunity that in the long term may help provide an alternative solution for transportation within Smart Cities.
Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, today announced that it has acquired SensorLogic, a machine-to-machine (M2M) cloud-based platform vendor. Commenting on the transaction, Oliver Piou, Gemalto Chief Executive Officer noted: “With M2M, we continue to replicate our successful business model. Starting from advanced software embedded in a device, we add remote management and then application support to provide superior performance and differentiation to our customers.” Norbert Muhrer, Cinterion’s CEO, added “SensorLogic is a perfect fit for our M2M business. With SensorLogic, we are taking complexity out of M2M deployments thus clearly adding value to our clients”.
In response to California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) mandate on a Home Area Network (HAN) Implementation Plan, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), a major Californian utility, has submitted its implementation plan in early December 2011 for review. The pilot deployment of 500 customers will use software from Silver Spring Networks (SSN) and home energy dashboards from Control4. PG&E’s plan will be rolled out in three phases - Initial Rollout Phase, Early Adopter Phase and Mass Market Phase.
Although SSN and Control4 have been selected as partnering vendors for the initial phase, the mandate has also indicated that PG&E and its counterparts have to open their HAN platforms to all third-party HAN devices that meet the utilities’ certification and registration standards. As most devices in the market are still only SEP 1.0 compliant, the initial platform will be running on SEP 1.0 until later versions of SEP 1.1 and the eventual ratification of SEP 2.0 make it possible to run all platforms and devices at SEP 2.0. However, there is still uncertainty about how the standards and the market will evolve in the longer term, especially with regards to moving SEP 2.0 into an independent organization. In addition, more finalized versions of the SEP 2.0 specifications (0.9 and 1.0 versions) require successful interoperability testing among HAN devices from multiple vendors, which creates uncertainty around the timeframe for the finalized specification.
Dec 30, 2011 12:00:00 AM / by Admin
On 20th December 2011, Linear Technology Corporation, a leader in high performance analog integrated circuits, announced the acquisition of Dust Networks, Inc., a leading provider of low power wireless sensor network (WSN) technology. With the growing importance of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications to enable remote data acquisition, low power wireless sensing is an emerging solution for many end-markets, including industrial process control, building automation and data center energy management.
Founded in 2002, Dust Networks is a pioneer in the field of wireless sensor networking. Using standards-based network technology, Dust’s broad portfolio includes SmartMesh IP, SmartMesh Industrial/WirelessHART™ and ZigBee. It also provides complete wireless systems solutions, including IEEE 802.15.4 mote modules, mote-on-chips and network and security management software and hardware. SmartMesh networks comprise a self-forming mesh of nodes, or “motes,” which collect and relay data, and a network manager that monitors and manages network performance and sends data to the host application. This technology is now the basis for a number of seminal networking standards. Linear Technology Corporation’s products provide an essential bridge between the analog world and the digital electronics used in industrial, communications, networking, automotive, computer, medical, instrumentation, military, aerospace, consumer end-markets and other harsh environment systems. Linear Technology produces power management, data conversion, signal conditioning, RF and interface ICs, and μModule subsystems.
Dust Networks has strong relationships with customers such as GE and Emerson, and green companies such as Vigilent and Streetline Networks. Its technology can be found in a variety of monitoring and control solutions, including data center energy management, renewable energy, remote monitoring, and transportation. If integrated well into Linear’s portfolio, Linear can offer a complete high performance WSN solution. Also, Dust Networks’ low power radio and software technology complements Linear’s strengths in industrial instrumentation, power management and energy harvesting technology.
It’s been another good year for Software as a Service (SaaS) provider, iControl Networks, which has continued to add to an already an impressive list of home automation deployment partners. This unusually extensive blog post follows on from my soon-to-be published Insight reviewing the major developments in the market for home automation as a service and summarises some of the key goings on with iControl's partners during the year.
Dec 23, 2011 12:00:00 AM / by Admin
We recently published an Insighton the introduction of new technology from Broadcom that allows 100 Mbps communication in a vehicle over an unshielded twisted-pair cable. While the cost savings and improved design flexibility make this a worthwhile technology, the real benefit is the opportunity to overhaul the complete electronic architecture.
As electric vehicles come to market from many different OEMs, there is a combination of new companies and traditional automotive names looking to capture a share. Telematics is playing a prominent role in helping to overcome the buyer's fear of range anxiety with the shift to a new energy source via an infrastructure that is only just being rolled out.
However the massive increase in on-board automotive electronics is proving a challenge for the existing automotive configuration that has evolved slowly over many years. So far only BMW has discussed a radical new approach, with its i3 and i8 concept vehicles. Expect more on this in 2012...
Dec 23, 2011 12:00:00 AM / by Admin
In a press release GM announced details about what new telematics technologies will be showcased and discussed by OnStar and Cadillac at CES 2012:
