Versatile Amphibian

I’m of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. This week: online shoppers hate Mondays, ARM hits the server rack, experts disagree on digital homes, Google makes a brain and no one believes companies look after their data Business models It won’t have escaped your attention that many major technology companies are trying to create end-to-end experiences of own-brand devices and technology. Intel underpin rather a lot of that technology. Now they’ve started an “experience lab” to see how people will use it. Makes sense to me. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/27/intel_social_computing_parc/ This is fun – online shoppers spend the most on Mondays and the least on Fridays because they’re trying to cheer themselves up. Basic psychology still applies in this “digital” era! http://gigaom.com/2012/06/2...

Last week it was Microsoft , this week Google’s turn to launch an own-brand, own-operating system tablet . Now all of the tech majors have their own platform and the games are well and truly afoot. Google scored an early hit against Redmond by promising imminent release of their Nexus 7. As I wrote about recently, Microsoft’s marketing strategy seems rather flawed. In my view one of the key pillars of the Apple marketing model is the “here’s something amazing... which you can pre-order now and buy in stores in 2 weeks” promise. Microsoft have shown us something really interesting, but it’ll be months before we can actually buy a Surface Tablet. And when we can there’s another problem: which one to choose? Another Apple trick is the simplicity of its product range. One tablet (albeit with 6 minor variations), one phone (3 variants), 3 notebooks, 3 desktops. They don’t launch them simultaneously. 2012 was a Macbook Pro refresh year. Next year will be Air and so we go on – it’s always...

I’m of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. This week: Comscore disproves Zuck’s business model, Twitter doubles, Pinterest sells, China blocks Japan and Google outs Jelly Bean Digital Media Another report suggesting that print magazines can endure in the digital world. I wonder whether consumers only prefer print until the point that they start using tablet magazines. It’s difficult to conceive why you’d prefer digital until you use it in that format. http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=49513&c=1 BSkyB continue to expand the portfolio of movies they can offer on demand via their excellent Sky Go service. This week they’ve added 700 Miramax titles to the bundle. Not many details of the deal have been released, but I’d estimate it to be worth between $75Mn and $100...

LTE launches are coming thick and fast at the moment and with availability of decent handsets growing, consumers are begining to see the benefits of the technology... or rather, they don't mind having it, which represents a win in itself if we recall the trauma of 3G. Although I don't much trust analyst estimates on these things, ABI research reckon there'll be 80 million LTE subscribers by 2013 . Contrary to logic which would suggest new network technology is beyond the means of poorer countries, Africa isn't being left out of LTE. As the picture shows, four cellular networks have launched this year, in Angola, Namibia, Tanzania and Mauritius. There are also advanced trials taking place in a number of countries - the lighter red on the picture. I'd expect half a dozen major African countries to have a live LTE network by the end of the year. I'm reasonably bullish with respect to service availability because for many operators with reasonablely modern HSPA...

$1.1Bn of new investments in African telecoms infrastructure were announced in May 2012. When summed with the $3.1Bn France Telecom (finally) paid for full control of Egyptian mobile operator Mobinil this makes May the most successful month of 2012 for telecoms investment in the continent. Significant activity includes the launch of Movitel, Mozambique's third mobile operator, to increase competition in this increasingly vibrant east coast market. Movitel has deployed 1,800 BTS to date and intends to double that number by the end of next year. The former gives them capacity for about 7Mn subscribers - more than enough to cope with likely demand in a country of 20Mn people. Elsewhere, Airtel have commited $100Mn to rolling out 3G in Rwanda over the next three years. Although on the surface this looks like a small amount of money, it should be remembered that Rwanda has a population of roughly 11.5Mn and Airtel's investment should be sufficient to upgrade 1,000 urban cell...

I’m of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. I've been on vacation this week, so the list is a little shorter than usual - normal (verbose!) service will resume next week! This week: Nokia & booksellers take a battering, Microsoft on buying/ launching spree & Aussies beat Cisco at own game Digital Media Amazon has added MGM titles to its Prime video streaming service. They're becoming a real threat to Netflix now...  http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/amazon-beefs-up-prime-instant-video-catalog-with-mgm-paramount-films/ Tesco makes a lot of money out of selling media in stores, so it makes sense to cover all he bases in digital. This week it acquired We7 - a kind of low rent LastFM. Cheap, though, so worth it as a hedge for Blinkbox, if nothing else.  http://www.theregister.c...

A quick post from me to share a little piece of analysis I did today about the grow of corporations. I've been interested for a while in the effects of tech' superpowers on the structure of adjacent markets. My thesis is that in response to their influence, companies will consolidate to create superpowers with the buying power to compete on a more even footing. As part of my test of this thesis I've looked at the growth of the largest corporations over the last 10 years. The results are fascinating. The schematic shows that the average revenues of a top-10 US corporate more than doubled from 2000 to 2011. Set against this, GDP grew 50% in the same period. I'd expect a snowball effect to occur in the next decade, where the spending power of these corporations massively outpaces that of smaller companies and thereby leads to huge inorganic global growth. Set against these US corporate giants will be new emerging players from the East. Globally, six of the top te...

I’m of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. This week: clown predicts Zuck move for Nokia, HD goes super, Dragon splashes down and Metro goes public Digital media Samsung have finally launched their own media ecosystem to compete with Play, Market and, of course, iTunes. Coming soon to a fridge near you. http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/45824/samsung-music-hub-music-streaming-locker-service A slightly misleading, but still interesting comparison of the audience for British newspapers. Misleading because the engagement and characteristics of the online reader and the content they consume are very different from print. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/may/09/digital-media-abcs It would be remiss of me not to mention Facebook’s share price. It hasn’t been a good week and this valuation ...