Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
Home and building security provider ADT has signed two smart home deals this week, adding Nest thermostats to its US ADT Pulse offering, and adding established security business Tyco’s gateway devices to its UK and South African portfolio – after promising a new Pulse smart home hub and camera unit developed in partnership with LG, and IFTTT integration, back in May. The smart-home-as-a-service market represents a big opportunity for service providers looking to sell a comprehensive smart home offering to consumers in an affordable monthly bundle. At a much reduced or non-existent upfront cost, consumers are able to enjoy all the emerging benefits of a smart home, while the operator is able to count on predictable subscription revenues – or…
Open source software business Red Hat makes its living selling its services to the enterprise community. Well aware of the scale of the IoT, and all the lucrative contracts that its implementation will bring to the table, Red Hat has conducted a survey to gauge IoT adoption among these customers. What it found is somewhat troubling on first glance, but Red Hat ensures us that this is not really the case. Carried out by TechValidate, an independent research company, the survey polled 565 IT decision makers in small businesses all the way up to Fortune 500 companies, and found that only 12% of respondents were currently in the process of rolling out an IoT solution. That sounds like a very…
The Weightless SIG has revealed the first look at its latest protocol to target the IoT networking space, with the unveiling of Weightless-P – a sub-GHz protocol that aims to provide the bidirectional functionality that isn’t provided or prioritized by the Weightless-N standard. Following the origin model used in Weightless-N, which is almost entirely based on technology contributed by Nwave, Weightless-P is mostly derived from the portfolio of M2Communication (M2Comm) – a Taiwanese business that provides a protocol called Platanus that provides a very similar list of capabilities as Weightless-P. M2Comm likened its contribution to Weightless as “Platanus on steroids,” with some similar aspects but “some tweaks and new features added to achieve reliable, bi-directional 2km range in a cluttered…
Mexico is becoming a hotbed of operator competition, with AT&T’s expansion there, America Movil’s fightback, and a growth in cross-border roaming services with the US. T-Mobile USA recently removed any roaming fees for customers travelling to Mexico (or Canada). This was part of its latest ‘Uncarrier’ tactics, designed to shake up the way customers pay for mobile services and devices in order to disrupt the big three operators. ‘Uncarrier Amped’ includes changes to the Jump device upgrade program as well as the roaming amnesty. Its ‘Mobile Without Borders’ announcement was clearly targeted at AT&T, which has used its $4.4bn acquisitions of Nextel Mexico and Iusacell to announce a range of cross-border services and point towards a fully harmonized US/Mexican zone…
Two major networks vendors, two SON (self-optimizing networks) acquisitions – with very different outcomes. Cisco is rumored to be slashing its RAN team, which includes its Intucell acquisition; while Nokia has already launched the first product since completing its takeover of Eden Rock. Just two months after that deal was finalized, Nokia has unveiled the Nokia Eden-NET product, which integrates features from the Finnish vendor’s existing iSON Manager with Eden Rock’s existing Eden-NET. This sees the company making good on promises to acquire strategically important technologies to strengthen its LTE-Advanced and software-driven platforms, while strengthening its readiness for 5G and full virtualization. Of course, the proposed takeover of Alcatel-Lucent is a giant, and risky, example of this quest for advanced…
When eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5bn, it was largely as a more efficient way of processing payments through its rapidly expanding online auction site. Now, 13 years later and after a period of slowing growth – and against a raucous cacophony of calls for it to do so – eBay has finally spun off the e-commerce payments platform. Last year, eBay’s revenues grew by 6%, compared to PayPal’s 19% growth to $7.9bn. Following the spin-out, PayPal seems likely to go on to become the bigger company on the Nasdaq exchange – valued at some $47bn, compared to eBay’s current $35bn. In the second quarter, too, PayPal’s performance was far stronger than its parent’s, enjoying a 20% year-on-year rise…
In 2011, a UK start-up called Neul proposed a low power wireless protocol to run in the briefly fashionable TV white spaces spectrum. This would target long range applications from rural broadband to smart metering. Neul had made the wrong spectrum choice and was hedging its bets on the target market, so the auspices were not good, and indeed, the company struggled to gain market presence, and was acquired by Huawei almost a year ago. However, the company’s legacy may prove far more important than that short history implies since it has, indirectly at least, given rise to two candidates to be the leading LPWA (low power wide area) network technology in the emerging smart city market. Neul itself is…
When markets are tough, activist investors become highly vocal, and in many cases, they are shouting for one thing – company break-ups. Often, they get their way, as seen at Motorola, eBay and others, claiming to unlock shareholder value and improve acquisition chances. The latest target is Qualcomm, which is under pressure from activist hedge fund Jana Partners to separate its licensing and chip divisions. The fact that CEO Steve Mollenkopf is being forced to take this seriously shows how difficult the smartphone sector, Qualcomm’s main market, is right now, though it also highlights risks which are peculiar to Qualcomm, notably the antitrust investigations which are piling up round the world. Qualcomm may have reached the end of the road…
Wide Open West (WOW), a US cable over-builder which reaches 800,000 US homes, has chosen to use TiVo software on a third party hybrid set top which can decrypt content from both a cable and online OTT services. Colorado set top maker Evolution Digital will provide the set top hardware so this installation will not require any shipments of in-house TiVo built hardware. We initially thought that this move would add a further 800,000 homes that are able to buy TiVo service in the US, but although these homes will be able to buy TiVo service there are other parts to this deal. It is as much a way to provide search and personalization services to multiple OTT services such…
Amino Technologies is not hanging around in its attempt to land US set top maker and cloud DVR player Entone, effectively carving up the US market for incumbent telcos between them and opening up a number of brand new hybrid markets in the process. It has already closed its “bookbuild” raising of £21 million, and will get shareholder permission to go ahead with the deal at a general meeting on August 10th. It is interesting for two companies that address many of the same markets, to be in such a hurry, who by their own admission have been talking to each other for some years about such a move, but we put it down to timing, as Amino finalized the…
M&A, Strategies, Alliances Particle, formerly Spark, has partnered with Microsoft to use Azure to provide the cloud infrastructure behind its IoT development hardware and chips – as part of a complete IoT platform. Libelium joins the LoRa Alliance, and Xilinx joins the Industrial Internet Consortium. IBM and Pivotal have joined the AllSeen Alliance, the group that promotes and develops the Qualcomm-invented AllJoyn device discovery and control framework. Chip maker Renesas has teamed up with Arrow Electronics, Bug Labs and NimbeLink to provide the IoT Enabler Kit demonstration platform, for testing and prototyping. Arkessa joins Telefonica’s M2M Global Partner Program, one of the first to be announced. Korea Telecom and Nokia Networks have made good on their MoU and established an…
Nokia’s Here mapping division is something of a crown jewel, and one which, despite talk of a bidding war for the unit, is in danger of being sold off too cheaply. Of course, the location platform sits uneasily in a network infrastructure-driven business, but it is still tempting to think that, when Nokia re-enters the devices space next year (see separate item), it might do so with more than just licensing deals for the venerable brand plus some basic reference designs. Nokia could licence something that would really disrupt the device game, by incorporating some of the diamonds of its still-powerful R&D engine, while avoiding the pitfalls of manufacturing execution by relying on partners like Foxconn. In this more ambitious…
The LTE modem business continues to consolidate in the hands of a few players with the scale and resources to play in this unforgiving game. Broadcom, Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Renesas and others have thrown in the towel, and Marvell, whose Chinese successes have kept it in the game, is cutting back too. According to Will Strauss of research firm Forward Concepts, Marvell is closing its design facility in Austin, Texas, and its wireless operations in Israel as part of a major reorganization of its LTE modem business. This will involve the loss of about 150 engineers, with most of their work presumably being transferred to the firm’s design center in Shanghai, in its most important market, China. This is not…
It’s finally here: Thread v1.0 has been released, but without the fanfare or Google smart home product association we were expecting. Instead, the Thread Group has announced that Qualcomm has joined the board of directors, firmly backing the protocol alongside its AllJoyn device discovery framework. The specification and documentation is now available to Thread Group members, and non-members will be granted access to the group’s whitepapers as an introduction. A product certification program will begin in September, and as of today, ARM, Freescale and Silicon Labs have all made Thread software stacks available for some of their chips – for developers to begin work. The group says the first Thread-certified products will be available in late 2015. A few weeks…
If proximity services are to be the next big hope for generating data, and money, from smartphone users, cellular networks will once again have to justify their role in that value chain. Small cells and the 3G/4G’s location capabilities make a strong case, based around high levels of security, privacy enforcement and ubiquity. But the unlicensed spectrum options mean a far wider variety of service providers can play, and Bluetooth beacons’ simplicity have made them a popular choice for supporting services from targeted in-store promotions to mobile payments to smart home services. Apple’s iBeacon, the dominant format so far, is just the beginning of the story however, not the end. This week sees Google mounting its challenge to iBeacon, promising…
The new smartphone landscape, where Chinese alliances are vital There is something of a theme to this week’s issue. As China (and soon India) become the engines behind the mobile market, US and European firms must partner, and even merge, with rising stars from those countries – not erect protectionist walls or try vainly to keep global leadership with their own efforts alone. This is why a rumored Tshinghua-Micron deal would not be all bad news for the US, particularly for Intel, which partners both. In the smartphone world, Google services are effectively shut out of China, meaning that a specific Chinese ecosystem is being created around Android, but with Baidu and Alibaba offerings at their heart, not Google’s…
It’s finally here: Thread v1.0 has been released, but without the fanfare or Google smart home product association we were expecting. Instead, the Thread Group has announced that Qualcomm has joined the board of directors, firmly backing the protocol alongside its AllJoyn device discovery framework. The specification and documentation is now available to Thread Group members, and non-members will be granted access to the group’s whitepapers as an introduction. A product certification program will begin in September, and as of today, ARM, Freescale and Silicon Labs have all made Thread software stacks available for some of their chips – for developers to begin work. The group says the first Thread-certified products will be available in late 2015. A few weeks…
If proximity services are to be the next big hope for generating data, and money, from smartphone users, cellular networks will once again have to justify their role in that value chain. Small cells and 3G/4G’s location capabilities make a strong case, based around high levels of security, privacy enforcement and ubiquity. But the unlicensed spectrum options mean a far wider variety of service providers can play, and Bluetooth beacons’ simplicity have made them a popular choice for supporting services from targeted in-store promotions to mobile payments to smart home services. Apple’s iBeacon, the dominant format so far, is just the beginning of the story however, not the end. This week sees Google mounting its challenge to iBeacon, promising to…
Nokia’s Here mapping division is something of a crown jewel, and one which, despite talk of a bidding war for the unit, is in danger of being sold off too cheaply. Of course, the location platform sits uneasily in a network infrastructure-driven business, but it is still tempting to think that, when Nokia is allowed to re-enter the devices space next year, it might do so with more than just licensing deals for the venerable brand plus some basic reference designs. Nokia could license something that would really disrupt the device game, by incorporating some of the diamonds of its still-powerful R&D engine, while avoiding the pitfalls of manufacturing execution by relying on partners like Foxconn. In this more ambitious…
We’re watching the death of linear TV right before our eyes. Live TV ratings are at their lowest in years, as consumers have more options now than ever — to watch whatever content they want to, at any time they want to, and on any device they want to. The old guard of broadcast and pay TV networks, who have been slow to adopt to new viewing behaviors, are suffering today, while new digital entrants are giving viewers more and more reasons to dump regular TV, its advertisements and fixed schedules in favor of on-demand, ad-free viewing experiences on any device. Online video streaming now accounts for 28% of total video consumption in the US, according to a report from…