Highly Technical Microprocessor Forum and Seminar Kicks off Next Week
Highly Technical Microprocessor Forum and Seminar Kicks off Next Week
Don’t miss the opportunity to hear, first-hand, announcements of new architectures and first-time technical papers as the industry’s elite gather for Microprocessor Forum 2007, taking place next week, May 21 – 23 at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, CA.
Bands and Band Engineering presented by Robert J. Mears, MEARS Technologies Power Optimizations for Smart Phones presented by Prem Sakarda, Marvell DSP Solutions For High Quality Video Systems presented by Todd Hiers, Texas Instruments Mistletoe RDX Processor presented by Jonathan Sweedler, Mistletoe Technologies Embedded Software for Multicore Processors presented by Mike Anderson, PTR Group Reducing Power and Energy Consumption presented by Steve Leibson, Tensilica Sequential Optimizations for Low Power Design presented by Anmol Mathur, Calypto Designing Highly-Integrated Base Station Transceiver SoCs presented by Vijay Sundararajan, Texas Instruments Multicore SoC Software Debugging and Performance Optimization with MCDS IP Based Solution presented by Christian Lipsky, IPextreme Power Management Techniques and Strategies for Linux presented by Mike Anderson, PTR Group
9:00 AM Welcome and Intro 9:10 AM Keynote: Mark T. Bohr, Intel 9:55 AM Session 1: Advances in Computer Technology 11:00AM Break (20 minutes) 11:50AM Session 2: Power Reduction Technologies 12:55PM Lunch (70 minutes) 2:05 PM Panel: Trends in GP Processors 2:50 PM Session 3: Processors on the Move 2:55 PM Keynote: Hideaki Ishihara, DENSO 3:40 PM Break (20 minutes) 5:30 PM Adjourn to Expo
Mobile Data Leads Enterprise Wireless Spending Growth – Professional Services and Healthcare Industries to See Greatest Growth
The enterprise market (firms with 1,000 or more employees) experienced double-digit growth in mobile data services in 2006, and In-Stat expects double-digit growth to continue over the next five years. While growth in mobile data services is much stronger than that for wireless voice, the bulk of enterprise wireless spending will still go to voice services.
Within the enterprise market, wireless spending growth is expected to be similar across size of business. However, the largest enterprise firms, those with 10,000 or more employees, will account for a majority of the spending in this market. Enterprises account for roughly 44% of all US business wireless spending.
The government vertical accounts for the largest portion of enterprise wireless spending. It is the professional services and healthcare verticals, though, that are expected experience the greatest percentage increases in the coming years, as compared to other vertical industries. This is largely due to the increasing number of employees firms in this vertical will support.
In-Stat’s Vertical Spending Forecast of Business Telecom Expenditures data files present business wireless spending forecasts for 2006-2011 with size of business and vertical segmentation.
Other data from the Vertical Market View of Business Infrastructure data files include:
In-Stat expects a 5-year CAGR of 30% for mobile data services spending among enterprises.
The portions of mobile data services spending accounted for by professional services and healthcare firms is expected to reach 9% and 8%, respectively by 2011.
Voice services continue to be the largest segment of wireless spending in 2007 at 81%, followed by mobile data with 15% and wireless equipment with just 4%.
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) held their annual convention last week in Las Vegas. While attendance was down a bit in comparison to last year, most attendees seemed quite pleased with the state of the US cable TV industry. Buoyed by the increasing availability of the triple play service bundle and the improving financial condition of most US cable operators, the overall attitude of the attendees was one of confidence.
Beyond the self-congratulatory atmosphere, there were a couple of topics that dominated the show. The first, the current regulatory environment for telecommunications services was a popular topic for several panels and break-out sessions. While FCC Chairman Kevin Martin did present a somewhat conciliatory opening address to the show, many people in the cable industry still believe that he is “picking on cable” and trying to over-regulate the industry.
Another topic of interest was the status of telco TV rollouts in the US. While US cable operators are still keeping a sharp eye on the potential competitive threats posed by Verizon and AT&T, this year’s show wasn’t dominated by discussions of potential subscriber losses. Instead, cable operators spoke more confidently about dealing with the threat by strengthening their service bundle, improving customer service, and targeting commercial end-users.
Two other areas of interest at the show were:
Wideband high-speed Internet service. Based on the DOCSIS 3.0 standard, Comcast’s Brian Roberts gave an impressive demonstration of the so-called “wideband” service. Roberts downloaded several files at speeds of up to 150 Mbps, or roughly 30 times the average downstream throughput of today’s cable modem service. Several equipment vendors, including Motorola and Arris, estimated that they would have DOCSIS 3.0 certified products ready to ship by mid-2008.
Switched digital video (SDV). Switched digital video technology was highlighted at the show as a viable, cost-effective means of squeezing more bandwidth from existing cable networks without expensive infrastructure upgrades. BigBand Networks’ SDV solution is being used by cable operators in a few markets and is under consideration to be deployed in several more.
Every year cell phones seem to get more features tacked on to them, and certainly this year is no exception. Verizon adds broadcast mobile TV this year, while Sprint and Verizon tout their turn-by-turn GPS services, and AT&T ramps up its 3G services and devices, while T-Mobile plans to soon launch a Voice over Wi-Fi service. More and more features, but are any of them actually attracting subscribers? In-Stat wanted to see.
In the last week of April, In-Stat conducted a survey of cell phone users, and focused just on the responses of those subscribers that planned to replace their cell phones in the foreseeable future. We wanted to see what features users wanted in their new phones and which features would prompt users to replace their phones. We conducted a similar survey last year and wanted to compare this year’s results with last year’s.
So what did we discover? First we asked respondents what they didn’t like about their current phones, and poor battery life was noted by over 30% overall, this year and last. Alltel subscribers had the worst time with their battery life, reported as a problem by over 50% of their subscribers. T-Mobile subscribers were least upset by poor battery life, but still almost a quarter cited it as their biggest dislike.
While battery life of their phones was a concern for many, only 10% of users cited it as the main reason they want to replace their current phones. The biggest reason given for why they wanted to replace their current phones was because they lacked features that they wanted. This year, 32% of users were replacing their current phone because it lacked a feature they wanted, 34% cited this as the reason for their phone replacement last year.
So what feature did users want? Fifty-four percent wanted GPS directions and mapping in their phones, and this was also the highest request last year. In second place was Bluetooth with 50% of users wanting that feature. In third place, neck-to-neck with Bluetooth was Wi-Fi, requested by 49% of users. (Users could request more than one feature that they wanted.)
Just how are all these features going to fit into a cell phone? Users had an answer to that as well. While only 9% currently had PDA type phones, 23% planned to make a PDA phone their next phone. A PDA form-factor is probably best when it comes to easily enabling multiple features.
