By Shane Armani, Director, Worldwide Business Development & Sales, Smartcom
I believe 2015 will be an interesting year. There will be full of interesting new trends within the wireless and mobility solutions and technologies. At the end of each year, we sit down and study all evolving technologies and trends. We then strategize our upcoming developments and innovations for next year by narrowing it down to one killer product or a solution/App to be developed and add into our existing portfolio. But not this year... Because we chose five major evolving technology trends not being able to narrow it down to one.
I realized however, I could combine four technologies into one category; called IoT “Internet of Things”. Let me start off talking about my first choice; ODS or “On-Demand-Services”.
#1: ON-DEMAND-SERVICES
I believe On-Demand-Services will be one of the hottest trends in 2015 and many years to come. Cisco predicted that mobile Smartphone users would surge at a rate of 66% every year for the next 4-5 years. Currently there are 1.7 Billion Smartphone users worldwide; it will probably hit 2 Billion in 2015 and 2.7 Billion by 2018. By then, the average mobile user will watch 10 hours of video, listen to 15 hours of music, make five video calls and download 15 apps each month. In all, global mobile traffic will increase to 134 Exabytes. We are already developing several interesting On-Demand Apps for the Enterprise and even for MNO/MVNO’s worldwide.
Hungry for Sushi or Thai food? Need a manicurist or your hair done at your office or home? Need a home Veterinarian service, or face-painting for costume parties? You name it, they are all available now as we speak at your neighborhood as an “On-Demand-Service” just like UBER. All are great and useful, however we believe a uniquely designed, feature rich and user friendly Apps will play an important role in the success of such On-Demand-Service companies. Therefore in addition to our in-house development and the UI design development, Smartcom is providing consultation and proposals to players in this segment on innovative features and functionalities they can integrate into the Apps regardless of different Operating Systems & devices (Tablets/Smartphones) for the ultimate end User Experience.
We forecast the most popular On-Demand-Services to be categorized in the following groups (ref.@Schlaf & RRE)
1. Transportation (UBER, Lyft...)
1. Delivery and Logistics (Postmates, Shyp, etc.)
2. Food & Beverage (Zesty, FreshDirect, etc.)
3. Dining and Drinks (Groupon, OpenTable, etc.)
4. Travel Hospitality (Breather, etc.)
5. Home Services (UrbanSitter, HouseCall, etc.)
6. Health & Beauty (GlamSquad, Zeel, etc.)
7. Entertainment (WillCall, Jukely, etc.)
Shane Armani,
Director, WW Bus. Development & Sales,
Smartcom
#2: IOT/M2M
We all know M2M (Machine to Machine) existed for many years now (it allows machines to communicate with each other for monitoring and management and related services). The IoT (Internet of Things) however interconnects and interacts smart objects with each other, and with us intelligently.
Currently there are several innovative IoT products in the market. Devices that connects consumer objects to the network, gathering information and then managing them with software. Such products and services will help the environment, and will offer us safety, security, healthcare and many other benefits.
I believe instead of categorizing different technologies/trends separately, we can easily combine them under one as “IoT”, as follows:
1. Smart or Connected Homes: Thermostats, Appliances, Security, lighting, etc.
2. Wearables: Smart Glass, Smart Cameras, Fitness Bands and Watches, etc.
3. Automotive and Connected Cars: Safety, Automotive Diagnostics, Tracking and fleet management, etc.
4. Health care: Remote patient monitoring, emergency and better patient care, Remote patient support, medical equipment monitoring, etc.
5. Connected Cities: Smart Energy, meters and grids, Traffic lights, EV charging, etc.
6. Logistics, supply chain: Factory Automation, Robots, Real time Analytics, etc.
Smartphones are becoming the gateway to the IoT and Wi-Fi is becoming available everywhere. 3G and LTE will be everywhere... but the cost of sensors and modems, including low energy UBW modems and their yearly subscriptions are becoming very inexpensive (not to mention also the long battery life of 2 years to up to 5 years depending on the usage).
The consumer demand for new IoT products and services are growing (improving health, energy savings, safety and security, and many new things haven’t been thought of yet...)
Moving forward, we are heavily investing in IoT and are very active in developing intelligent software, tools and network/cloud infrastructure and solutions to manage all types of IoT services.
About The Author:
Shane Armani manages Smartcom’s world wide business development/sales and strategic alliances since 2006.Prior to joining Smartcom, he managed several international companies both in Europe and US - his roles being the Corporate Business Development director for a large GSM module developer/manufacturer, COO for M2M solution developer/ manufacturer, and the CEO/Founder of a turnkey electronic design house and manufacturer prior to that. He works with major worldwide Mobile Operators (MNO, MVNO), Cable Operators as well as device OEM/ODMs such as Smartphone, M2M modems, Notebook PC, Tablets, and wireless/security Chipset/Module manufacturers. Shane is a multi lingual and cultural international business development expert with over 20+ years experience within the Americas, EMEA and APAC. He has an MBA as well as savvy in mobile/wireless technologies always having his focus on Hi-Tech, Mobile & Wireless Communication, eHealthcare, Security, M2M and IoT.
