Page 12 - Mobile World Daily - Day One

NEWS
Fitness
trackers and
smartwatches
to converge –
GfK
By Saleha Riaz
While health and fitness
trackers are currently
leading the way in sales
compared to smartwatches – 13.5
million of the former and 4.1
million of the latter were sold last
year – research firm GfK believes a
convergence of the two segments
will soon change that.
The popularity of trackers comes
from their significantly lower
average prices and because activity
tracking is seen by consumers as
the most important function of a
wearable. Added to this is the fact
that most consumers are not aware
of the added benefits that come
with a smartwatch, GfK research
has revealed.
However, Dr Jan Wassmann, global
product manager for wearables at
GfK, believes this will change due to products... We need all of these
marketing efforts and a blurring of
lines between the two segments.
“There is a clear convergence of
both segments, which started in the
second half of 2014… tracker
manufacturers are introducing new
models which incorporate smart
functions, such as reading
notifications and messages while
many smartwatches are being
marketed as hybrid fitness devices,”
he said.
A Juniper Research report in
November said it expects fitness
trackers to remain the dominant
wearables device type until 2018,
but predicts that smartwatches will
eventually take over the market
because they have a broader
appeal.
GfK also expects the smartwatch
market to grow massively, boosted
by a growing sub-segment of
independent devices which include
a SIM card to connect directly to
cellular networks - making these
more akin to existing smartphones.
LG Electronics, for instance, will
soon be unveiling “the world’s first
LTE-enabled smartwatch”.
Fifty six percent of smartphone
owners in China, Germany, South
Korea, UK and US surveyed by GfK
see this as an important factor
when considering buying a
smartwatch, as it gives them the
freedom to leave their smartphone
at home.
In addition, wearable growth is
likely to be driven by more
fashionably designed devices, such
as the BURG 12 Smartwatch
designed by lifestyle products
designer Hermen van den Burg, and
jewellery with sensors, not to
mention the soon-to-be-launched
Apple Watch.
PAGE 12 Monday 2nd March
By Ronan Shields
LinkedIn has revamped its
operations to accommodate
the centralised role mobile
devices play in contemporary
business, with the company building
upon its "multi-app strategy", and
shifting from an "intention based" to
"anticipatory based" offering,
according to Joff Redfern,
LinkedIn's VP of mobile product.
As part of this strategy LinkedIn
has halted a "product-first approach"
in favour of an experiences-led
strategy, that focuses more on what
its members need, he said.
Redfern added: "A product-first
approach often leads to a disjointed,
siloed experience for users.
"When people come to LinkedIn,
they might traverse a number of our
experiences to work seamlessly
together."
To help accommodate this,
LinkedIn implemented a two-step
"cultural change" within the
company, including launching
mobile apps that provide specific
services, along with decentralising
the mobile skillset of its employees.
Redfern said: "When my
engineering counterpart - Kiran
Prasad - and I started, we had a very
small mobile staff. That made sense
because at the time very few
LinkedIn members were coming to
the site through mobile. It was
always clear, though, that mobilising
LinkedIn was a priority."
He went on to add: "Every one of
us had to embrace the idea of
'keeping simple, simple' - and that’s
ultimately what led to LinkedIn’s
Jasper forms IoT alliance
with China Unicom
By Anne Morris
Jasper has added China Unicom
to its network of operator
partners in a bid to tap into the
burgeoning Chinese market for
connected cars and the Internet of
Things (IoT).
The U.S.-based machine-to-
machine (M2M) software developer,
which provides cloud-based
services to some of the world’s
leading operators including AT&T,
NTT DoCoMo and Telefónica, said
the Chinese operator will now be
LinkedIn
to further
'anticipatory'
multi-app
strategy
multi–app strategy. Instead of one
monolithic app, we have seven that
are designed for very specific use
cases."
LinkedIn intends to build upon its
multi-app strategy to better serve
the specific needs of its members
accessing the network via mobile
devices, and also intends to pivot
the nature of the services it offers,
according to Redfern.
"I’m also a big believer in the
possibilities of what I call
'anticipatory computing'. In the
past, the computing model we all
worked with was more intention-
based. As a user, I would express
intent to the computer. (For
instance: 'What’s the best restaurant
in Barcelona?')," said Redfern.
"Now, we’ve reached a very cool
point in time where we’ve evolved
to an inference-based model. The
computer anticipates my needs
based on my habits, location data,
etc."
So instead of a user having to
input specific queries to a service
provider, it can analyse their
previous behaviours, and other data
points, to more proactively suggest
services, he added.
“We’ve woven in elements of
anticipatory computing [into some
of our mobile apps] to help you do
that. For instance, before a meeting,
you’ll get a ping with information
about the person you’re going to
lunch with that tells you what you
have in common."
Redfern revealed the insights to
Mobile World Daily ahead of his
participation in a MWC panel
session: ‘Integrating Interactions with carrier aggregation techniques and LTE Broadcast?
the Connected Consumer’, scheduled
to take place later today. The panel
session is set to take place at 16.00
in Auditorium 4.
able to offer its business customers
a global platform for the launch,
management and monetisation of
their own IoT services.
China Unicom also plans to
exploit its existing relationships with customer department at China
26 car manufacturers to address the
connected car market in China.
“We’re already serving more than
10 million IoT connections, working
with a largest number of
automotive manufacturers and
supporting various applications
across smart cities and buildings,
smart utilities, smart home
MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS DAILY 2015 | www.mobileworldcongress.com
Q&A r
John Donovan,
Senior Executive Vice President of Technology
and Operations, AT&T
Network Evolution in
Practice
Hall 4 – Conference Village – Auditorium 5
Monday, 2 March, 16.00-17.30
What are your key messages at Mobile World Congress?
Network traffic growth is growing faster than ever before. Between the beginning
of 2007 and the end of 2014, data traffic on AT&T’s wireless network grew 100,000
percent. To keep pace with that growth, we need to rethink how we design and run
our network. We’re confident the software-centric architecture we’re using in the
IT world can be adapted for the Wide Area Network.
At last year’s Mobile World Congress, AT&T announced its "User-Defined
Network Cloud: A Vision for the Network of the Future”. What progress has
been made since then?
Since then, we’ve set some ambitious goals and already have real, tangible
results. Last December, I said our goal is to virtualise and control over 75 percent
of our network using this software-defined network architecture. We’ve launched
Network on Demand, our first SDN-enabled network service, which lets
customers adjust their network bandwidth as needed in near real-time. We’re
also working to virtualise our mobile packet core. This will virtualise network
functions that run our mobile network onto a common platform infrastructure.
What progress do you expect to make with the User-Defined Network Cloud in
the next 12 months?
This year we’ll lay the foundation for our 2020 goal. AT&T Integrated Cloud (AIC)
nodes are the physical sites where we’re running virtualised network functions
that are part of our next-generation network architecture. We have 29 sites today
that are targeted to migrate to this architecture, with a plan to add at least 40
more by the end of 2015. Out of 150 network functions we want to virtualise and
control with our target architecture, our plan is to transform 5 percent by the end
of this year, ramping up to 75 percent by 2020.
Virtualising the network is, of course, a very complex process. What lessons
have you learnt in the adoption of SDN and NFV technologies?
There are a lot of very smart people within AT&T working on this. But the
innovation ecosystem is so broad these days, that we knew we had to cast a wide
net. So we’ve deliberately opened this process, and we are embracing ideas and
innovation from open source groups, academics, startups and other groups
beyond our own organisation and the traditional vendor community.
Is there a serious skills shortage in terms of managing IT and networks, and
navigating the virtualisation progress, both among operators and suppliers?
It’s not just a need for skills, but a need for a broader cultural change. We’ve
created a dedicated organisation of more than 2,000 people focused solely on
building this software-centric architecture. We’re hiring new talent, and retraining
our current employees. AT&T employees have enrolled in nearly half a million
“Emerging Technology Training” courses that we now offer, covering areas such
as Agile Project Management, Cybersecurity, Network Transformation and more.
In terms of LTE-Advanced, what plans does AT&T have to commercially deploy
Our deployment of LTE-Advanced featuring carrier aggregation is focused on
high-density and high traffic markets at this point. We’re pleased with the results
in improved downlink speeds, peak throughput and latency it’s providing. We
successfully completed a live trial of LTE Broadcast in January and the response
was enthusiastic and the video quality outstanding. It was a positive step to see
what it can do, and now we have to further investigate the business model side of
it. There are many different possibilities, and as a flexible and efficient technology,
we are excited about the ways it could be utilized.
appliances, video surveillance and million connected devices at the
health monitoring. We’re looking to end of 2013, putting it in the lead
expand to billions of connections in globally.
the next couple of years,” said Tian
Wenke, general manager, business “China is a large IT market full
of potential and competiveness,”
Unicom. said Amy Teng, principal
research analyst at Gartner.
According to a report from GSMA “Gartner forecasts that the IoT
Intelligence on China’s M2M market will include 26 billion units
from June 2014, China had 50 installed by 2020.”