I’ll be attending SCTE this year, and there are a few topics that we expect will be heavily covered at the event, reflecting some of the more influential trends in the TV markets today. The standard topics will be covered as usual, including B2B Solutions, Next-generation services (i.e. cloud), Wireless networks, and Wired networks, and how the many facets of video delivery and consumption factor in. More specifically, some of the biggest topics of the show we expect will be:
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The Current TV Market, and What to Expect at SCTE 2015
Sep 28, 2015 12:00:00 AM / by Admin
Video Service Providers Want Control, Path to IP Delivery, and Support for BYOD
Aug 21, 2015 12:00:00 AM / by Admin
Today, it’s clear that video service providers have a few key requirements in any new technology rollouts. Among the top criteria, they are looking at:
On August 3rd, Nokia announced the long rumored sale of its digital mapping division HERE to a consortium of car brands consisting of Audi, BMW, and Daimler for $2.8 billion Euro. When all is said and done, it seems HERE has finally found a suitable home, after a long journey of being independent (NAVTEQ), failed integration attempts into Nokia’s location consumer business, and finally as a somewhat orphaned Nokia business unit representing few synergies with its much bigger network infrastructure business.
Due to Apple’s reluctance to divulge any Apple Watch numbers speculation around revenue, ASPs and therefore volume of sales and shipments has been feverish and a wide spectrum of estimates from 2 million to 4 million units sold has emerged. ABI Research believes that 2.3 million units were sold and just over 2.8 million units were shipped into the channel.
Are Eddystone APIs a Huge Threat to Indoor Location Start-Ups?
Jul 27, 2015 12:00:00 AM / by Admin
With the release of Google’s new Nearby and Proximity APIs in conjunction with the Eddystone BLE Beacon standard, many have questioned the viability of start-ups and developers looking to create a business model around proximity apps and a services such as navigation, analytics and advertising. While the market has certainly become much more democratized and Google now becomes a major provider of these services in itself, this is neither a surprise nor the end for the many start-ups that have had initial success in this space.
At the end of June 2015, smart home SaaS player Alarm.com launched its IPO. Priced at US$14 a share, by the end of the first day’s trading, the stock had reached up to US$17.88, or 27.7% above the offer valuation.
In early July, Splunk announced the acquisition of Palo Alto startup Caspida for US$190 million. Caspida specializes in real-time cybersecurity and advanced persistent threat (APT) detection in corporate and cloud environments, using behavioral and security analytics. The next day, Splunk stock rose 4%, from US$69 to US$72 a share. The acquisition comes a few weeks after Splunk acquired another cybersecurity company, Vancouver-based Metafor Software, a provider of anomaly detection technology.
So very quickly, Eddystone is Google’s new BLE Beacon standard that essentially broadcasts three distinct signal types; UUID( as per iBeacon standard), URL (as per URIBeacon standard) and TLM a new telemetry signal.
As the EU “Grexit” scenario reaches a firm deadline on Sunday, the financial world is starting to wake up to a much larger headache in the shape of the Chinese Stock Market. While the bubble is across the board, the tech space has seen some incredible funding in the past 12 months, something that had this analyst a little worried as much as 3 years ago. Let’s take a look at one example in the location-based services market that illustrates some of the problems here.
Much of the excitement and success around the IPO was fueled by the details that Fitbit shared about its operations ahead of the IPO. In a market where most players are either private or so large that their sports, fitness, and wellness operations are too small to present in quarterly results, Fitbit’s S-1 filing provided detail where little was previously publically available. Financial metrics widely noted elsewhere but there was another key metric that received less attention. The number of active users among the Fitbit customer base has continued to grow. Given as a percentage of total Fitbit devices shipped, Fitbit’s active user base grew to 88.6% by the end of 2014, up from 71.2% at the end of 2012. The company defines a paid active user as a registered Fitbit user who, within the three months prior to the period, has at minimum paired or has logged a reading into their Fitbit account. It should be note that Fitbit accounts can be used without Fitbit devices, either using smartphone sensors to collect mHealth data or through importing data from rival vendor devices; however, this is likely to be an option for only a minority of users and still speaks at least to the appeal of the company’s app. This active user metric is key, not just for Fitbit but for the mHealth industry as a whole. Perceived wisdom has suggested for a while that activity tracker devices lay unused after an initial six months use. We have noted before that while that may be the case for specific devices, it doesn’t reflect on the appeal of activity tracking itself fading. Instead, in line with many other consumer electronics markets, these devices are replaced with upgraded alternatives. When a company such as Fitbit can show that over its lifespan, active accounts continue to rise as a percentage of lifetime sales, it speaks not just to the longevity of the appeal of tracking but of the stickiness of a preferred vendor’s offering. Fitbit has benefitted from ensuring that its devices support connectivity to a host of smartphone and other operating systems across a range of platforms. Now however, those key platform partners such as Apple, Google, and Samsung are increasingly moving into Fitbit's mHealth device and / or data collection market. Fitbits active user metrics suggest it has a keen ability to hold onto its user base. As mHealth data increasingly becomes the key value for end users, it will be important for all device players to maintain a strong relationship between devices and mHealth data if they want to not only get the device sales but to have those user remain active by holding onto those customers as devices are upgraded. |
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