ABI Research Blog

ARM’s new IoT Starter Kit, which I got to preview in London last week, is a newsworthy announcement for two reasons. First, the developer kit serves as a checkpoint for ARM’s upcoming mbed OS, which is a critical piece in the company’s IoT strategy. Second, it involves a close partnership with IBM, whose own IoT vision is also starting to take shape after a series of loosely linked moves over the past couple of years. I thought this might be a good time to take a look at what the launched product tells about both firms on a more strategic level.

Sigfox announced its Series D today, and with $115 million it was a big one. The sheer amount of money aside, what’s remarkable about the announcement is the number of strategic investors that are named as the company’s newest shareholders. In a world of zero interest rates, quantitative easing, and too much money chasing too few ideas I personally prefer to take the buzz of most VC announcements, per se, with a healthy grain of salt, but if there’s a strong line-up of strategic investors involved in a round then I’m all ears. For the technology that’s being invested in, they represent a certain vote of confidence that tends to warrant further analysis. Let’s take a look at the industry names behind Sigfox, and speculate a little on what they may be after:

Congratulations to Maxlinear and Entropic on their strategic tie-up.  This will provide value to the Pay TV sector, including both satellite and cable operators.  Ultimately, the level of integration can increase while leveraging operational (SG&A) benefits.

Toward the end of last year Google acquired cloud-hosted database company Firebase. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Google will continue to offer Firebase’s services as part of its Google Cloud Platform line. While the new acquisition and the technology it brings can support a range of online services, the functionality could also be leveraged to be part of Google’s growing armory within the smart home.

On February 2^nd Bloomberg reported Google’s Drummond has informed Uber's board of the possibility the search giant would launch its own ridesharing service.  At the same time Uber announced a strategic partnership with Carnegie Mellon University as well as the creation of the Uber Advanced Technologies Center near the CMU campus in Pittsburg.

Neils Bohr was right, forecasting is hard. But through the analytical process, one learns a lot about how the market could grow and what are the primers for growth. The secret to a reliable forecast is to build the most coherent model possible based on the insights you have, and then review your assumptions frequently.   Many insightful analysts will dodge forecasting because it is so hard.  ABI Research makes it a practice to apply the forecasting due diligence that gives you confidence for building your future.

While this year’s CES may have lacked any big announcements or disasters (see Michael Bay at Samsung last year), the size (170,000+ people) and diversity of this event never ceases to amaze. The big themes included wearables, health and wellness, connected cars, drones, smart homes, virtual reality and 3D printing. Not unlike last year, in fact, exactly the same, but the lengthening long tail of hardware was very much in evidence at CES with some eccentric products on show, illustrating how the Internet of Everything really is as all encompassing as the name suggests.

The FCC's latest auction, no. 97, for Advanced Wireless Services (AWS-3) is about to conclude.

Introduction and definition:

I’m guessing most of you have already completed a significant portion of your holiday shopping right? If you are like me, then most of your shopping will be done online – no long queues, less chaos, more convenience, same bargains and many retailers even offer free home delivery. That said there is still a considerable volume of consumers who do in-store shopping and use their credit/debit cards at the point of sale terminals for purchases. The National Retail Federation estimates that sales in November and December will increase 4.1% as compared to last year and reach $617 billion.