The Global Market for M2M Devices is HUGE!

The global market for machine-to-machine (M2M) device connections will grow from 62 million devices in 2010 to 2.1 billion devices in 2020, according to a new report from Analysys Mason (London, UK). With a year-on-year growth rate of between 36 percent and 52 percent.  M2M is predicted to be one of the fastest growing wireless connectivity sectors in the next decade.


Wireless M2M Sensors



Some of the biggest enterprise M2M markets are the following:


• energy and utilities
• security and surveillance
• health care and acute disease tracking
• in vehicle GPS and entertainment systems

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the above-listed markets are huge!  M2M is another category of enterprise mobility that takes advantage of mobile technologies and miniaturized sensors and monitoring equipment to send and receive data wirelessly to and from a centralized server.  On the server is management software that allows the human to understand what is going on in remote locations.



Wall Street Analyst and SAP Enterprise Mobility

Happy Holidays
from Kevin Benedict!

I received an interesting call yesterday from a Wall Street analyst.  He wanted my opinion on SAP's acquisition of Sybase.  His premise was that there was not $5.8 billion worth of value in Sybase.  I responded that I had no expertise in valuation so could not help him in that determination.  However, I did have more than enough opinions on enterprise mobility to share.

I provided him the following list for his consideration during his valuation exercise:

1)  Had he looked into the potential value of Sybase's 365?  I said much of the world, and the fastest growing segments of the mobile market (LDC - less developed countries), are increasingly using SMS for mobile banking, money transfers, mobile payments, and many enterprise applications like field services, inventory, database queries, sales reports, etc.  He had not considered this.

Changing Attitudes of Mobile Shoppers

Mobile Shopping

Cameron Franks, area vice president of sales for the Americas at Sybase 365, an SAP Company, recently spoke about a survey they conducted with 1,000 consumers on mobile holiday shopping.  The key finding of the survey was that 32 percent of consumers, if offered mobile-based deals, coupons or alerts, could be persuaded to make a purchase on their mobile device. 

Another recent survey by mobile marketing agency Briabe Media and mobile-social networking company MocoSpace, they found that 30 percent of survey respondents said they expected to use mobile coupons during this holiday season.  Also in the survey, 62 percent said they planned to use mobile phones as a shopping tool prior to entering a store; and 46 percent stated they would use their phones for store or product research.

Tablets, Mobile Applications and the Enterprise

I have been reading several articles lately that talk about how popular tablets are predicted to become in the enterprise market.  Here is an excerpt from one article that I read this morning:

More than one in five Americans will own a tablet by 2014, and 37 percent of them will own them for business use, according to a recent survey.

Current business use of tablets:

• Business correspondence (58%)
• Online meetings/Web conferences (37%)
• Marketing (34%)
• Training (33%)
• Finance/accounting (32%)
• Sales (27%)
• Graphic design (27%)
• Inventory management (27%)
• Customer support (24%)

Another article stated, "Apple could sell 21 million units of its iPad tablet next year as half of the largest and most prominent companies in the world begin testing or deploying the iPad for corporate use, according to an analyst with Wall Street firm Piper Jaffray."


Kevin’s Mobility News Weekly – December 23, 2010

Kevin's Mobility News Weekly is an online newsletter made up of the most interesting news and articles related to enterprise mobility that I run across each week. I am specifically targeting information that reflects market data and trends.

Also read Kevin’s Mobile Retailing News Weekly
Also read Kevin’s Mobile Money News Weekly

Expectations for the tablet market in 2011 are positive, but to put things in context tablets will still be niche devices, maybe 15 percent of smartphone sales. We’ll see more supply than demand in 2011, and probably some vicious price competition because Apple will remain the leader in style, features and shipments.

http://blogs.gartner.com/nick_jones/2010/12/16/too-many-tablets-too-few-buyers/