If we could boil down this year’s just-concluded Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2011) into one word that word would be “mobile.” Of course we would probably need to add a few words to modify “mobile” like more mobile, faster mobile, bigger mobile, mobile computing, mobile video, mobile broadband, and mobile networks. And while the focus of CES is decidedly on consumers, each of these mobility trends also has an effect on enterprise convergence.
Starting with mobile networks in the U.S., each of the top four players (AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon) now officially has a “4G” mobile network, as AT&T joined the T-Mobile 4G marketing bandwagon at CES by relabeling the existing AT&T HSPA+ network as “4G.” AT&T also announced plans to quicken the pace of its “LTE” (long-term evolution). T-Mobile announced it was upgrading its network to deliver HSPA+ speeds up to 42 Mbps with availability to 140 million POPs and 25 markets by mid-2011. Verizon will launch LTE in another 140 markets (for a total of 178 markets) and by the middle of 2012. The bottom line is that regardless of what acronym is used to label the mobile networks, they are getting faster and faster.
The next broad trend was a tidal wave of new mobile devices coming soon to take advantage of the faster mobile networks. T-Mobile will launch 25 new “4G” HSPA+ devices in 2011 (including the Android-based Dell Streak 7 tablet). AT&T announced it will have more than 20 new “4G” devices in 2011, including three Android 2.2 phones and two new 4G tablets in Q1 and an LTE tablet in H2 2011. Verizon will launch at least new LTE-compatible devices in the first half of 2011 including four smartphones, two tablets, two notebooks and two MiFi devices. Device manufacturers launched or announced plans for over 80 new tablets this year, and the line between a mobile device and a computer continues to blur as mobile devices add dual processors along with memory capacity and screen sizes that rival features found on a laptop.
Applications and content continue to drive demand for faster networks and advanced mobile devices. However, these applications and content seem still seem largely focused on the consumer with applications like built-in navigation, games, online shopping, and especially online video including video entertainment and video conferencing. In our opinion, the opportunity to take advantage of these faster networks and “more” mobile devices in the enterprise convergence and UC market remains largely untapped, but we don’t expect that enterprise opportunity to remain unanswered for very long.
