Next_Generation_Devices

Transcription

NEXT-GENERATION DEVICES: THE IMPACT OF CONVERGENCE
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Next-generation devices: the impact of
convergence
By Martin Garner, Eden Zoller, Pauline Trotter, Neale Anderson
June 2005
Key messages
•
‘Convergence’ is a major buzzword in today’s high-tech markets. Device
categories are overlapping, and service providers are promising convergence
across fixed, mobile and cable networks, as well as across voice, data and video.
•
At the same time, we are in the middle of a big shift from domain-centric devices
to people-centric devices. People are starting to be able to take all their content
with them, and they will expect to be able to use it across the domains in which
they operate. Together with a phenomenon known as ‘digital instant gratification’,
this is having a profound effect on users’ expectations.
•
Users will come to expect content to be mobile across devices, and devices to be
mobile across access networks. Devices are evolving faster than network
services, and are becoming capable of acquiring content over several networks.
This will become a headache for operators – especially mobile operators – who
are currently trying to control the user experience tightly. Vendors are caught in
the middle of this.
•
Three main portable device groups have become ‘hubs’ for our content:
laptops/connected PDAs, mobile phones and media players. The relationship
people have with these devices is much deeper and more personal than those
with other consumer electronics devices. These hubs will continue to evolve by
overlapping with one another. The product category that will experience the most
turbulence over the next few years is the laptop/connected PDA group, where we
expect to see the most experimentation with new product forms. This will lead to
some threats to current products, notably to smartphones and heavy laptops.
Specific opportunity areas will arise from this.
•
Simplicity of use is key at all levels, from entry-level phones in sub-Saharan Africa
to mobile computers in developed markets. This is becoming a strong driver and
will continue to be a source of competitive advantage.
•
Consumer information architectures are about to become much more
complicated, placing strong requirements on vendors to enable good content
management for consumers and synchronisation across devices.
•
Mobile phone vendors have wasted a lot of money – around $5 billion in 2004 –
on ‘feature stuffing’ and turning their products into ‘Swiss Army Knives’. We are
seeing a backlash against this, and there is a risk of a culture of ‘good enough’
© Ovum 2005. Unauthorised reproduction prohibited.
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emerging, which would slow the market considerably. Not before time, most
vendors are now moving towards more segmented and optimised devices.
•
Convergence is not necessarily a good thing universally. Vendors, operators and
users need to be rather circumspect in approaching it.
Introduction
We have reached an interesting point in the development of the market for consumer
electronic devices. The evolution of different product markets is causing many of
them to expand their functionality and overlap with each other. They will also be
supporting operator services that are based on fixed and mobile networks, and
triple/quadruple play strategies.
Specifically:
•
PCs are evolving into gateways and media devices
•
laptops are emerging as one of the main consumer PC categories
•
lots of innovation is taking place around portable computing devices, especially
connected PCs and PDAs – the prize is to make the Internet really usable on a
mobile device and, by doing that, to open up portable computers to a large
consumer market
•
mobile phones are starting to specialise around key usage contexts
•
specialist devices, such as media players, are starting to expand their
functionality to become more generalist devices.
Now is a good time to pause and take a look across the whole device landscape from
the consumers’ perspective – and that is the purpose of this report.
We are not looking in any depth at enterprise usage, although we inevitably bump into
enterprise issues. After all, most consumers work in an enterprise and all enterprise
users are also consumers.
We are also not looking in detail at technology issues in this report.
We highlight some product opportunity areas that emerge from the analysis, and also
some areas of technology that do not seem to be getting enough attention.
We look at:
•
the impact of consumer behaviour on devices
•
the emergence of certain devices as hubs
•
the effects of content going digital
•
the opportunity areas and technologies needed to support the opportunities
•
the possible evolution of device form factors.
We do not attempt, at this stage, to estimate the size of the market opportunities.
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The impact of consumer behaviour on devices
Key messages about consumer behaviour
•
Behavioural traits common to many young users worldwide have a profound
impact on their expectations of mobile devices, and the way these devices are
used.
•
A growing number of users wish to port fixed/PC-based platforms and behaviour
onto their mobile device. In many cases, this will conflict with the operators’
desire to charge. Handset vendors will be caught in the middle.
•
Simplicity of use is key at all levels, from entry-level phones in sub-Saharan Africa
to smartphones in developed markets.
•
The upgrade cycle may slow in developed markets, as carriers reduce subsidies
and significant groups of users realise that the capabilities of their terminal are
good enough.
•
There is a strong analogy between portable consumer electronics devices loaded
with digital content and the bags that people carry – we explore this with our ‘bag
theory’.
•
Thanks to the digitisation of content, people are increasingly able to take all their
content with them and are looking to use their devices and content across the
different domains in which they operate.
Behavioural traits: digital instant gratification
Digital instant gratification is a term coined by Red Herring magazine to describe the
primary impulse and motivations of the generation now moving into the workforce.
Key behavioural traits of this generation are:
•
the ability to source content for free on the Internet. This includes proprietary
software
•
conversely, users will pay for branded content where the efficiencies and brand
power make it worthwhile
•
‘always connected’. Users manage multiple simultaneous sessions and contacts
on SMS, instant messaging (IM) and email. The broader capabilities of mobile
devices will enhance this trend
•
‘device agnosticism’. More and more users are becoming familiar with wireless
technologies such as WiFi (home networks and airports and coffee-shops), VoIP
(Skype), Bluetooth (headsets), networked games and ‘time-shifting’ (TiVo).
Internet usage habits, and their effect on mobile device usage
The way in which the Internet is changing user behaviour and market dynamics can
be summarised as follows:
•
the expanded capabilities of the Internet have lowered the capital requirements
for market entry, and made it possible for companies to service the ‘long tail’ of
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consumer demand. The long tail can best be characterised as millions of ‘microniches’ that it was previously unprofitable to serve
•
the growth of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks has resulted in a significant
decline in physical distribution for those industries selling material that can be
digitally rendered and shared: mainly music, video and software
•
the growth of blogging, user groups and online discussion forums has resulted in
a generation of users more savvy than ever. Product specifications, company
policies and pricing information are rapidly and widely disseminated, giving
consumers unprecedented power.
The service provider prerogative: conflicts ahead, with vendors caught in the middle
These trends have the potential to create empowered, informed users that are
potentially at odds with their service providers.
Verizon and the Motorola V710
An example of the kind of tensions these trends can create was seen when Verizon Wireless
launched the Motorola V710 terminal. This highly-specified CDMA terminal attracted a great
deal of interest from highly-informed early adopters, who were attracted to the phone’s featurelist. Amongst other things, features advertised by Motorola included Bluetooth support, a 1
megapixel camera, POP3 email and Instant Messenger.
However, when the terminal was released by Verizon, disappointed users found that the carrier
had made a ‘business decision’ to turn off some of these features:
•
the Bluetooth profiles required to synchronise the terminal and transfer data to another
device or computer (OBEX/OPP/serial) had been deactivated
•
the instant messenger client used SMS to transfer messages, resulting in a per-message
fee, as opposed to a (less expensive) fee based on data rates.
Instead, users are required to use Verizon’s PIX service to send pictures (at $0.25 per picture),
and subscribe to the $4.95 per-month text messaging service.
However, there was a large discrepancy between the terminal’s advertised features and those
that Verizon required it to ship with, and this was fuelled by Internet/chatroom discussion. Many
phones were returned and Motorola and Verizon’s customer support teams were deluged with
queries. Finally, the CEO’s office at Verizon received so many complaints that it was reported
to be ‘reconsidering’ its decision to turn off the support for these features.
The crux of the matter here lies not in the extent to which Verizon has disabled features that
bring it no revenues. Rather, it is in the extent and power of consumer uproar, and its capability
to force the carrier to change its policy.
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As consumer devices become more powerful, and as peripherals such as mobile
keyboards and screens become more affordable, users will expect to port more of
their fixed line experience to the mobile device. This will include:
•
web browsing (rather than cut-down access to the operator portal)
•
entertainment functions – MP3 players/jukeboxes, media viewers
•
office and productivity applications – personal information management (PIM),
spreadsheets, word processing.
Expectations are fuelled by the rapid increase in portable memory and the growing
utility of computer synchronisation suites. For example:
•
in September 2004, Samsung unveiled the first hard-drive phone, with 1.5Gb of
storage. Other vendors have followed since then
•
many advanced terminals now ship with external memory slots, either proprietary
(such as Sony’s Memory Stick duo) or standardised around SD or Compact
Flash.
For both solutions, the cost of memory is plummeting, enabling large amounts of data
to be transferred independently of a synchronisation connection. However, the
capabilities of PC/Mac synchronisation suites are also improving, enabling users to
swap files at will. Figure 1 illustrates the move away from the ‘stovepipe’ model,
whereby the terminal’s sole means of connectivity is via an operator-mediated cellular
network, and towards a model whereby users transfer content (and software files) to
their mobile device at will and at no charge.
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Figure 1 Content bypassing the cellular network ‘toll gate’
Cellular
WLAN
DSL
Source: Ovum
This dynamic will become more common, with the device manufacturers caught
between their desire to appeal to users, and the need to appease the carriers’ desire
to make money.
This has been perfectly illustrated by the problems with Motorola’s iTunes-capable
terminal. Announced in June 2004, the terminal was supposed to debut at CTIA in
2005. However, behind-the-scenes issues with major carriers such as Cingular
Wireless and Verizon Wireless have delayed the launch. Again, the carriers are
reluctant to push a product that facilitates a bypass of network-based, chargeable
downloading.
We expect this issue to come to a head before the end of 2006. Growing consumer
awareness will prompt users to churn to carriers who have a more open approach.
Increasingly, smaller carriers in the market will use this as a competitive tool.
Willingness to pay for content
Carriers run a large risk of alienating their client base if they adopt aggressive DRM
specifications. Especially with music, users do not distinguish between the ownership
they get with a CD and the ownership they get when downloading a track – they
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expect both to be useable across a variety of devices. However, there is a market for
paid-for content that is highly branded, time relevant, highly useful or good fun.
Clearly there is a balancing act here.
Always connected
Much has been written about how the ability to be always connected has changed the
way people behave. This is illustrated by the ability of younger people to sit at a PC
chatting to their friends on IM, texting some friends on their mobiles and speaking to
others on a landline phone all at the same time.
This has led to the emergence of a generation that not only can cope with a high
level of being always connected, but also positively demands to be always connected.
However, there is a darker side of this, which emerges in several forms, notably
addiction and adverse effects from the way devices are used. For example:
•
in enterprises, the BlackBerry is nicknamed the ‘CrackBerry’ because of its
addictive nature
•
in a consumer survey, Ericsson found that teenagers have a very strong
attachment to both their PC and their mobile phone, and were unable to choose
which one to give up because both are key, although used in different ways
•
in an Italian survey of young people who were deprived of their mobile phone for
two weeks, respondents reported feelings of social isolation and inadequacy
•
HP recently publicised a study (Txting makes u stupid) that found that the
constant interruptions from text messaging and email have the effect of lowering
your IQ
•
in a recent HBR article (Overloaded Circuits: Why Smart People Underperform),
Edward M Hallowel argues that the stresses of the modern workplace – including
email and mobile access – lead to a form of attention deficit disorder that he calls
‘attention deficit trait’.
The point of raising these concerns here is not that they will affect the development of
devices directly (after all, you can always switch it off), but more that they will
influence attitudes among consumers towards their devices. Vendors will need to
show that they are treating these issues responsibly in order to avoid adverse PR.
Device and network agnosticism
Users are more savvy about moving/using different types of media across different
types of devices, and about the functions and capabilities of networks. They are
coming to expect content to be mobile across devices (for example, as it always has
been with CDs) and expect devices to work across multiple networks. Users will want
devices to get content from a PC as well as download it over the air through a WiFi or
cellular link.
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Simplicity: the ‘new’ growth driver and the culture of good enough
The largest markets for new mobile subscribers are in rural areas of developing
countries. The requirement for simplicity here is dictated mainly by supply side
pressure to keep costs down to affordable levels (although many users in so-called
‘developing’ markets are actually extremely sophisticated). The imperative for
manufacturers and operators here is to lower the bill of materials and overall costs of
the terminal to enable the profitable provision of services, for an ARPU of around $5
per month.
There has also been a backlash against complexity in several areas:
•
in ‘developed’ markets, the elderly/mature user segment is often the last
untapped market niche. Device vendors and operators are increasingly targeting
these segments. Vodafone’s new Simply tariff and handset addresses this.
•
reaction against the complexity that comes with stuffing devices full of features
that people do not use
•
much of the visionary functionality that is touted by the vendors is so hard to set
up and get working that users are put off.
As with the end of the computer processor speed wars, we are starting to see a
culture of ‘good enough’ creeping in to the mobile phone world. There is anecdotal
evidence from various areas – people selling their free upgrade mobile phones on
eBay; users wishing to get rid of their laptops in the interests of carrying a smaller
device that just does the jobs they need; companies not upgrading their MS Office
software until it stops being supported. Of course, there will always be segments that
must have the latest gizmo – our worry is that there may be substantial groups in the
population for whom their devices really are good enough, and that this will slow both
the replacement rate and the uptake of new devices and services.
Many users are becoming sceptical of claims about the features of new phones
because there is a big gap between the vision put out by the vendor and the
experience the user has in trying to get it working. When it is difficult, credibility
disappears. As wireless analysts we are highly sensitised to this; for example,
through our efforts to get enterprise email working on a smartphone. Normally we fail.
The positive effect of getting it right is amply illustrated by the success of the iPod and
the BlackBerry.
Bags and domains
The bag theory
Principles
In 1997, Ovum first published the bag theory, which says that mobile devices loaded
with digital content are a close analogy for the bags that people carry with them. It is
useful to reprise this theory here as we examine the evolution of devices.
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There are seven main principles in the bag theory:
•
wherever people go they carry bags for their things
•
some things are always carried, some are specific to certain use cases
•
people have a few bags that they always carry – private bags
•
some bags are general purpose, others are specialist
•
people put specialist bags into general-purpose bags
•
people carry multiple bags depending on what they are doing on any given day
•
people are not uniform in the type and mix of bags they carry.
There is one interesting aspect of people carrying multiple bags. Normally they prefer
to carry as few as possible. However, they break this rule for private bags and highly
specialist bags. For example, an office worker who plans to play squash at lunchtime,
could put all the contents of their briefcase, handbag, jacket and gym/squash bag into
a suitcase and take that to work. However, instead they carry a gym/squash bag in
addition to their regular work bag. This is because the private bag has a personal
relevance and the special-purpose bag adds value. Value can be added in both the
function and the form – an aspirational brand can be a reason to carry a specialpurpose bag.
Portable consumer electronic devices are bags, some are hubs
Portable devices are bags for our content. They provide a close parallel with bags:
•
people like to carry some of their content wherever they go, such as the ability to
make voice calls, voice messaging, address book, music, notes, email and –
increasingly – general Internet access
•
other functions and content vary by use case, such as photos, videos and work
files.
In the analogue and early digital worlds, almost all portable devices were special
purpose: a walkman, mini-disc player, camera, voice recorder, mobile phone, portable
TV or Gameboy. This meant we had no choice but to carry lots of devices if we
wanted to do several things – for example, when going on holiday.
With the arrival of digital content came the opportunity to make devices into more
general-purpose bags supporting a number of content formats. The PC started this
trend; the laptop is the suitcase of the mobile device world, and the PDA is a smaller
version of this.
The mobile phone has picked up this trend and has set about becoming a generalpurpose bag. This is based on its status as one of the things we carry with us all the
time, and the fact that it is always connected to a range of services.
There are now some clear hubs for our personal digital content – these are devices
that are analogous to the private bags:
•
laptops
•
connected PDAs
•
mobile phones
•
media players, more because of what they carry than because they are always
connected, but we expect this to change.
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Like private bags, these devices have to carry at least the content that people always
take with them.
Also, like bag categories, device categories are blurring:
•
general-purpose devices are being tweaked to become good at certain specialist
functions – music is one of the big themes in mobile phone development for 2005
•
special-purpose devices are becoming more generalised. Media players are able
to synchronise diary and other PIM content with a PC. The first BlackBerrys could
be used as a phone and the current BlackBerrys even look like a phone.
It is becoming useful to think of general-purpose devices as bags that are capable of
carrying other bags. Wouldn’t smartphone users be happier if the email client was a
mini version of Outlook that they use on their desktop, rather than a different user
interface? Similarly, we can expect an iPod phone to be more popular for music than
any one phone that has a proprietary and different user experience.
Also, as with bags, people own a number of content-capable devices, carry multiple
devices and would generally prefer to carry as few as possible.
•
Although some of the general-purpose devices are capable of a number of
specialist functions, they rarely perform these functions well, so many people will
also carry a specialist device because it adds significant value.
For example, a laptop, PDA or smartphone could perform the function of a
memory stick, but memory sticks are still popular as a separate category. Equally,
there is a big overlap between high-end phone users and media player users,
although most high-end phones can play MP3 files.
•
Many people also carry multiple general-purpose devices because each of them
is not good enough in some areas to provide close substitution for the others.
There are many people who own and carry a laptop, a PDA and a smartphone.
As with bags, people are far from uniform in the type and mix of devices that they
carry. There is a range of segments served by a variety of general-purpose and
special-purpose devices offering differing mixes of form and function.
Networked devices
One area where the bag theory could be challenged is that a bag is very binary – it
either contains something or it doesn’t. By contrast, a device can hold content itself,
or be networked so the user has access to the content. In our view this changes
nothing: the function of accessing and using the content is more important than where
the content is stored. This function should be thought of as what the device carries.
However, with the advent of widespread network access, the distinction that is now
evolving is between:
•
devices that connect directly to the network – these are becoming the hubs
because people want as few network subscriptions as possible
•
devices that are connected through another device – these are hybrids or have a
special purpose
•
devices that are not connected – these are still generally special purpose.
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The implication here is that any vendor who aspires to turn their device into a hub
device needs to enable it to be connected all the time. For example, an iPod would
need cellular data or WiFi built in before it could truly challenge the position of a
smartphone in the users’ mind. By contrast, it is relatively easy to see the BlackBerry
evolving into that area.
Domains
People spend their lives moving between domains. Nokia describes this as
commuting between domains, as shown in Figure 2
Figure 2 Example of new IP convergence services
Domain Centric Service Offering
Mobile
Voice
Messaging
Access Corporate
Systems & E-mail
10 AM
Play Games
11 AM
1 PM
5 PM
2 PM
Fixed / mobile voice
Browse Internet
8 PM
8 AM
Fixed / mobile voice
Source: Nokia
In these domains, people do different things:
•
some activities are common to many domains, such as watching TV or reading
•
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other activities are specific to certain domains, such as cooking, bathing, laundry
or office work.
With the move to digital content and portable devices, we are now in the middle of a
big shift – from domain-centric to people-centric devices.
Consumer electronic devices (the non-portable sort) used to be fixed in and optimised
for use in certain domains. The main, large TV generally went in the living room. So
did the hi-fi. Mini hi-fi systems were aimed at the kitchen or bedroom.
Portable consumer electronic devices were initially seen as a way of extending the
use of the content from some of these systems into the mobile environment.
However, now that portable devices are evolving into general-purpose devices and
personal hubs, that mobility is being turned back on the old, non-portable systems.
Portable devices move across domains and take the content with them.
The portable device is starting to assume supremacy as the preferred source of
content, and the older installed system is becoming just a means of using the content.
Apple illustrates this beautifully with the way in which an iPod can be used to drive a
hi-fi. This approach is being mirrored by mobile phone companies, with different
peripherals to view your photos through the TV and listen to your MP3 files through
the hi-fi.
This shift from domain-centric to people-centric devices has implications:
•
people will come to associate their content more with portable devices than with
fixed devices
•
people will keep versions of their content on multiple portable devices and
probably also in a central store somewhere (for back-up)
•
older fixed devices need to be able to integrate well with new portable hubs
•
there is potential for some substitution of older fixed devices.
In the past, provided that you could load the content, there was little need to integrate
the portable device. Generally this was easy, as the content came in a removable
format such as a cassette tape or CD, so the concept of a CD Walkman was easy to
implement.
Now, though, it is necessary to provide a much higher degree of integration between
portable devices and other systems.
However – as portable hubs integrate better – there is potential for some substitution
of devices. For example, once you have an integrated iPod, do you really need a CD
player in your lounge? If your mobile phone integrated better with other devices in
your house, would you really need a fixed phone?
Substitution will be a fairly gradual process because the fixed consumer electronic
devices are generally to a higher specification – they run on mains power and they
are better optimised. However, vendors should recognise the start of the shift.
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Content goes digital
Key messages on content going digital
•
Trends in digital content are creating a tension between centralisation and
decentralisation.
•
Initially, people used digital content as a new way of doing old things, but people
quickly found new things they could do because the content is digital and
networked.
•
There is a growing need to move data across multiple devices.
•
We’ve gone from one set of stovepipes to another.
•
Because of technical complexity, life is not (yet) becoming easier for users.
•
Digital content is evolving and is placing increasing demands on networks and
devices.
•
Services need to evolve to accommodate content-capable devices.
•
Architectures are becoming more complicated.
•
Although digitalisation of content has been under way for a long time, there are a
number of areas where there is still a significant opportunity to make content
digital and accessible to portable devices.
Three major trends in digital content
Figure 3 Major trends in digital content
Re-centralisation
Decentralisation
Source: Ovum
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Since the initial digitalisation of documents and spreadsheets in the early 1980 as the
PC came into the market, the use of digital content has been subject to three main
trends:
•
networking of content
•
decentralisation of digital content.
•
re-centralisation of digital content.
Networking of content
As PC usage grew, companies were quick to network them, allowing users to access
content from a variety of locations. For consumers, this process did not really start
until the mid-1990s, when the Internet started to grow. Once this happened, patterns
of behaviour started to change, with increasing demand for online access to
everything through file sharing, downloading and posting to the Internet.
We are now entering an era in which it is common for each home to have a network –
either a PC-driven home data network, a separate home entertainment network
based around TVs and DVDs, or a converged network.
Decentralisation of digital content
When computers and digital content started, the mainframe was the normal
repository. With PCs came the start of a trend to decentralise access to content,
processing power and memory.
This trend has been fuelled by the take-up of mobile phones, portable games
consoles and digital cameras, and is being further extended by the arrival of new
forms of content-handling devices such as media players, portable DVD players and
digital video recorders.
Now there is a real expectation that these devices will evolve into machines with
enough horsepower and storage to handle very large amounts of a user’s content, so
that the assumption of a central store is starting to become questionable.
Re-centralisation of digital content
However, at the same time as decentralisation is reaching a stage where the central
repository may no longer be necessary, there is a counter trend towards recentralisation.
This started with the Internet. There is a substantial movement towards giving up
previously decentralised analogue reference sources (such as the Yellow Pages,
encyclopaedias or an atlas) because all the information is on the Internet and there is
no point having the large, out-of-date books cluttering up your house any more. More
than this, younger people often prefer the Internet as their first option to find
information.
This trend is also playing out in a more local way with the home PC and – soon –
home media gateways. Here, the assumption in current product design is that users
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will store all of their digital content on a central server, and will either download it into
their portable devices (as we do with music today), or will access the central server
remotely in order to get hold of their content.
The effects of the three main trends
Of course, there have been many effects at macro and micro levels because of these
trends, and this report is not intended to be a thesis on those. However, for our
purposes, we want to highlight the following main effects.
Initially people used digital content as a new way of doing old things
At first, digital versions of content were merely substitutes for their analogue versions.
As CDs arrived we started to replace cassette tapes and records. Documents in a
word processor were simply electronic versions of typewritten documents.
People quickly found new things they could do because the content is digital
Examples include home photo processing, text messaging and IM, enclosing
documents in an email, hyperlinking, and webcams. We have a long way further to go
with this, and can see some clues already about how this might evolve in these
application areas:
•
the Sony ‘Eye-Toy’, which allows users to participate in console games
•
Nokia’s Visual Radio links listening to the radio with interactive rich media on the
Internet
•
RSS and news reader software enables people to aggregate information from a
large number of sources into a single piece of software
•
wikis – collaborative websites
•
PodCasting enables a ‘book-club’ business model directly from a commercial
website to an individual device
•
intelligent maps, that combine map data with the user’s location and local
information
•
companies providing a full transaction and correspondence history for their
customers on their websites once the user has logged in, rather than forcing
users to maintain a large filing system.
There is a growing need to move content across devices
As the number of content-capable portable devices has proliferated, so people have
built an expectation that they will be able to take their content with them across these
devices. People feel that they own the content and see no reason they should not
have multiple instances of it on different devices.
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We’ve gone from one set of stovepipes to another
In the analogue world, content formats and devices were tightly intertwined. You
could not play a record on anything other than a turntable. The same was true for
music cassettes, 8mm films and so on.
Although there is nominally more choice with digital content, through a wider variety
of content formats, we are still in a stovepiped world and are not yet reaping the full
benefit of having networked content. Examples include:
•
games consoles are tightly locked proprietary stacks of technology for games –
they are only open in the area of playing music CDs and DVDs
•
every digital camera comes with its own software for downloading the photos
from the camera, even though the JPG file format is well established
•
phone synchronisation only works with the software provided by the phone
vendor.
Life is not (yet) becoming easier for users
Because of stovepiped technology and the myriad of different content formats,
technical complexity is high. There are more options, more formats and more
incompatibilities than most users have the time or energy to deal with.
Extract from an online review of a Pioneer DVR-720H-s DVD player/recorder
DVD support
•
DVD-Video
The Pioneer DVR-720H-s we received for testing is a Region-2 drive, meaning that the unit is
able to decode (play) only the pressed DVD-Video discs coming from the European region.
However, the player can be found in the European market through retailers as region-free,
making it possible to use with any disc regardless of the regional restrictions applied on it. We
did a quick search on the Internet and we found quite a few retailers that offer this unit as multiregion/region-free.
The DVR-720H-s supports both PAL and NTSC TV signal transmission formats. Of course, the
player will recognize only the region 2 or region-free NTSC DVD-Video discs. This feature is
adjustable through the setup menu (look at the Video In/Out menu, NTSC on PAL TV)
We connected the DVR-720H-s using the Scart interface with the corresponding cable, which
was not included in the unit's package. Of course, the DVR-720H-s supports the DVD-Video
format.
We recorded a 4.35GB DVD-Video file on various DVD-R/DVD-RW media. In case you didn't
notice it in the specifications page, this recorder can only record on recordable or rewritable
discs of the ‘minus format’ (DVD-R/DVD-RW).
The DVR-720H-S can play DVD+R and DVD+RW discs, even if it is not stated in the manual.
17
Quoting from the manual ‘This recorder will play and record DVD-R/RW discs. Compatible
media: DVD-RW Ver.1.1, Ver.1.1/2x and Ver1.2/4x. DVD-R Ver.2.0 and Ver2.0/4x/8x’. We tried
with different media and different recording speeds, and the results were mixed. Some
DVD+R/RW discs could be played back with no problem, some could not be read at all from
the DVR-720H-s. Bear this in mind, if ‘plus’ format support is important to you.
We also tried some DVD+R9 (Dual layer recordable discs) of various brands.
We recorded DVD-Video discs with DVD-ROM booktype and with DVD+R9 booktype and the
DVR-720H-s could not recognize them. So bear this in mind if DVD+R9 reading support is
important to you. The burners we used for the reading tests are some of the latest dual-format
available on the PC market, as well as some 1st generation recorders. Pressed single/dual
layer DVD-Video discs were also included in the test. Here, we remind you that the Pioneer
DV-720H-s supports DVD-R/RW and DVD-Video playback. All the test discs were created with
the same PC/software in the DVD-Video mode.
Source: www.cdrinfo.com
We are just starting to see signs of this complexity breaking down. Creative Inc gives
users the option to use Windows Media Player to rip and sync music to their Zen
Media players (although they also ship their own software). Motorola does not ship
any music software with its A780 phone – instead, it works with Windows Media
Player for loading music onto the device.
However, there is some way to go before life is easier. For example, the Motorola
A780 phone will only work with Windows Media Player version 10. So users first have
to make sure they have version 10 and if not, they have to download it. Even then
they find that the Motorola phone does not work with WMA files (the Windows Media
Player default) so they have to go into the options of Windows Media Player and
select MP3, which does work on the phone.
Digital content is evolving and placing increasing demands on networks and devices
In most areas of digital content, there is technology evolution going on that places
higher demands on processing, memory and bandwidth. Over four years, digital
cameras have moved on from a norm of 1.3 megapixels up to 4–7 megapixels per
photo. File sizes have ramped from 300kb to 1.5Mb per photo as a result.
This is also true with office documents – PowerPoint presentations are now
commonly measured in Mb. The main reason for this is that documents are becoming
richer, with growing use of images, sound and video clips.
Naturally this places higher demands on local storage. It is now within most people’s
range to buy a PC with hundreds of Gb of hard-disk space. Top end media players
typically ship with 20, 40 or 60 Gb capacity. Mobile phones are starting to look underpowered with typical capacities of 30–100Mb, although the first hard-disk phones are
now on the market.
18
The effect is also seen in demand for network bandwidth. Obviously, the rapid growth
of broadband illustrates this. Broadband providers are now competing on increasing
their bandwidth.
Services need to evolve to accommodate content-capable devices
The first issue here is that network services are evolving more slowly than devices,
and this will limit the usefulness of devices.
We saw this as home PCs and the Internet took off in the mid-90s, where the
bottleneck was the data rate for Internet access. Another good example is picture
messaging: cameras in mobile phones have evolved more quickly than data services
on mobile networks. The result is that we now have reasonable camera quality in
phones, and we expect that people will begin using them more widely. However, they
cannot share those photos over MMS until the operators increase the specification of
the service. The alternatives people have are to email the pictures from the phone or
load them onto their PC and then email them – both of which remove premium
revenues from mobile operators.
Another example is the central assumption of asymmetric bandwidth on broadband
services, with a high-speed downlink and a fairly low-speed uplink. Anyone who has
tried to use a 3G data card in a laptop to send a large presentation through remote
access will be very aware that high bandwidth is also needed in the uplink at times.
Similarly, when working from home over a VPN it is generally better to copy a file to
the local machine, work on it there and then replace it on the network, rather than
working on it live over the broadband link, because auto-saves are so slow.
The second issue is more subtle: services need to cope with multi-function devices
that are increasingly access-agnostic. Early content services – such as the telephone,
the TV and early mobile phones – relied on a device that was dedicated to the service
and that used a thin client to operate it. The device was the service.
With the advent of more capable devices, that link is broken, and this brings a clear
tension between the operators’ interests and those of users. For example, users will
want to download music in a variety of ways and store the resulting content on a
variety of devices. Should the service simply provide access to the content (as with
broadband to the Internet) or can the service add value to the content in some way
(as picture messaging tries to do)?
In the past, fixed operators have generally only provided open access (but are now
trying to add value). However, mobile operators are trying desperately to hang on to
the latter position while simultaneously selling us more and more capable devices –
this is clearly untenable and something will have to give way.
Architectures are becoming more complicated
With the combination of centralisation and decentralisation we are rapidly ending up
with content in a variety of different places, and we will need to manage it properly.
19
For example, it is now entirely feasible for one person to have parts of their diary
information:
•
on a family website
•
on a work PC
•
on a home PC
•
on a laptop
•
on a PDA
•
on their mobile phone
•
on an iPod
•
on the fridge door at home.
A recent attempt of ours to synchronise a mobile phone with a PC at home linked
over a VPN failed, but had an unfortunate knock-on effect – on the next occasion
when the phone was synchronised with the work PC, it wiped all the appointments out
of the calendar. With difficulties like this, it is not really surprising that so few people
use the PC synchronisation aspects of their portable devices.
The PC has become a hub for our content. Consumer PCs are typically festooned
with digital cameras, scanners, printers, loudspeakers, digital camcorders, PDAs,
media players, DVD writers and memory sticks.
We are also seeing the emergence of hubs around portable devices. Apple has
shown the way with the ecosystem around the iPod. Mobile phones are building on
their position as the primary source of personal communications and moving quickly
towards becoming hubs for content.
The task, then, will be to enable us to manage the content across the hubs. For
example, the music you want to listen to is stored on your PodBerry, but you have left
that at home while you’re out and about with your mobile phone. How do you check to
see if that is where it is stored and – having found it – how do you then listen to it?
Opportunity areas
What content do people want on their portable devices?
Digital content and applications will drive device developments, and so it is important
to have a picture of how core applications are supported by existing devices and how
this might change going forward. Figure 4 summarises our grouping of digital content
and applications into associated clusters with the basic functionality required.
20
Figure 4 Application clusters and basic functionality
Games
Music
Photos
download, online,
image, audio, video
share, store
single play,
multi-player
audio, video,
Download,
create, mix
share, store
image capture,
edit, share
store, print
Information
(news, how to,
stocks, sports,
reference,
maps/travel)
download, online,
image, text, video
share, store
Videocomms
(talk, chat debate,
voting, lecture,
dating)
video,
audio
Presentations/
schematic drawing
text, image, input,
image manipulation,
editing
Datacomms
(messaging, IM,
Email, postcards)
text, image, input,
store
Video content
(TV, film, music,
user created)
audio, video
play, share,
store
Remote
monitoring
and control (things,
environment, people)
Monitoring,
diagnostics
Voicecomms
(talk, chat debate,
voting, lecture,
dating)
voice
Data capture
(Including
identification)
image, text
scanning,
reading
Document
manipulation
text, image
edit, share, scan,
photocopy
store, print, sync
PIM
(diary, contacts,
calendar, business
cards, ‘post-its’)
text, input, store,
share, print
synchronise
Source: Ovum
Figure 5 maps the main devices that currently support each core application cluster,
and flags those that are just starting to or have the potential to do so in the next two
years. This is by no means a definitive list and the mapping is broad, the aim being to
identify hotspots, biased towards mobile/portable CE devices. To what extent the
future developments are desirable is explored in the next section. We have carried
out an analysis of the different areas of content to see which have already gone
digital and which have not yet made that transition. We have then mapped these
clusters of applications onto device types to see where there may be opportunities for
new content or new device types.
21
Voice comms
Data comms
Video comms
Video Content
Information
Photos
Music
Games
PIM (individual/group)
Data catpure
Monitoring & control
Presentations/schematic drawing
Document manipulation
Figure 5 Device and application mapping
Fixed devices
PCs
Personal Video Recorder
(PVR - eg Tivo)
Media Players
(eg MS portable media
centre)
DTV
DVD Player
Games consoles
Digital notice board
(private/home)
Digital billboard (public)
Portable Hubs
Laptops
Connected PDA
Mobile phones
Media Player
Other mobile devices
Cars
Digital camera
Games consoles
Camcorder
Watches
Toys
Pens
Pagers
Bar code readers
Scanners
Meter readers
Biometric devices
Being done now
Potential for future development
22
Source: Ovum
The results show up a number of opportunity areas in consumer content and devices,
summarised in Figure 6.
A summary of the full analysis is shown in Annex A.
Figure 6 Future digital content and device opportunities
Opportunity
Digital
content
today?
Useable
on
portable
devices?
Remarks
Fridge door
noticeboard
No
No
A true content hub for most homes. No
equivalent exists in the digital world. Web
calendar software is starting to address
parts of this
Collective PIM
Starting
Starting
Difficult for consumers as no suitable
software or service exists to sync with all
necessary devices. Need to set up a
private web site. Group PIM does exist for
PCs in the corporate world
Always-on domestic
video calling
Yes
Starting
‘Skype video’ to a large screen in the
kitchen. Video calling on 3G got there first.
Ojos, Sony’s location-free broadband TV
and other devices are beginning to appear
Maps
Yes
Starting
Lots of digital mapping data exist, widely
used on the Internet, but it is largely not
accessible to mass-market portable
devices at mass-market prices
Magazines
Yes
Yes
Some ISP portals and e-zines provide
magazine-style services. Most mainstream
magazines have sophisticated websites.
However, main usage is of the printed
version, often in a mobile environment
Biometrics
Yes
Starting
Many specialist biometric devices exist.
Functionality is beginning on generalist
portable devices, e.g. fingerprint ID, badbreath monitor in phones
Home filing cabinet
No
No
The last bastion of analogue information for
consumers? Much of the content is
available in digital form, but most
companies (wrongly) do not see this as an
area where they can add value to
consumers
Source: Ovum
23
Developments that are needed to support these opportunities
In order for these opportunities to be realised there are two technical areas we would
flag that do not seem to be receiving enough attention at the right level (although
there are obviously many pockets of development work going on).
Synchronisation
The first area is much better synchronisation:
•
across devices and device types – it is bizarre that it is not yet possible to
synchronise a PDA directly to a mobile phone without using a PC in between
•
across groups of people – part of your information synchronises with office
systems, other parts synchronise with home systems – but both of those run from
the same device.
More than these, the synchronisation needs to be easier and more automatic. For
example, Cognima’s approach to background synchronisation of contacts and photos
is extremely powerful, and is a key piece of added value that operators could usefully
bundle in with phones (Most phone vendors’ approaches to synchronisation are
painful by comparison). However, Cognima’s software does not work across devices
– what we need is a sort of P2P or mesh architecture version, and we understand
Nokia is working on one for exchanging files. It’s not yet clear if this will include PIM
information.
Personal content management
The second area is personal content management software. This will involve naming,
tagging, storing, searching for and retrieving content across devices. When people
have three or four devices each offering 60Gb of storage, there is potential for
carrying a great deal of content, and a great deal of chaos in how it is managed. The
task of naming, tagging and filing this content must not be so onerous or boring that
people just give up.
Today, various bits of software address different slices of this:
•
iTunes
•
Nokia LifeBlog
•
Tinderbox
•
TheBrain
•
Google or Copernic Desktop search.
However, they all approach it from different angles, are generally designed with a
single device type in mind and generally do not work across devices. We suspect that
some cross-industry agreement and co-operation will be needed to get this area right,
unless a de-facto method appears quickly.
24
Evolution of form factors
Key messages on form factors
•
Mobile phone vendors have taken an approach to product evolution that is
unusual among consumer electronics vendors – they have encouraged us to buy
‘Swiss Army Knife’ products crammed full of features that often go unused. In
taking this approach, mobile phone vendors have wasted billions of dollars – up
to $5 billion during 2004 alone.
•
We are already seeing a backlash against this trend from operators, and we are
starting to see signs of a backlash from consumers.
•
The solution lies in better segmentation of users and usage, with devices better
optimised around use cases. Nokia pioneered this approach, and others are now
following.
•
Heavy laptops for portable use are practically criminal. As soon as a device
emerges that properly copes with the needs of travelling workers, people will take
to it in large numbers. Such a device does not exist yet, although there is a lot of
innovation in this area.
•
The three main hubs – laptop/connected PDAs, mobile phones and media
players will continue to evolve to provide considerable overlap across categories.
•
We expect to see most innovation in the connected PDA category, and in the
development of completely new product categories. For example, ultra-portable
PCs such as Microsoft’s UMPC, and Sony’s Vaio U or U750P.
•
There are a number of areas of opportunity, and several areas facing threats. We
expect the main threats will be felt by laptops as portable devices (though not in
their role as consumer desktop PCs) and by the current types of smartphones.
Consumer electronics product evolution
Most consumer electronic product categories have evolved by going deeper –by
becoming ever better at the specific job they do and serving a wider range of
segments in doing so. For example, cameras have evolved into very sophisticated
SLRs, as well as point-and-shoot, ultra-simple consumer devices. For most device
types, this trend has continued through the transformation from analogue to digital
content.
At the very least, products have gone deeper before broadening the scope of what
they do. For example, televisions do not yet commonly include a DVD player or a
digital TV decoder. This approach has the advantage of allowing vendors to extract
more value from the market – or to increase penetration of the point products to
higher levels by keeping costs/prices low.
A few product categories have bucked this trend and have evolved by expanding the
breadth of their functionality. Chief among these are PCs/laptops, PDAs and mobile
phones. In the case of mobile phones, the rush to do this, coupled with severe
limitations of screen, keyboard, processor, memory and battery, have meant that we
25
are just starting to emerge from several years of devices that contain a bad camera,
an inadequate media player, a weak video recorder and poor PIM software.
The result is that most people do not use many of the features in their phone. If we
guess that there are $5–10 of features that are not used on the average phone, this
amounts to a worldwide waste of about $5 billion during 2004.
The waste is now being compounded in some areas by operator customisation.
Operators are incurring additional costs themselves and on vendors to customise the
features – partly by making it more difficult for people to use features such as
Bluetooth.
Why has it gone this way? It has been a fast growing industry; vendors have
generally been profitable (more so than most consumer electronics companies); they
have been trying to create products that become hubs; and network operators have
been subsidising devices but are still very profitable. Lastly, demand has been very
strong.
The backlash
We expect to see a backlash against feature cramming of devices, for a number of
reasons:
•
many consumers are becoming less tolerant of over-complex devices offering
poor functionality
•
many consumers much prefer specialist devices that do the job properly, for
example the iPod or BlackBerry
•
operators are facing higher competition and are looking to squeeze opex and
remove – or at least reduce – subsidies on devices
•
consumers will be faced with lower subsidies, or the chance to get lower tariffs
from an MVNO that does not subsidise. Many will be price sensitive and will opt
to separate their cellular voice usage from other things they do on their portable
devices
•
most vendors are discovering the joys of segmentation.
Segmentation
Nokia was first to develop a sophisticated user segmentation model, and has been
using essentially the same map of users since the mid-1990s. Nokia has used this to
underpin its product design with products such as the 9000 Communicator, the Vertu
and the lipstick phone.
The great benefit of this approach is that the products can be more carefully
optimised around usage cases, so they are not full of redundant features. Also, more
effort is put into making them do the job properly, so they are more likely to be used
by consumers.
26
Other vendors are now joining in with customer segmentation models. Examples
include Motorola with its SLVR, RAZR, PEBL, ROKR products, Siemens, Samsung
and Sony Ericsson with the p910 and the Walkman phone.
Interestingly, phone vendors suffered from the difficulty of being so big and so fixated
on the concept of ‘the mobile phone’ that they were all caught out by RIM with the
BlackBerry.
Heavy laptops are practically a crime
Most people, when travelling, use their laptop for retrieving email, giving
presentations, doing small edits to documents, accessing the web or their company's
intranet for information and playing music while they do these things. Laptops are
generally over-specified and too heavy for carrying out these tasks.
Why do we carry these things around? The first problem is that companies will
generally only buy one device for mobile workers, then expect them to use it both in
mobile environments and (docked) in a desktop environment. The second problem is
that suitable substitute devices (and software) do not really exist yet.
Most innovation in form factor will occur around connected PDAs
The goal in this area is to make the Internet really usable on a mobile device. In turn,
this holds out the promise of opening up this product category into being a real
consumer market. Apart from the obvious form-factor difficulties (screen, user-input
and battery life), the task is made harder by the fact that we do not know enough
about who will use it, what they will want to use it for when mobile and what other
applications they will also want to use on the device.
Connected PDAs are good, but fall down on the user input method for editing
documents. They also lack some of the really common enterprise applications, such
as PowerPoint. Nokia is close with its 9500 Communicator, sharing many of the
admirable qualities of the Psion 5, although it currently falls down on integration with
VPNs and lack of stylus input. We understand that tablet PC sales are picking up well
after a slow start. Microsoft, Sony and others are trying to open up a new category of
ultra-portable PCs, which have a small PDA-like portable unit that docks with other
peripherals. Nokia has just released its 770 Internet tablet. Digital pens and electronic
paper are also emerging as a substitute, promising the electronic clipboard.
It is easy to see that this area has a number of segments, and that it will take some
time for a clear picture to emerge. During that time, vendors must experiment a great
deal to find out what really works.
For these reasons, plus the opportunity to cannibalise other neighbouring product
markets, we believe that the category of connected PDAs is where most innovation
with form factors will be seen.
27
Hubs will continue to evolve by overlapping with each other
The three main device hubs will be laptop/connected PDA, mobile phone and media
player, and these will continue to evolve to provide considerable overlap across
categories. Figure 7 shows the core application areas of laptop/connected PDA,
mobile phone and media player and their expected evolution in the future.
The laptop/connected PDA will become better at:
•
telephony (Skype clients, embedded wireless options especially cellular/3G)
•
home PC access.
In addition, we expect to see several variations on the existing form factors emerging
as vendors strive to push this category further into the consumer market.
Mobile phones will become better at:
•
handling entertainment media – pictures, video, music and games – this evolution
is well under way
•
handling email, work documents, calendar, web information
•
home PC/gateway access
•
gizmos such as biometrics.
Media players will become better at:
•
other entertainment media – pictures, video and games
•
messaging and web access
•
home PC/gateway access.
These moves will drive the evolution of form factors.
28
Figure 7 Hub evolution paths
Portable media players
Work
Life
Communications
Entertainment
Documents
PIM
Telephony
Video
Calendar
Web info
Messaging
Pictures
Web info
Home PC access
Music
Network access
Biometrics
Games
Email
Core application areas
Future application areas
Mobile phones
Work
Life
Communications
Entertainment
Documents
PIM
Telephony
Video
Calendar
Web info
Messaging
Pictures
Web info
Home PC access
Music
Email
Biometrics
Games
Network access
29
Laptop/connected PDA
Work
Life
Communications
Entertainment
Documents
PIM
Telephony
Video
Calendar
Web info
Messaging
Pictures
Web info
Home PC access
Music
Email
Biometrics
Games
Network access
Source: Ovum
Opportunity areas
The main areas of opportunity for form factors arising from the analysis in this report
are:
•
putting cameras into media players and portable media centres
•
putting hard disks into many forms of portable device (for example, phones,
cameras, camcorders and PDAs)
•
putting multi-Gb flash memory into many forms of portable device
•
putting WiFi or phone chips into laptops and media players and using a WiFi
business model for communications
•
putting good quality media players into phones – this is well under way
•
PodBerries – combination of email-based devices with a media player
•
putting outbound email into cameras, possibly with a Bluetooth link
•
connected PDAs
•
small tablet PCs
•
wirelessly-connected remote screen with built-in user interface – initially a
portable version for use at home, later a very portable (roll-up/folding) version for
30
mobile environments. This would need to work with being driven from PCs, PDAs,
phones and possibly TVs
•
standardised docking arrangements (possibly wireless) for portable devices to
link in with other systems at home and at work.
Areas under threat
From the analysis in this report, the main form factors that will come under threat are:
•
the current format of the smartphone, typified by the Sony Ericsson P910. Expect
a split between very high-end PDA type phones and simpler Symbian-based
devices (for example, good quality cameraphones)
•
heavy laptops as portable devices, although they will continue to be popular for
desktop use.
A cautionary word on convergence
The developments highlighted in this section have understandably created a lot of
excitement. However, there is a tendency to view convergence as the inevitable end
point in device evolution, whereas the reality is a continuum, and we should never
lose sight of the fact that it is necessary to serve multiple segments that have rather
distinct preferences.
Moreover, there are several powerful factors challenging convergence, including:
•
convergence is risky and expensive, particularly if an all-in-one device is the goal
•
personal area networking (PAN) technologies such as Bluetooth, Ultra Wide Band
and WiFi can undercut the need for convergence in certain scenarios
there are scenarios where convergence is possible, but users will not really need
or desire fully converged devices. For example, if a universal wireless docking
standard emerges, users may find that ad-hoc docking serves their needs,
allowing them to carry optimised and simpler specialist devices
•
convergence creates friction between players in the value chain, and is therefore
not in everyone’s best interest. Motorola’s iTunes phone highlights this nicely
•
users hate convergence when it makes their device or their work more
complicated.
31
Annex A: the impact of applications on device
developments
This is a top-level checklist of the impact key applications will have on devices in
terms of opportunities, convergence potential and, of course, the challenges.
Music
Digital music is currently one of the most widely supported types of digital content,
and has already spread across a wide range of devices. However, going forward,
some portable music download devices will disappear as user demand settles around
a smaller number of preferred devices for music consumption. The current generation
of portable media players need to improve considerably if they want to stand a
chance – they are expensive, slow and bulky. It gets interesting around the mobile
phone versus the Apple iPod, which are both ripe for convergence or a knock-out.
This has already been discussed above, but to recap – the iTunes phone (which
Motorola has announced) is on the face of it a strong contender, but the iTunes
business model works against this.
This kind of consolidation will not be an issue for devices in the home, because home
networking will enable music consumption across potentially any device – PC, DTV,
DVD player and so on.
Enhanced functionality (improved storage) or new features will be added to existing
devices – such as sophisticated music creation and mixing, and video.
A less likely scenario, but possible, is that music downloads are supported by a range
of thin client devices that will be used to play music, but not a lot else. Downloading,
mixing and storage will largely be the role of either a separate unit or taken on by a
personal media gateway.
Photos
As the specifications and quality of cameraphones improve, they will become the
preferred device for mass-market, non-professional consumer photography. High-end
standalone digital cameras will still exist for professional or very keen amateur
photographers.
In the consumer market, there is still room for fun convergence around toys and
gadgets. However, this is a low-value, high-volume game and will be limited to things
that are small, portable and capable of supporting decent screens.
Existing camera functionality will be enhanced, mainly around higher-specification
megapixel cameras, although once they start approaching 7 megapixels the device is
essentially an expensive, niche product.
32
Enhanced functionality around storage is an opportunity, and it does not necessarily
have to be on the device – it could be via memory cards, synchronisation with PCs, a
home server or a network-based solution.
There is also value around enhanced image manipulation (such as photo editing) and
printing features from a device (mini Polaroids), although this imposes memory and
battery challenges in the case of mobile devices. More ‘out there’ enhancements
could include a wireless-enabled digital camera or cameraphone with a translation
application – for example, take a snap of a road sign, directions or a menu and get a
translation.
Games
Convergence around games has largely focused around mobile phones and personal
media players. However, in all cases games are an added feature and have not
turned the device into something else, the exception being the Nokia N-Gage, which
is designed to be a games device first, and a phone second.
Going forward, we think there could be convergence around MP3 players and
gadgets such as watches and even toys capable of supporting a screen in a way that
does not compromise the nature of the toy.
However, there is a strong case for divergence when it comes to games. For
example, PAN technology could be used to support gaming via a non-integrated
personal media gateway plus a console/mobile phone.
Video content
The ability to support video content is a hot sport for device vendors from the
consumer multimedia and mobile phone world, and both sides are vying to have their
device as the preferred consumer platform, most notably around personal media
players and video-capable smartphones. MP3 players could feasibly join the fray with
support for video download and playback. Games console vendors are also
interested in video content. Consumer electronics devices could take convergence to
the next stage and introduce wireless connectivity of some kind.
However, in the longer term there will be consolidation, as with music devices, as
users settle on a preferred portable platform.
Meanwhile, there are immediate opportunities to add value by improving functionality
and features – video content manipulation, storage and better and bigger screens. Of
course, all these features will push up device costs.
Document manipulation
Move beyond the PC and laptops and this becomes a very challenging. At the
moment, PDAs and high-end professional smartphones have added a few selected
functions to enhance document manipulation around document creation and editing
but not much else, although printing solutions would be a logical step.
33
Devices supporting this application cluster need large screens, sophisticated input
mechanisms, large memory and battery life, and secure storage plus enhancements
such as printing and scanning, either directly from the device or elsewhere.
Devices must also be capable of transferring documents with other devices that a
user might want to work from – PC at home, PDA on the way to work/college, a
laptop at work/college and so on. Another option would be to provide access to a
personal server for file sharing and back-up.
Presentations/schematic drawing
Devices supporting this application group face similar challenges to document
manipulation, although the demands on memory, storage and battery life will be more
intense. A large, good-quality integrated screen is desirable, but not necessarily
mandatory if the device in question can hook up with a monitor or support a
multimedia projector.
There are possibilities here for PDAs and niche smartphones for verticals.
Information
Information services are valuable, but will not radically affect device developments.
Instead, there will be a greater dissemination of information services across a wider
range of devices. For example, digital billboards (public) and digital noticeboards
used in the home or office.
Video and broadcast will enhance the experience and quality of news services, and
this will mean devices with large, good quality screens. Good storage will be a
requirement for news services people will want to keep (for varying lengths of time),
such as instructions, maps or lectures.
Monitoring and controlling
This is about adding a very specific functionality and represents a type of niche
convergence, albeit a very big one. There is obviously huge potential for embedded
devices, but that is outside the scope of this report. For mobile and portable devices
there are some interesting opportunities; for example, developments are underway to
allow mobile devices to remotely control the home environment (such as utilities and
security). They could also be used to support biometrics such as monitoring blood
pressure, stress and body fat.
PIM
There is great scope for PIM to proliferate across a greater range of devices beyond
the typical PDAs, mobile phones, PCs and laptops. Portable devices such as MP3
players and personal media players are candidates, as are devices appropriate to
group PIM. For example, a private digital noticeboard in the home for family diary and
to-do lists. Devices such as digital cameras are not likely candidates because they
are not personal and are more occasional use devices.
34
However, all potential devices require good security and back-up, input mechanisms,
synchronisation and, if utilising group PIM, the ability to share information across a
range of devices.
Data capture
This is an emerging application for mobile phones, but one where there is potential.
The most common application currently supported is reading barcodes; for example,
in the form of an MMS image that can be scanned into an EPOS system with a
barcode reader. The main problem here is that most mobile barcode solutions require
proprietary scanning equipment at the point of sale.
However, the impact of data capture in terms of form factor developments will not be
major, and for identification applications the focus of innovation will be around SIM
cards and software.
Video communications
The overwhelming requirement is good quality camcorders and large, good quality
screens. For video capture applications, the design needs to be optimised to provide
a user friendly experience in a small device, which is a big challenge. A good
example of this is the new Nokia N90 video phone. The clever design provides what
Nokia aptly terms the ‘familiarity of the new’. It has a twist and shoot concept that
literally turns the device into a digital camera. It can then be rotated to reveal a
second screen that flips up and gives the device the form factors associated with a
traditional video camera.
Video is a demanding application that requires decent memory and storage –
basically the more the better, but this obviously pushes up the bill of materials. Video
editing applications will also be important – users will expect the same features on a
phone that they have with a standalone video recorder.

Next_Generation_Devices

Transcription

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