In the modern digital age, there has been no moment that has been as disruptive as what humanity is experiencing today amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. The IoT world has been shocked as the promise has been stripped away as enterprise budgets have withered as have their IoT ambitions. Yet, now more than ever, we need innovation. The IoT industry must adapt and rethink how they approach a very different market in a highly abnormal reality that may be with us for a while.
Category: Internet of Things
SMB Resilience Amid COVID-19
You are a small or medium-size business in the midst of a global pandemic that is constricting your business as governments order “non-essential” businesses to shutdown and growing consumer angst crush business activity and demand. What do you do? What can you do to survive and thrive? For many industries, surviving will require businesses to dramatically rethink the notion of business model, go-to-market approach, supply chain, sales channels, people and modality of work. All of this needs to happen with the consideration of the health and safety of employees and customers against the persistent threat of the coronavirus pandemic.
The 5G Autonomous Edge: The Next Frontier of Digital Business Innovation
5G, AI, and the cloud are intersecting to unlock real-time autonomous capabilities at the edge. This evolution represents an inflection point for edge computing and a new frontier for business innovation and reinvention. Discover the potential of ubiquitous intelligence, edge cloud computing, and autonomous infrastructure to transform our world from the age of digital business to autonomous enterprise.
Tech Insight: Debunking 5G Myths & Hype
5G is here,.. but what does that mean. Apparently, it means a lot of things due to the myths and the hype that have characterized the next-generation mobile wireless technology and its early rollout by operators beginning in early 2019. Given the deafening media and marketing noise that has drowned out the 5G signal, it is difficult to figure out what is real and what is, quite simply, fake. What are the facts that debunk the myths and hype so that we can get to the value of 5G?
Industry Insight: Jio Platforms and Facebook Driving Digital India
Facebook’s recent investment and partnership with Jio Platforms was met with a great deal of media and industry excitement. This move was widely touted as a coming of age of Digital India. The largest US tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft are looking to expand their global fortunes in the new digital economic frontier that is India with its 1.32 billion large consumer market. What is really at stake here and what does it mean in the broader context of India’s economic digitization?
Industry Insight: Microsoft’s Flight to the Hyper-converged Edge Cloud
In the last three months, Microsoft has been on a tear building out its portfolio of 5G core and virtualized network service management technologies having acquired Affirmed Networks, and most recently, Metaswitch. The acquisition of these telecom tech companies by the leading enterprise IT technology company and cloud service provider may seem curious at first, but these transactions highlight the acceleration of a transformative trend that we at neXt Curve dubbed Under-the-Bottom (UTB) in our 2019 technology horizon study for Ofcom, the United Kingdom’s communications and media sector regulator.
COVID-19 Pandemic: the Crucible of 5G Innovation and Leadership
Necessity is the mother of invention. There has been no moment of need in modern times as urgent as what we face today as humanity grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic. In three months, the virus has spread to over 180 countries around the globe, infecting millions, and has arrested the largest and smallest of economies. At the same time, it has created an unprecedented need for connectivity and communications. Now, more than ever, unconventional thinking and leadership as well as innovative applications of technologies such as 5G are dire necessities for addressing the many COVID-19-related challenges that are disrupting millions of lives and jeopardizing trillions in economic value.
Smart Living: Moving Beyond the Smart Home
For years the Smart Home has promised to enrich the lives of consumers and has inspired waves of manufacturer innovation such as smart speakers, intelligent thermostats and much more. While these innovations have offered incremental improvement in our home lives, the consumer reality has been a deluge of devices and services, greater complexity, and less security. In truth, the Smart Home remains elusive, the problems it intends to solve unclear. Only when manufacturers reach beyond devices and services with purpose-driven “Smart Living” solutions at home will this market cross the chasm to rapid market growth.
Industry Insight: Three’s Company – T-Mobile and Sprint Merger Approved
The approval of the $26.5 billion T-Mobile and Sprint merger by a federal court in New York opens the gates for a long awaited deal close. Contested by thirteen US states as a marriage that would water down competition and cause harm to the consumer, the transaction is expect to create a formidable third telecommunications player in the US market. The hopes and fears associated with the combined company will depend on thoughtful integration and realization of compelling synergies that could substantially change the competitive dynamic of the US telecommunications industry.
5G: The Opportunity for the Emerging Markets to Drive Innovation
The global race for 5G is on with operators in advanced markets such as the US, South Korea leading the way with the first deployments of 5G networks in their respective markets. Given all the excitement and hype that has shrouded 5G over the last couple of years, telecom operators around the world are under pressure to jump on the 5G bandwagon as governments push to position their economies for the digital era. Especially for the U.S. and China, 5G has become a strategic economic imperative that both countries believe will determine the economy and doctrine that will lead in our digital future. But what does the 5G race mean for the emerging and developing markets? Do operators in these markets have the opportunity to rethink the network to enable new economic possibilities in the era of 5G?