The end of the year is approaching, and market research firm IDC today came out with its annual list of Top 10 Predictions for the technology market. The forecasts, working on the themes of “recovery and transformation,” include some surprises.

IDC researchers foresee the number of applications in Apple’s (s AAPL) App Store tripling to 300,000, but TheAppleBlog today says that number is too low. It’s predicting half a million apps will be available — “minimum.” IDC also sees the much-rumored iPad tablet arriving from Apple.

Among other predictions, IDC expects the rate of growth in the number of Android applications to outpace iPhone app development, with fivefold growth next year. The research firm is also bullish on cloud computing:

Cloud computing will expand and mature as we see a strategic battle for cloud platform leadership, new public cloud hotspots, private cloud offerings, cloud appliances, and offerings that bridge public and private clouds.

[related-posts align="right" tag="Mobile"]That last forecast — that hybrid public/private cloud deployments will pick up steam, is rapidly gaining traction among analysts. IDC also foresees enterprises helping drive “a watershed year in the ascension of mobile devices as strategic platforms for commercial and enterprise developers,” with over 1 billion mobile devices accessing the Internet. And it predicts “a frenetic pace of M&A activity” returning to the tech market next year, driven by changes in the IT industry.

Here are other predictions from today’s report:

• Growth will return to the IT industry in 2010. IDC predicts 3.2 percent growth for the year, returning the industry to 2008 spending levels of about $1.5 trillion.
• 2010 will also see improved growth and stability in the worldwide telecommunications market, with spending predicted to increase 3 percent.
• Emerging markets will lead the IT recovery, with BRIC countries growing 8-13 percent.
• Public networks — more important than ever — will continue their aggressive evolution to fiber and 3G and 4G wireless. 4G will be overhyped, more wireless networks will become “invisible,” and the FCC will regulate over-the-top VoIP.
• Rising energy costs and pressure from the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference will make sustainability a source of renewed opportunity for the IT industry in 2010.
• Business applications will undergo a fundamental transformation — fusing them with social/collaboration software and analytics into a new generation of “socialytic” apps, challenging current market leaders.
• Other industries will come out of the recession with a transformation agenda and look to IT as an increasingly important lever for these initiatives. Smart meters and electronic medical records will hit important adoption levels.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

A research firm looks into the near future and sees … an Apple “iPad” next year

Apple (AAPL) figures prominently in IDC’s top 10 predictions for the coming year, released Thursday and available here (registration required). The relevant bullet points:

• The “iPad” will finally arrive. Last year, we predicted that we would not see the then-rumored Apple tablet in 2009. This year, however, we predict that Apple will finally introduce this new device family, which is more of an oversized (8in., 10in.) iPod Touch than a downsized Mac — and if you look at the developer energy around the iPhone/Touch platform, this should be no surprise at all. This prediction is a no-brainer: there’s enormous appeal in sizing up the iPhone/Touch for a variety of applications and activities that people already use those devices for but would jump at the chance to have a larger screen — watching videos/movies, reading books/magazines/newspapers (it would take a big bite from the Kindle), surfing the Web, videophone, and online gaming. Look for Apple’s “iPad” by year-end 2010. Oh, and don’t be surprised to see Microsoft also announce its own device in this space. … One big question for 2010 is which way Apple will go with 3G connectivity for the iPad — private labeling a wireless carrier’s network as “AppleNet” or simply merchandising carriers’ wireless subscriptions through the iTunes store.

• Over 1 billion mobile devices will access the Internet in 2010. IDC predicts that, for the first time, there will be over 1 billion mobile devices accessing the Internet by year-end, gaining quickly on the 1.3 billion PCs accessing the Internet (the former are growing at 2.5 times the rate of the latter). The most strategic portion of these mobile devices are converged mobile devices (aka smartphones), including Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s BlackBerry, and Nokia’s smartphone lineup, as well as the growing number of phones running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, Google’s Android, and Symbian^1 (notably Nokia). Over 200 million of these devices — which are distinguished by their ability to run third-party applications — will ship in 2010, representing 16% of the market; we predict that by 2013, they will account for over 20%. Of course, it wouldn’t be the IT industry if price points didn’t keep coming down: look for more sub-$150 smartphones to come on the scene in 2010, accelerating the market.
• Developer — and application — momentum will continue to shift dramatically to mobile devices. At least as important as the number of mobile devices are the frenzied developer energy and application volume building around mobile platforms — most obviously, but by no means exclusively, around the iPhone. There are now over 100,000 iPhone apps listed on Apple’s iTunes store, up from 10,000 a year ago — that’s an annual growth rate of 900%. As a point of comparison, there are on the order of 10,000 Windows PC applications listed on Microsoft’s Windows 7 compatibility Web site. We predict at least 300,000 iPhone applications by the end of 2010, many of the new apps coming from well-known Global 2000 business and consumer brands — and attracting more consumers and businesspeople to these platforms as their most commonly and heavily used clients.

For a summary of the rest of the document, and quotes from an interview with IDC chief analyst Frank Gens, see Steve Lohr’s piece in today’s New York Times.

Below: An IDC-produced video of Gens describing the highlights of his findings.

[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]

Fornecedores estruturam oferta. CEO da Plusoft acredita que aplicativos de gestão de clientes serão vendidos apenas como serviço
 

Os sistemas de gestão de clientes (CRM, na sigla em inglês) evoluíram consideravelmente ao longo dos últimos anos e ganharam espaço no universo corporativo. Um pouco pelo aperfeiçoamento tecnológico, um tanto devido à evangelização sobre as potencialidades da ferramenta e muito graças às lições aprendidas nos meses de turbulência econômica – informação virou um artigo valioso no direcionamento de estratégias.

No primeiro semestre, a IDC percorreu 339 empresas brasileiras e descobriu que uma das três prioridades dos CEOs vincula-se a entender melhor e aprimorar o atendimento aos clientes. “Durante o período de crise, muitas empresas descobriram que tinham pouca ou nenhuma informação para tomar decisões”, comenta Reinaldo Roveri, gerente de análise de mercado da consultoria no País, apontando que CRM e BI, assim, entraram mais fortemente na pauta.

Pelo que mostram os acontecimentos, a proliferação dos conceitos de web 2.0 impulsionarão transformações ainda mais profundas nesse tipo de tecnologia e impactarão as rotinas dos usuários. Duas orientações são latentes: o advento da computação em nuvem que transforma quase tudo em serviço e a importância das redes sociais.

Fornecedores estão atentos a essas duas frentes. “Em um prazo de três anos, não enxergo mais a venda de licenças de CRM”, prevê Guilherme Porto, CEO da fabricante nacional desse tipo de ferramenta Plusoft, acreditando que esses aplicativos serão vendidos como serviço (SaaS, na sigla em inglês). O executivo apoia sua afirmação numa orientação percebida junto aos seus clientes. “Hoje, em 50% das cotações, os clientes já pedem opções tanto no modelo de venda quanto no de locação de software”, avalia o executivo, citando que há cerca de dois anos, o porcentual girava na casa dos 15%.

Roveri, da IDC, é um pouco mais conservador nas previsões, mas compartilha a visão do executivo. “Este modelo de entrega (SaaS) é uma forte tendência”, avalia, sem precisar uma data para transformação completa no modelo de venda dos sistemas. O especialista justifica sua opinião com a atratividade da compra “como serviço”, a capacidade de otimização do fluxo de caixa e ao avanço das redes e da internet.

Os provedores de tecnologia atentaram-se para a tendência e traçam suas estratégias. Nesse campo de batalha, a Microsoft luta com seu CRM Online; a Oracle contra-ataca com o CRM on Demand e a Salesforce.com tenta ostentar o estandarte de um dos ícones e pioneira no mercado de sistemas de gestão de clientes no modelo SaaS.

Assim como seus concorrentes internacionais, a Plusoft quer aproveitar as mensagens do mercado e atender as duas tendências que se anunciam. Há cerca de três meses, a empresa investiu R$ 700 mil em desenvolvimento e fechou parceria para hospedar uma versão “as a service” de seu CRM nos data centers do UOL. De acordo com Porto, a tecnologia é um dos ingredientes da “loja de aplicativos” anunciada pela unidade de host da empresa de internet.

Dois contratos – ambos por um prazo de 36 meses – foram fechados até o momento. O acordo, com uma universidade e uma empresa do setor agroquímico, contempla 56 posições comercializadas a R$ 189, cada.

Porto estima que a iniciativa de CRM SaaS represente entre 18 e 20% do faturamento (não revelado) da Plusoft no ano de 2010 e ajudar a companhia a ingressar em uma camada de clientes de médio porte. A ferramenta, por exemplo, poderá ser comercializada pelo UOL, que pagará comissão à fabricante.

O software de gestão desenvolvido pela companhia nacional se divide em seis partes. Uma delas, lançado no final de agosto, alinha-se justamente à outra tendência que permeia o mercado. Batizado de iCustomer, o módulo mapeia e analisa redes sociais.

Em meados de novembro, a Salesforce.com – um dos expoentes no fornecimento de CRM no modelo SaaS – apresentou a ferramenta Chatter. O sistema é um mix entre uma aplicação de colaboração corporativa e uma plataforma de desenvolvimento social, provando que os conceitos de web 2.0 se enraízam no mercado. 

Para muitos o título desse artigo pode parecer sensacionalista, mas diante de algumas informações publicadas dias atrás, no caderno de negócios do El País, um dos jornais mais influentes do globo, o drama tem seu motivo. Segundo a matéria, dentro de alguns meses será difícil encontrar algum netbook à venda nas lojas.

O motivo da afirmação é que quando os mesmos foram introduzidos no mercado, seu principal alvo era os mercados emergentes, ou em desenvolvimento. Por possuírem um baixo custo de produção, seu valor final também manteve-se baixo, e consequentemente as margens de lucros também são reduzidas.

O problema é que um produto desenhado exclusivamente para um público de baixo pode aquisitivo, se tornou fenômeno nos países do norte, e apenas em 2008 foram comercializados 12 milhões de unidades, sendo que esse número vem crescendo. Segundo a consultoria IDC, nesse ano as vendas já passam de 26 milhões de unidades, e olha que ainda nem chegou o Natal, umas das épocas que mais vende eletrônicos.

Diante da margem minúscula de lucro, muitas fabricantes já encontraram outro caminho para voltar a aumentar o faturamento, com linhas chamadas de miniportáteis, ultrafinos, e por aí vai, portando recursos adicionais, como tela maior, entre outras coisas.

No entanto, segundo o jornal, a salvação dos aparelhinhos pode ser as operadoras de telefonia. Por exemplo, na Espanha as operadoras Vodafone, Orange e Telefónica já oferecem um netbook com planos de conectividade 3G associado. No caso da Vodafone, é oferecido um modelo Dell de graça em troca de uma tarifa mensal de 50 euros, pela utilização da rede de dados. No Brasil muitas operadoras já subsidiam aparelhos em troca de clientes que aderem a planos mensais consideráveis, e quero acreditar que esses mesmos países que possibilitaram o nascimento do netbook, também possam salva-lo.

Hi! This is my blog about my work done as an Interaction Designer in IDC, IIT Bombay. You can find here my updated portfolio and resume.

Shareholders press Microsoft’s CEO about Apple’s marketing campaign

Image: Apple Inc.

Those Get-a-Mac ads make “you all look like a buffoon,” one long-time shareholder (and father of four Mac-using children) told Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer at the company’s annual meeting Thursday. “I’m just wondering why your marketing group can’t do something to try to rein in this next generation, because you’ve got a real bad image out there.”

“We all watch television,” Ballmer responded, before quickly changing the subject to Microsoft’s market share.

“The truth of the matter is, we do quite well,” he said, according to TechFlash’s Todd Bishop, who seems to have taken the best notes. “Even among college students, we do quite well. Do we have an opportunity for improvement? We do. Some of that is marketing, some of that is phase of life. It is important to remember that 96 times out of 100 worldwide, people choose a PC with Windows; that’s a good thing. Even in the toughest market, which would be the high end of the consumer market here in the U.S., 83 times out of 100 people choose a Windows PC over a Mac.”

Ballmer acknowledged that Apple (AAPL) had “picked up a couple of tenths of a percent of market share,” an achievement some in the audience seemed to find laughable.

But as the Wall Street Journal’s Nick Wingfield points out, citing IDC numbers, Apple’s share of new PC shipments in the U.S. was 9.2% in the third quarter, up from 4.8% in the same period four years ago. (Worldwide share: 3.9% compared with 2.4% four years ago.)

Wingfield also took a crack at estimating how many copies of Window 7 Microsoft has sold, a number the company has not provided.

Source: Morgan Stanley. Click to enlarge.

According to Ballmer, Microsoft sold twice as many copies of Windows 7 in its first few weeks than any previous version of the operating system. Since Vista sold 20 million copies in its first month on the market, that would put Windows 7 unit sales to date at roughly 40 million.

That number includes both boxed copies and copies sold to PC makers for pre-installation on their machines, according to a Microsoft spokesperson. Sales of PC hardware spiked sharply immediately after the Oct. 22 launch (see chart at right).

See also:

• PC sales spike with Windows 7 debut
• How Apple is gaining on Microsoft
• Windows 7, like it or not

[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]

Last week we announced the release of 6 new translations, and we’re pleased to release 2 more translations this week and dish out some much deserved credit to the awesome folks behind them:

• Polish – miguelm75
• Slovene – Marck Goran Lrencin, Aleš Gabrovec

IntenseDebate is now available in 20 languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, English, Estonian, Filipino, French, German, Italian, Lithuanian, Malay, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Slovene, Latin American Spanish, European Spanish, and Ukrainian. And there are more on the way!

These translations are available in your Blog Settings page at IntenseDebate.com.

We’re looking forward to making more translations available for use as they continue to get completed. So far we’ve received volunteers to help translate these additional languages (let us know if you would like to help with any of these!):

Don’t see your language? Give us a hand!
If you’re interested in getting involved, now is the perfect time! Please email us at labs@intensedebate.com for information. Ideally we’d like to have at least two Iñtërnâtiônàlizætiønër’s working together for each translation. Thanks!

Deixando um pouco de lado os produtos voltados para gamers, o “sistema-em-um-chip” TEGRA é um dos filhos favoritos da NVidia. Voltado para dispositivos portáteis, o processador está presente em smartphones, PDAs e diversos outros aparelhos.

Mas por essa você não esperava: a fabricante IDC lançou um… ímã de geladeira (isso mesmo) equipado com Tegra. OK, o “ímã” na verdade é uma espécie de computador touchscreen para ser utilizado na cozinha.

O Vega, como é chamado o dispositivo, pode ser usado para chat, conversa por voz, acessar e-mail e web, e reproduzir arquivos de mídia e até mesmo games, segundo a fabricante.

Seu sistema operacional é o Android Eclair, e a tela mede 15.6 polegadas. Há portas para USB 2.0 e cartão Micro SD, aém de conectividade Bluetooth e 3G. O Vega também é equipado com uma webcam de 1.3 megapixels.

Fonte: Adrenaline

INDIA CALLING: A call centre professional at work. Market research firm IDC forecasts a boom in the Indian BPO industry

 With around 500 firms sending out promotional messages or calling up for bill payment reminders, the domestic call centre market is seen growing 33 percent per year, says leading global market research and analytics firm IDC.

This apart, the domestic call centre industry, now estimated at $1.62 billion, will also evolve into a third party outsourcing relationships from the existing model where such work is largely done by companies themselves.

“This implies that rather than merely running isolated processes for customers, business process outsourcers would also engage more deeply to identify and transform core business processes to add greater market value in the creation and delivery of end products and services,” IDC said.

The industry currently offers a wide range of services from customer care to research. Banking, financial services and insurance segment contributes the lion’s share of 37 percent to revenues, followed by telecom accounting for 25 percent.

Other verticals such as services for energy utilities and companies in food, auto, aerospace, consumer durables and government contribute 17 percent to the revenues, while travel trade segment contributes 8 percent.

“The domestic business process outsourcing (BPO) market shows promise of growth, especially in such verticals like banking, financial services and insurance segment and telecom in the short term,” says Arpan Gupta, a senior analyst with IDC India.

“The concern areas for the industry that services overseas customers — such as rupee-dollar volatility, rising infrastructure costs in Tier-I cities, over-dependence on North American and European markets — are expected to have minimal impact on the domestic sector.”

Once some mega outsourcing deals come through and players start offering more services in regional languages, the industry will be able to achieve the growth target over $6.8 billion over the next five years.

Non-English call centres in Tier-II and Tier-III centres, providing services to telecom and aviation sectors at a lower cost will add to the growing industry, said the report.

However, higher training costs in such cities and lack of availability of an adequate talent pool continues to be an area of concern for players, the report added.

Voice processes in the Indian domestic BPO market contribute 55 percent to the overall domestic revenues while non-voice market makes up the rest.

“As the industry enhances focus on Human Resource Outsourcing (HRO), Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO), billing and high-end analytics, the BPO market would see a gradual shift from Voice processes to non-Voice processes,” said Gupta.

When people are in the job hunting process, we at ProTrain True North tell them to make sure to list their computer skills.  This way, prospective employers know that you meet the job qualifications quickly.

When reviewing resumes I see a lot of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, QuickBooks, and even the occasional Lotus or WordPerfect.  But something I heard on a CNET podcast shocked me and has shown me that one group of applications is sorely missing from this list on every resume:  GoogleDocs

A study from the market research firm IDC said that 19% of companies widely use Google Docs in the workplace.  Wow, 19%!  1 in every 5 companies use a software package that is not anywhere on any resume I have EVER seen in the past three years.  Everyone from laborers to professional level job seekers lacked this computer skill set on their resume.

Q: Why do I need Google Docs when I know Microsoft Word?

There are two very good reasons:

A1:  Because 1 out of 5 companies use it.

A2:  Because 1 out of 5 companies use it.

To slightly alter a quote from Kryten on the TV show Red dwarf, “I realize that, technically speaking, that’s only one” answer, “but I thought it was such a big one it was worth mentioning twice.”

OK, there is a minor third reason.

A3:  Because Google Docs is not a replacement for Microsoft Word.  Google Docs is something you use in addition to Microsoft Word.  The biggest thing going for Google Docs is that it is collaborative.  It helps with productivity of groups or projects.

Communication and work flow is always a huge issue for companies. If a company you want to work for does not use Google Docs, you can impress them with a proposed solution of collaboration with a single one of your software skills.

If Google Docs is not on your resume, here is your action plan:

1)      Go to the website and see what it can do.  But be aware that the video is VERY cheesy.  http://docs.google.com

2)      Google (or Bing / Yahoo) what you can find out about it and how others are using it.

3)      Sign up for Google Docs. And play with it.

4)      Put it on your resume. Just knowing the software does not help.  You need to put it on your resume.

5)      Get someone else to sign up too and share documents.  (Collaborating with yourself is like playing chess with yourself.  It is possible, but not as fun.)

6)      Check out YouTube and other online tutorials.  Or sign up for a class.

7)      Figure out how you can apply it to your next job and how you could have used it with your previous job.

With a 1 in 5 chance of applying to a company that uses Google Docs, I suggest you play the odds.  And it is likely that other job seekers won’t.

Extra Information:

CNET podcast (Buzz Out Loud #1065)

The ICD story originates from InfoWorld.  “IDC surveyed 262 people, a significant number of whom are senior managers at various-sized businesses,…”

Even if IDC is off by fifty percent for some reason, 1 out of every 10 businesses using Google Docs is still huge.  My recommendation would still stand.

A little while back we opened up IntenseDebate for localization, and we received over 100 volunteers to help translate IntenseDebate to 43 languages.  Within a couple of weeks we were able to launch translations for 11 languages: Arabic, Croatian, Filipino, French, German, Malay, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Latin American Spanish, European Spanish, and Ukrainian. This week we’re excited to release 6 additional translations.

Here are the new languages that we’re releasing, along with the awesome folks who contributed to each translation:

• Bulgarian – Rado Stoyanov and his team
• Catalan – afontcu
• Estonian – Helari Hellenurm
• Italian – Tiziano Fogliata, Andrea Torre, Aldo Latino
• Lithuanian – Darius, Gintausas Kaveckas
• Slovak – terchulak

These translations are available in your Blog Settings page at IntenseDebate.com.

We’re looking forward to making more translations available for use as they continue to get completed.  So far we’ve received volunteers to help translate these additional languages:

Don’t see your language? Give us a hand!
If you’re interested in getting involved, now is the perfect time! Please email us at labs@intensedebate.com for information. Ideally we’d like to have at least two Iñtërnâtiônàlizætiønër’s working together for each translation. Thanks!

I just saw the great blog post ‘Bringing the Right People to the Table’ by IDC’s Michael Gerard from November 4, 2009:

“In my prior blog ['Survey Says: "Put Away the Generic Pitch!"'] I spoke a lot about the need for sales to have deeper, two-way conversations with customers. As I have these discussions with sales operations and sales executives, there’s much discussion about sales enablement for “sales reps” and “sales teams”; however, the need for sales reps to better leverage their own immediate and extended team (i.e., sales, marketing and engineering) as part of the sales process receives little attention.

I included a chart in my last blog from some of our customer experience research indicating that one of the top messages buyers are telling us is that sales reps need to “bring the right people to the table”. This may be intuitive and standard practice for the “A” reps, however, how are we ensuring that we’re making this as easy as possible for the “A” reps and equipping our “B” reps with the knowledge and capabilities to accomplish this task? Are you expecting your front line sales individuals to know too much? And to what extent are you providing these reps with the knowledge and capabilities to best leverage expertise within your organization to approach clients with the best “team”?

Questions to ask yourself about your current state in this area include:

1. Are my sales reps sufficiently fluent in our customers’ language (and needs) and our companies’ products and solutions to have a deep conversation with customers?
2. Do sales reps know when to bring in the right people for customer engagements? (e.g., presales engineers, industry specialists, subject matter experts (SMEs))
3. How do sales reps access SMEs for questions? (e.g., SME access through your internal sales enablement application; leverage of internal social media capabilities to get questions answered)
4. What process do you have in place to help reps justify the need for more resources for an account and/or opportunity? (e.g., through the account planning and opportunity management process)
5. How do you ensure that sales reps always know where to go for information? (e.g., One sales exec. indicated at a recent Sales Leadership Board Meeting that “Our sales teams are not seeking information on a daily basis; therefore, they continuously forget it exists or where to get it.”)

It’s not always what you know, but who you know. And leveraging expertise across the organization can, in may cases, be the difference between winning or losing a deal.”

Please leave your comments at the original post ‘Bringing the Right People to the Table’.

Michael’s post beautifully highlights the need to find a common language for conversations inside (only with a common vocabulary across all regions/divisions of your enterprise will you be able to leverage internal social media capabilities to get questions answered) and outside your enterprise.

Let me relate this to one slide from a recently published slide show on Sales Enablement by SVA BizSphere AG (@BizSphere), which is getting a lot of attention on Twitter, on SlideShare and amongst Sales Enablement experts:

This slide looks complicated but basically it just shows the different personas in your sales enablement ecosystem.

They all will have better conversations within your enterprise and with the customer when all the content they access and share uses a common vocabulary (that takes into account how your customers speak) and is tagged within the dimensions of an agreed upon information architecture:

1. The persona of the information architect (A persona doesn’t have to be a full-time job. It is more like a hat you are wearing during a task.) analyses how sales people consume information and what vocabulary resonates with the customer.
2. Then the dimensions of what BizSphere calls the ‘InfoSpace’ (= the context / the information architecture) are being built and adapted. One dimension could be customer needs.
3. Your product marketing folks publish their content into the context and cannot not structure it by the agreed upon vocabulary.
4. Your sales reps learn the common language they should speak with the customer in, always know where to go to for information and are encouraged to do so on a daily basis.

When the place to go to for information Michael mentions above, has such a context where everything is structured the same way, it is quite the contrary to the silos of information you find in most enterprises today.

Gerhard Gschwandtner (@gerhard20), the Sales 2.0 and Sales Enablement expert from SellingPower.com, commented on the slide show:

“Great presentation! I think that this solution is head and shoulders ahead of some of your competitors I’ve written about recently in this post ‘Is Sales Enablement just Lipstick on a Knowledge Management Pig?’“

Even SlideShare – where the document can be downloaded – recognized its success:

“BizSphere Sales Enablement – 2009Q4″ is being tweeted more than any other document on SlideShare right now. So we’ve put it on the homepage of SlideShare.net (in the “Hot on Twitter” section).

The expected Canadian mobile phone market recovery will have to wait at least another quarter, says IDC. The market was down 8% in the third quarter of 2009, which marked the third straight sequential decline. Handset makers shipped 4% fewer units to wireless service providers and other channel partners in the third quarter when compared to the same quarter last year despite double-digit converged mobile device growth.

Kevin Restivo, lead analyst for IDC’s Mobile Phone Tracker in Canada, attributed the weaker-than-expected performance to the tepid Canadian economy, shrinking traditional phone segment, and a desire on the part of the country’s largest wireless service providers to clear out inventory in preparation for network launches.

It’s also a step backwards when compared to the market performance in the second quarter of this year – third quarter shipments declined 1.7% compared to 2Q09.

The Canadian market performance stands in stark contrast to that of the United States, which posted positive results, as converged mobile devices and prepaid handsets drove growth for the world’s largest mobile phone market.

IDC still expects Canadian mobile phone manufacturers to ship approximately 3% fewer devices on a sell-in basis when compared to 2008 due to lower overall demand caused primarily by the weaker economy.

Information Technology will be an employment machine, generating 5.8 million new jobs in the coming four years, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) research released last month.

IDC predicts that the IT industry will be an engine powering economies out of economic doldrums, creating more than 75,000 new businesses in the next 4 years and adding job at a rate of 3 percent annually.

Sanallar, gerçek korsan kopyalara akan parayı kesebilir… IDC araştırmalarına göre 2006 yılında Türkiye’de kişisel bilgisayarlarda kullanılan yazılımlardan lisanssız olanların oranı %64 gibi çok büyük bir değerdi. Geçen yıllar içinde bu oranda çok büyük bir değişiklik de olmadı. Türkiye’de bilişim teknolojileri çok fark edilmese de gerçekten istihdama, vergi gelirlerine ve GSYİH’ya katkısı çok büyük olan bir sektör. Artık Uygun Bir Masaüstü Bilgisayar almanın zamanı geldi. Dolayısıyla korsan kullanım oranında gerçekleşecek sadece 10 puanlık bir azalma bile BSA’nın yaptırdığı bir araştırma sonucuna göre 4 yılda GSYİH’ya 500 milyon dolar ilave kaynak oluşturup, vergi gelirlerinde de 80 milyon dolar artışa olanak sağlayabilir. iPhone Savaşları hala devam etmekte. Benzer durum korsan kopyaların olduğu diğer sektörler için de geçerli. Yasal yazılım için harcanan her 1 dolar sayesinde, yazılımla ilgili Ar-Ge çalışmaları ve bakım servisleri gibi hizmetler için şirketler 1,25 dolar daha fazla bütçe ayırıyor. Bu, yerel yazılım hizmetlerine katkı sağladığı gibi doğrudan ülkeye de yarar sağlıyor. Türkiye yazılım sektöründe henüz çok yeni ve sahip olduğu kendini kanıtlamış marka ve yazılım sayısı çok az. Bu durumda yabancı yazılımlar karşısında ancak yerel destek ve fiyat konusunda avantaj sağlayabilir durumdalar. İşte bu noktada fiyat avantajının ortadan kalkmasına neden olan kopyanın engellenmesi çok büyük önem taşıyor. Şu ana kadar uygulanan yöntemlerin etkisi tartışılmaz. Ancak ne olursa olsun halen iki koldan saldıran korsan kopyacılar karşısında çok fazla etkimiz yok. Bu noktada belki de tarih boyunca sıklıkla kullanılan bir başka yola başvurmakta fayda var. Gerçi düşmanımın düşmanı benim dostumdur felsefesine dayanan bu yöntem aslında çoktan yürürlüğe girmiş ve şu an kendi kendine işliyor zaten. Dolayısıyla belki de sadece biraz sabretmek dışında aslında bir şey yapmak da gerekmiyor. İnternet bağlantılarının hızlanması ve ucuzlaması ile her konuda, tüm korsan kopyalara sanal ortamda tamamen ücretsiz olarak ulaşmak da artık bir o kadar kolay. Sıfır birden ucuzdur hesabı kopyaya bile para vermek istemeyen kullanıcılar, her geçen gün artan bir şekilde para ile satılan fiziksel korsan kopyalara da orijinaller ile aynı oranda darbe vurmaya devam ediyor. Aslında bu sevinilecek bir olay değil. Ancak en azından bu işe kara paralarını yatıran ve kazançlarını hangi kötü amaç için kullanıldıklarını bilmediğimiz gerçek korsan kopyacıları bu işten soğutup uzaklaştırmak için atılmış bir adım olarak görülebilir. Tabii ki bunu bir başka suçu meşrulaştırmak olarak algılamamak gerekiyor. Başta dediğim gibi korsan kopyacıları birbirine kırdırıp sadece kalan biriyle mücadele etmek daha kolay. Şu an sanal korsanlar daha avantajlı gibi duruyor. Üstelik onlar yerel yazılımlara karşı da daha saygılılar. İleride ortada fiziksel korsan kopyalar kalmadığı zaman sanal ortamdakileri engellemek emin olun çok daha kolay. Yani demem o ki en azından şimdilik sanal olanlara pek dokunmasak mı? Ne dersiniz? Windows 7 RC 7100 Türkçe Dil Paketi adlı yazımızıda okumanızı öneriyoruz.

Last night I got a call from my surgeon, Dr. S. Remember when I said that when the doctor calls, it’s never good news? Words to live by.

So, when we did the MRI a few weeks ago, the radiologist noticed a small spot that wasn’t in my mammogram pics from February of this year. Last Thursday we biopsied it, and last night I got a call that it’s more of the same, invasive ductal carcinoma. The pathology is a little different than what was found in my armpit, but it’s the same family of cancer.

The good news is that this doesn’t change any of the chemo protocol. We’ve already been slowly killing these cells and have made headway on removing them from my body. The challenge for me is to keep my chin up.

I am so sick of this. I spent the better part of last night hysterical, and I looked like it when I woke up this morning. Hopefully by tomorrow the bags under my eyes will have at least gone down, if not disappeared completely. It sucks to look as shitty as you feel.

It’s these unexpected setbacks that make this so difficult.

The other part that makes it hard is that I’ve chosen to share this journey with you all. I almost didn’t post about any of this secondary biopsy. But I figured that if I’m going to be genuine, then I have to share the parts of my treatment that scare the shit out of me as well as the times when I’m feeling strong. Otherwise, it’s all bullshit, and who wants to spend their time reading (or writing) that?

Here is an interesting announcement concerning the launch of a new ICT market research and marketing services firm that brings together former senior IDC analysts who were caught in IDG’s right-sizing exercise. A few points about the HENRY Corporation:

• Each analyst is also an independent practitioner, some with a firm name and some under their name
• With the exception of Martin Hingley (Twitter,  blog), most of the Fellows are not active users of social media
• With the exception of Simone de Bruin’s LinkedResearch website and to a lesser extent Hingley’s blog, none of the other Fellows have a formal web presence

SageCircle’s initial impression is that HENRY Corporation will be the marketing function as well as sales organization for this group of former IDC senior analysts. As such it will be somewhat more involved with its portfolio of analysts than Valley View Ventures, which acts simply as a sales agent for its associated analysts and boutiques.

Below is a blog post by Hingley on the launch, followed by the official announcement.

Overview from Martin Hingley, one of the original HENRY Fellows:

The Henry Corporation Brings Familiar Experts Back To Support The ITC Industry

What happens when a major market research organization off-loads most of its senior analysts in EMEA? I’m sure it does its best to run its services with newer researchers. However many industry execs will miss the quality of support, ideas and advice that they once had. In the case of my old company some familiar faces, now independent, are also as eager as ever to provide support. For myself I set up ITCandor in May 2009 and am publishing research and offering my services through this web site.

To help bring potentially lost expertise back to the industry on a wider level Carsten Schmidt launched the Henry Corporation on November 1^st 2009. The aim of the organization is to provide clients with marketing supporting (presentations, consulting and market reports) on the ITC industry in EMEA.

The constitution is a loose grouping of senior executive ‘Henry Fellows’ – currently all ex-IDC analysts with decades of experience in tracking complex markets. Current Fellows include:

• Anne-Lisa Wang (HAIKKOO) – Software industry, applications, enterprise portals
• Claus Egge – storage systems, data leakage, cloud based content, green IT, new media types, data security, disaster recovery/BC, server, storage virtualisation
• Marcel Warmerdam – IT markets, forecasting, market models
• Martin Hingley (ITCandor) – ITC markets, data centre, cloud computing, CSR, digital explosion, forecasts, market shares
• Pim Bilderbeek – Telecoms, multimedia, social media, enterprise mobility, unified communications, cloud computing, managed services, data center, and mission critical infrastructure
• Simone de Bruin (LinkedResearch) – pan-European partnership strategies pan-European partnership strategies in the software/services industry

Official Announcement:

New, international ICT market research and marketing services firm for professional marketers

Copenhagen, Nov. 2nd 2009

HENRY Corporation today launches with a partnership of experienced analysts and marketing consultants ensuring ICT vendors financially attractive and innovative marketing strategy and go-to-market solutions.

A rapidly transforming technology industry demands agile strategy and marketing support. Experts with deep knowledge in their core areas combined with execution capability to solve time-to-market challenges.

The HENRY Corporation bases the span of competencies on professional associates – HENRY Fellows. This federated approach allows for the delivery of solutions that meet specific marketing requirements in any given situation. Overhead and administration costs are reduced and the HENRY Fellows responsible for managing concrete project deliverable will focus on the return on investment for the ICT vendor rather than prioritizing own available resources and need for branding.

The HENRY assets are a network of experienced, independent market analysts within executive ICT business and marketing advice and a network of speakers from both small and major international research companies.

Founder Carsten Schmidt, a former senior manager with research company IDC, is confident Henry’s approach will tap into: “Professional marketers in knowledge industries are networked people. We depend on individual expertise across all kind of borders. By introducing personal governance to corporate IT market research HENRY Corporation brings to the market not only knowledge and experience but true independence and objectivity”.

The company’s services include a speaker bureau for ICT vendors, event management services in cooperation with IDG in Denmark, and strategic and tactical marketing services for ICT vendors in Scandinavia and the Netherlands. 

More information at: www.henrycorporation.com

Founder Carsten Schmidt can be reached at cs@henrycorporation.com or +45 3142 1900.

Digital photo frames have proven to be a popular option for enjoying the digital images captured by a growing number of camera-enabled devices. Unfortunately, the market has been directly impacted by the global economic downturn, which has caused a sharp reduction in discretionary consumer spending. IDC now expects the market will experience two years of negative growth in 2009 and 2010, followed by a slow recovery and returning to pre-recession shipment levels in 2013.

With 9.1 million units shipped in 2008, the worldwide digital frame market achieved year-over-year growth of 6.3%. The United States was the dominant region in 2008 with shipments of nearly 5.9 million units. The worldwide market is expected to decline by nearly 10% in 2009 with shipments falling to 8.2 million units while the U.S. market will decline by 11%. Single digit growth is forecast to resume in 2011 and continue to improve throughout the rest of the forecast period, resulting in a 2008-2013 compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.4%.

The 7-8.9 inch frame category was the most popular market segment in 2008, representing nearly two thirds of the 9.1 million units shipped. Looking ahead, IDC expects this category will continue to represent the lion’s share of the market, although the 9-10.9 inch category is expected make notable gains over the next 4 years. Average selling prices (ASPs) will continue to decline throughout the forecast period with more than 60 vendors globally competing for market share.

December 2009     IDC 30 Nov – 10 Dec     IE 11-13 Dec
January 2010     IDC 3 Jan – 14 Jan     IE 15-17 Jan
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