Author Archive
Wednesday, August 1st, 2012
Han Dong, Sr. Product Marketing Manager
Last week I discussed Wi-Fi and the fact that most (90%) tablets are Wi-Fi only! However, tablets are not the only thing that is converting to Wi-Fi. The BYOD movement calls for Wi-Fi for all electronic devices.
Here is reason number two (out of five) on the value you get from using iPass Open Mobile:
2. Cloud-based Applications (and BYOD) are driving the need for MORE Wi-Fi.
With the strong movement for IT to add and deploy an increasing number of cloud-based services and applications, tied with the pervasive deployment of smartphones and tablets (often BYOD) that need to access much more data than ‘just email,’ the need for Wi-Fi access everywhere is now more important than ever.
iPass was built around the principle of delivering global Wi-Fi to mobile workers regardless of what device they’re using, from PCs-to-Macs and smartphones-to-tablets.
You can also try iPass free for 24 hours on your devices >>
Tune back in next week for reason #3, “When ‘Free Wi-Fi’ isn’t really ‘Free’”
Cloud-based apps drive need for Wi-Fi and iPass delivers [Part 2] >>
Tuesday, July 31st, 2012
Han Dong, Sr. Product Marketing Manager
China is the world’s largest mobile market.
With over 1 billion mobile subscribers (just slightly ahead of India), China has over THREE TIMES the number of mobile users as the U.S. Breaking down this number a bit further (according to mobiThinking), over 400 million users are mobile internet users (beyond voice and text), and over 150 million are connecting on 3G networks. Any way you slice it, China represents the largest smartphone and mobile internet market in the world.
So if the population of mobile users is huge in China, why is only 15% of the traffic over 3G (or even faster 4G/LTE networks for that matter)? Perhaps this is due to the high cost of 3G in China (Chinese mobile users may be more price sensitive than users in other parts of the world). Perhaps it is an issue of 3G infrastructure build out not keeping pace – China is expanding faster than the underlying infrastructure can keep up, so this wouldn’t be a surprise (ex. the recent floods in Beijing). Perhaps it is a combination of BOTH cost and infrastructure build-out. If this is the case, the opportunity for low-cost, high-performance Wi-Fi in China makes a great deal of sense.
China’s wireless data needs are the big (1 billion subscribers) and wide (given its geographical spread). The call for Wi-Fi to supplement and fill the gap of scarce OR even non-existent 3G/4G networks seems the ideal solution.
Today, iPass has relationships with China Telecom and China Mobile. We’re actively helping these carriers to create the world’s largest global Wi-Fi-exchange, by enabling China’s growing population of mobile subscribers to take advantage of the iPass global Wi-Fi footprint of over 780,000 hotspots – thus providing international Wi-Fi roaming wherever they go.
China’s mobile users continue to grow. The proliferation of mobile devices continue to grow. iPass is there to make that growth (and increasing demand for mobile data) painless.
Ni hao Wi-Fi – over 1 billion mobile subscribers in China, and growing… >>
Wednesday, July 25th, 2012
Han Dong, Sr. Product Marketing Manager
Did you know…
US-based organizations with international travelers to Europe and Asia can save up to 43% on the data roaming costs of smartphones and tablets.
Furthermore, European organizations with international travelers within Europe can save up to 37% on the data roaming costs of smartphones and tablets.
…with iPass Open Mobile for smartphones and tablets
We often discuss all the great features and user connectivity tools (such as the Data Usage Meter and Hotspot Finder) within iPass Open Mobile for smartphones and tablets. But what we often take for granted is the excellent value that our customers enjoy by deploying Open Mobile on smartphones and tablets, which empower their users to leverage the iPass Wi-Fi network of nearly 800,000 hotspots across the globe. Here’s the first of 5 Top Reasons you should deploy Open Mobile for smartphones and tablets (iOS and Android) today!
1. 90% of Tablets are Wi-Fi ONLY. (Kevin C. Tofel, GigaOM; Chetan Sharma, Chetan Sharma Consulting)
According to Chetan Sharma and Kevin Tofel, 90% of all tablets sold in the U.S. are Wi-Fi and not cellular. Why? First, cellular-based tablet acquisition costs (device hardware) and 3G/4G data-only plans are expensive. And BYOD users are even less inclined to spend their money on ANOTHER data plan when they’re already paying for voice + data on their smartphone.
Second, contract commitments (for some carrier-subsidized tablet offers) make users feel “locked-in,” and thus limit a user’s ability to switch after 6-months or even a year – when the next new tablet is available. Perhaps “shared data plans” will make users reconsider, but a shared 3G/4G data plan will come at a premium versus today’s cellular plans. Global Wi-Fi access is now a necessity for tablet users, not an alternative.
Stay tuned for the next four Wednesdays, when we discuss the other reasons to deploy Open Mobile. For next week, look up to the clouds.
Why deploy iPass for smartphones/tablets (hint: Wi-Fi) [Part 1 of 5-part series] >>
Monday, July 23rd, 2012
Han Dong, Sr. Product Marketing Manager
By now, most followers (and fellow nerds) of the Smartphone market have seen the latest Nielsen Q2 2012 report, which identifies the rapid growth in Smartphones
(over “feature phones”) and the market share of various platform devices (including iOS, Android, Blackberry and other misc platforms).
In summary the key points that come out of this report are as follows:
- Among U.S. mobile users, 2 out of 3 Americans that bought a new mobile phone are choosing a Smartphone over a feature phone
- Of those new phone buyers, 54.6% are choosing Android versus 36.3% choosing iOS (i.e. Apple iPhone)
- RIM Blackberry buyers (in the last qtr) are represented by only 4% of new purchases
So what conclusions can we derive from these market findings?
- Clearly, as smartphones have become more commoditized and with carriers offering low cost or even free smartphones (for new subscriptions), there is now no cost advantage by buying a feature phone (vs a smartphone). And with the current emphasis on data connectivity (versus unlimited voice/text plans), smartphones (with the plethora of available apps) are the device of choice to take advantage of wireless data connectivity wherever you go.
- Unfortunately for Blackberry, which was only until recently the de facto smartphone device for most mobile workers, is now a current as a Palm Pilot ten years ago (nerd joke).
- But what about the issue on Android vs iPhone (iOS) market share/growth? I think this is an interesting phenomenon which will continue to fluctuate on a quarterly basis.
- Will the “new” iPhone (rumored to be out this fall) create a revived iPhone buying spike – potentially overshadowing Android’s rapid rise?
- Will the rapid pace of Samsung, HTC, Google (and perhaps Motorola) continue to push the envelope and introduce a constant stream of new and sexy devices?
- Lastly is the “race to have the most apps” becoming less of an issue – supposedly there is approximately a 10% difference in the number of apps available for iOS vs Android (per most recent app counts from 2012 Apple WWDC and Google I/O events)? Volume of apps and cross-platform availability for the most popular (especially enterprise apps) ones is essentially parity between the two platforms (certainly true over the next 6-12 months).
- The true opportunity for differentiation will come from the devices themselves, the speed and performance (including network connectivity speed) at which they work, and the underlying OS usability.
So the message is clear, everyone is now buying smartphones (versus feature phones) – particularly based on Android and iOS. However, while the cost of a smartphone purchase may be reaching ‘zero’ (with a contract), the average individual’s cell phone bill has increased over 30% since 2009 (J.D. Power & Associates 2012). To no one’s surprise, users want to actually use all the cool features and they soon discover that they need connectivity for nearly everything on their smartphones. And not just any kind of connectivity – users need and want fast connectivity with few limits.
As the leading provider with the world’s largest commercial Wi-Fi network, iPass revolutionizes the connectivity experience for smartphone and tablet users. With complete solutions for Android and iOS users, iPass delivers a seamless and cost-effective (versus cellular data) Wi-Fi connectivity solution for smartphone users wherever they go.
For more information about iPass for smartphones, please check out our smartphones and tablets pages today.
Android Smartphones – the new market mover in Smartphone platform devices >>
Thursday, September 29th, 2011
Han Dong, Sr. Product Marketing Manager
My esteemed collegue, John Gallagher, discussed Day 1 of the GigaOM Mobilize event.
One item of note from Day 1 that should be mentioned was the big Android smartphone announcement by T-Mobile. That’s right folks, Day 1 was “carrier day” and T-Mobile leveraged the opportunity to announce the long awaited support for Samsung Galaxy S II and HTC Amaze 4G. Yes, that’s right, more data hungry devices with sexy screens and social app features means more upload/downloading to your heart’s delight.
But on to more pressing matters. What about the Enterprise? What about Apps? And what about mobile management? These are the issues that keep IT people up at night.
To get to the meat of the matter – lots of chatter around these pressing topics, but truthfully, these issues are still in their infancy. No best-of-breed technologies, products, standards, or even best practices (yet). Mobility is largely being driven by consumers (Consumerization of IT) and “Cool User Experiences/Devices.” Sure, the enterprise clearly sees opportunities for how the new wave in smarphones and tablets are rapidly REPLACING laptops as the mobile worker tool of choice. But the issues around application (or really “app”) development and deployment, data security, and device management are works in progress.
There were some discussions around virtualization as a possible answer to combining personal and work environments (for BYOD proponents) on a single device (partitioned on top of an embedded hypervisor (think VMware, Citrix, etc.). But this concept creates a whole plethora of complications and hardware dependencies that just aren’t addressed yet.
But I digress….
Back to the enterprise. So what are some enterprise apps of interest on the minds of many? In addition to the traditional (secure) email, contacts, and calendar; CRM, VoIP and various custom cloud-based apps (that may leverage HTML5, or may go ‘native’) are areas of focus for smartphones/tablet devices. IT must embrace BYOD and the “consumerization” forces that seem to have such a strong influence. And IT must leverage a variety of commercial tools to manage and secure these devices.
Not long ago, mobile devices were tools ‘imposed’ on mobile workers by IT – so IT had all the power of device choice (usually only 1) and the proper software stack pre-loaded on users’ laptops and perhaps Blackberrys. Instead, users now influence IT on what devices and apps make them more productive and efficient in the new age of smartphones and tablets (vs. the yesteryear of PCs and laptops).
And yes, IT must figure out how to deploy devices (or maybe just support BYOD), distribute enterprise apps, and secure the data that lives on (or is accessed over the cloud) these devices. And the more these devices are fueled by persistent, ubiquitous network connections (via 3G, 4G, or WiFi), the stronger the arguement is to ensure you have you network connectivity covered with the most cost effective means possible.
Now is the dawn of this new age of enterprise mobilility.
(For metrics on this “new age,” and how IT is trying to stay in control, see our new Mobile Enterprise Report).
Day 2 @ GigaOM Mobilize Conference – Enterprise >>
