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Mobile World Congress, the mobile industry’s largest global gathering, officially kicked off Monday.
For each day of the conference, we’ll be providing a rundown of the most interesting takeaways that BI Intelligence analysts spotted at the event, as well as the most notable product releases and partnership announcements to be made.
Here are some of the most notable insights from Monday:
5G is going to take a lot of cooperation to get off the ground. 5G is the next generation of wireless networks that could be 30 to 50 times faster than today’s 4G networks. One of the biggest hurdles to achieving consumer-ready 5G is the lack of common standards that mobile network providers, device manufacturers, and equipment makers can all adhere to, according to comments Deutsche Telekom AG CEO Tim Hoettges made to Bloomberg.
Artificial intelligence will be an important offering of consumer hardware. Device manufacturer Sony and Japan-based mobile messaging app LINE are discussing a partnership to create mobile devices imbued with an intelligent digital personal assistant. Although Sony is an underdog in the smartphone arena, the company is betting that a smartphone segment equipped with a strong digital assistant will help the company to win share in the emerging wearables and connected device space.
The mobile market is still device-happy. There was a whole spattering of device launches from contenders in the smartphone market. The device launches ranged from premium smartphones to basic feature phones, as different manufacturers aim to appeal to cost-conscientious consumers in emerging markets, aspirational smartphone owners in emerging markets, and smartphone users in developed markets. Here are a few of the mobile phone releases from MWC so far:
Huawei unveiled the P10 smartphone equipped with better cameras and machine learning to help mobile apps and services launch and run more efficiently.
Chinese manufacturer ZTE introduced two new budget smartphones equipped with Android Nougat. The devices, the Blade V8 Lite and the Blade V8 Mini, will be available at first in Asia Pacific and Europe.
Sony announced four new smartphones in the Xperia line.
BlackBerry announced a new flagship smartphone featuring its signature physical keyboard. The new device is called the KeyOne.
LG announced its new flagship smartphone, the G6.
Cloud computing — on-demand, internet-based computing services — has been successfully applied to many computing functions in recent years.
From consumer-facing, web-based productivity apps like Google Docs to enterprise database management suites, the tools businesses rely on are increasingly moving to the cloud.
But developing a cloud strategy is no easy task. Public cloud solutions will likely come to dominate the market over the next decade, but business constraints, such as security concerns and the limitations of existing infrastructure, make it difficult for companies to fully adopt the public cloud right now.
That means that hybrid clouds, in which multiple cloud implementations (including public and private) are connected, will remain popular for the time being, at least until these constraints are addressed. The tech giants that dominate the IaaS market — Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, and Google — are constantly expanding their offerings to address current business constraints as they compete for market share.
Christina Anzalone, senior research analyst at BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on cloud computing that evaluates the current business considerations for the various cloud solutions and provides an outlook on the state of the market.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:
Cloud computing solutions have gained traction because they're flexible and cost efficient. Sixty-seven percent of companies used an Infrastructure-as-a-Service solution in 2015, like the cloud, for some part of their business, up 19% from the prior year.
All cloud solutions provide certain benefits that are becoming increasingly essential to businesses in the digital age. These include on-demand self-service, rapid elasticity, and broad network access, among others.
Security needs, demand predictability, existing infrastructure, and maintenance capabilities are key business considerations for enterprises choosing between cloud implementations.
While hybrid cloud strategies will remain popular in the near term, the market is likely to shift toward the public cloud over time. That's because costs are falling, providers are developing solutions that address main concerns with the public cloud, and business practices like agile development and data analytics are dependent on advantages the public cloud provides. However, industries that handle sensitive information, like financial services and healthcare, will likely prefer hybrid and private cloud strategies given regulatory restrictions.
Amazon Web Services is the dominant cloud computing provider by market share, followed by Google, IBM, and Microsoft. Because the latter three companies have had little success taking on Amazon, market-share gains are likely to come at the expense of smaller competitors.
In full, the report:
Explains the different cloud computing strategies and benefits of cloud computing.
Evaluates key business considerations – security needs, demand predictability, existing infrastructure, and maintenance capabilities – for enterprises choosing between cloud implementations.
Provides and outlook for trends and major players in the cloud computing market.
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