Mobile and application services are the future of the Internet. They will run on smart devices such as Mobile Internet Devices (MID) and smart phones. They will leverage an intelligent network, deploying solutions over an open and common platform. The mobile Internet represents access to an abundance of contextually relevant information from a number of devices across a variety of networks. It incorporates data-optimized wireless networks and leverages the web as an execution platform.

Content itself will originate from the web and other service providers, from personal collections and from sensory data. The presentation of this content will adapt to accommodate multi-modal, multi-device interactions enabled by edge gateways.

IT should view the bring-your-own-device phenomenon as less of a threat and more as an opportunity. Here's why.

In a webinar on BYOD that I just did, a survey of the 500-plus participants showed that security is the way-out-in-front, lead concern of IT managers when it comes to implementing a bring-your-own-device program. More than 60% of those people voting reiterated what I hear every day. "Is it safe? Can we really trust users and their personal handsets with enterprise secrets?"

Security is, of course, the one part of IT where one can never be "done". Each week brings new concerns, new threats, and some previously unknown and unforeseeable challenge. Perhaps it's news of yet another IT breach, or, even worse, a discovery, not yet public, that something has gone terribly wrong and confidential information might be compromised. With security constantly under fire, then, aren't we just making things worse by allowing essentially any device on the corporate network? Aren't we just waving the proverbial red flag in front of the hacker community, daring them to do their worst once again?

It wasn't until I was walking out of the venerable FIRA convention center at Mobile World Congress for the last time late on Feb. 29 that I realized it was a leap day.

And overall, this seemed fitting, because an informal message I took from the event is that 2012 meets many of the criteria to be what I consider a technology "leap year." Although much more difficult to define, and lacking the cadence of a calendar leap year, the impact of a technology leap year can be much more profound than simply having one additional day to analyze telecom trends.

Essentially, I define a technology leap year as one in which critical technologies take the leap from development to commercialization and monetization phases. The upside is more innovative services and applications for end users; the downside for some vendors and carriers is that it accelerates the rate of legacy service erosion.

What a difference a year makes. A year ago many critics were still talking about the "cloud" as if it were a massive amount of hype.

That has changed completely – no one dismisses the cloud any more.

At the same time, what has dawned on the information industry – IT and telecom – is the realization that the cloud is really going to be accessed overwhelmingly from mobile devices. Yes, that means what is really critical is the mobile cloud.

The new Heavy Reading study, "The Mobile Cloud: Ready or Not, Here It Comes," provides a strategic overview of why and how the mobile cloud is going to develop at an ever-accelerating rate, and the implications that development will have on the telecom and IT industries.

Make no mistake – those implications are enormous. The mobile cloud is going to be the battleground on which the interests of a stunning list of powerful companies and industry segments come crashing together. These include not only the giant carriers (Verizon, AT&T) and mobile device makers (Apple, Samsung), but also a full contingent of Internet-based companies and software giants (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and more).

From medication reminders to wearable body sensors, mobile health solutions will become a vital part of our lives and many organizations' services.

Barely two years old, Instagram - an iPhone photo sharing app and service - has emerged as the “billion dollar baby” of social networking.  It began as a simple application, developed byStanfordUniversitygrads Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, which added a vintage Polaroid look to photos taken with an iPhone camera.  Last week Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock.

As an application Instagram has a certain “cool factor” about it; the effects can make even blasé pictures look like creative genius.  But is it so much the “cool factor” that warrants a billion-dollar buy-out, or is it the fact that it has a rapidly growing user following, currently pegged at over 27 million?  For Facebook, the allure of Instagram is most certainly associated with its growth and the focus of its users.

Research In Motion needs to explore strategic options, one of which could be licensing out BlackBerry OS 10.

This won't save the company. Research In Motion CEO Thorsten Heins, in the job only three months, seems to be doing everything he can to turn the ailing smartphone maker around. He's promised significant changes, new leadership, and a plan to make it all come together. That means RIM is considering multiple options. One of them, according to sources cited by Bloomberg, is licensing out its BlackBerry operating system.

As a transport medium for communication in the modern communication hungry world, fiber optics is a critical and omnipresent technology vital to intelligent human existence and comfort

The arrival of 4G and a myriad new smartphone and tablets is resulting in mobile office ‘makeover’.  The early days of mobile office were simpler, at least for IT departments.  Mobile users were all issued the same device, likely it was a BlackBerry.  It was managed by a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) and the liability for security and usage resided corporately. 

Today’s mobile enterprise users are demanding more.  With the increasing consumerization of enterprise mobility, new devices and applications are becoming an integral part of their everyday personal lives.  Users now want these same devices to provide them with access to their enterprise needs.  They don’t want to carry two devices and they want the freedom to choose their own device.

GIA announces the release of a comprehensive global report on Fiber Optic Components market. Global market for Fiber Optic Components is projected to reach US$42 billion by the year 2017. Growth will be driven by the continuously growing demand for bandwidth and the ensuing need for fibre-based broadband, robust growth in mobile internet, and stronger FTTx related deployments in developing Asian ...

Sure, AT&T and Verizon were planning to deploy a little technology known as "LTE," but that ... Sprint's low-cost unlimited 4G mobile broadband. Well, things didn't quite work out that way and now Sprint is quietly planning to throw WiMAX from the train.

A startup backed by a Skype cofounder plans to offer "freemium" broadband—supported by ads and social features. When you think of basic human rights, access to wireless broadband Internet probably isn't at the top of the list. But a new company backed by a Skype cofounder disagrees, and plans to bring free mobile broadband to the U.S. later this year under the slogan "The Internet is a right ...

Regulated companies put compliance efforts in jeapardy unless they address mobility

Mobility may be rewriting some of the rules of business today, but some sets of rules it hasn't budged are the ones written by IT regulators. As organizations get their grips on the operational and endpoint security ramifications of persistent and pervasive mobility, they also need to think about how it is changing the way users interact with and store data, and what that means for ongoing compliance efforts.

 

Apple's iPhone handily beats the competition when it comes to overall satisfaction, according to J.D. Power's latest rankings.

There's an elephant in the room. Some are talking and writing about it, while others are choosing to focus on the future and let the troubling pachyderm move to another apartment.