In 2008 Microsoft reduced the remuneration of its top management by about 29% and has frozen wages for 2010. The reason is of course the global financial crisis. Microsoft has also announced staff reductions of about 5000 as a response to a slowdown in business for 2009 of about 3% (14,6B USD in 2009, 17,7B USB in 2008).
Nokia announced 559M Euro losses (for the first time in a decade) due to a 20% reduction in mobile handset business caused by consumers’ preference of the Apple Iphone rather than the Nokia N97 Smartphone. The latter losses include a one time investment expense towards NSN which further implies that Nokia plans to discontinue any further investment to NSN.
The green revolution is making its way into the mobile communications business (aside from recyclable materials) through sun power cellular phones. Solar cell phones could build on the economic advantages that mobile phones have already brought to far-flung regions of Africa and the Indian subcontinent, including price transparency and more accurate and timely information.
Also, thanks to Intel, Apple and Cisco, broadband mobile communication just became simpler through Wi-Fi Direct. Mobile operators have greeted this concept with reserved enthusiasm, and this puts further pressure on classical telecom infrastructure suppliers who still support in the basic architectures the 80-20% business model (more traffic implies more base stations). Specifically the new technology may impact or render obsolete the present Bluetooth technology. This supports our previous premise that ad hoc networking will eventually become mainstream and will replace the classical 80-20% business model which is still embedded in mobile architectures. And while were on the subject of radio pollution, Asef has issued an open statement warning citizens to restrict their mobile phone (or any other radio propagation based communication device) usage for health reasons. Asef claims that there is still no proof on mobile phone usage is detrimental to one’s health (the technology hasn’t been around, on mass deployment (recall 80 – 20 business model) long enough) but nevertheless recommends that citizens take a prudent approach to mobile phone usage. It goes without saying that one day a Nobel prize will be awarded to the individual or team that discovers a “green” way to telecommunicate wirelessly , a way that does not necessarily increase the medium’s (radio or otherwise) density proportionally to the traffic density requirements.
Finally, Joost seems to have the right idea since all indications show that the market is going towards a converged infrastructure for entertainment and communication. In 1995, genius marketer Scott Zakarin convinced his crew to create a tv series that would be only broadcast through the www. With the advent of IP, fiber optics and better broadband coding techniques communication and entertainment are converging on a common platform and in no time at all we will be using common type of infrastructure and terminals for our entertainment and communication, the terminal resembling our pc, and the infrastructure being the internet (or a close relative).
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