According to the recently released Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2011-2016, global mobile data traffic grew 2.3 times last year to 597 petabytes per month. The report estimates that the monthly global mobile data traffic will grow 78% annually over the period 2011 through 2016 to surpass 10 exabytes. Growth will be driven by Asia Pacific and Western Europe, which will account for more than half of global mobile traffic by 2016. The Middle East and Africa will record the highest CAGR of 104% during the term, and Asia Pacific will grow 21 times at a CAGR of 84%.
SM: Again, give me so use cases. Give me an example or a few examples of things that you are able to do with the kind of user experience work that you do that I wouldn’t be able to do in an off-the-shelf iPad application front ending an MRP system or CRM system.
PL: Sure. If you take SAP CRM, for instance, out of the box, if you’re trying to place an order, it’s not necessarily the most straightforward way to do it. But one of the things that we do is we skin it in a certain way. We make it much more easy to use. We align it based on a process or guided procedure or chevron so that at any point in time – you’ve faced it before when you’re checking out with a credit card. You know there’s a five-step process, and you might know from a chevron or something that you’re on step three of the five-step process, and you can navigate anywhere in between that. Well, that’s the idea that we bring to CRM or the online ordering experience with SAP software. Read the full article »
SM: I understand the motivation. I’m asking more for a state of the union in that market. Since you’re an insider in that marketplace, it sounds like one of your strategies is to sell through these telecom providers.
DG: Yes. It’s not our only strategy, but we believe it’s a great opportunity for the reasons I stated. We have a direct salesforce as well. We have SMB online sales. We go to market through lots of channels.
SM: I got that, but what is the state of the union on the telecom provider side? Is this a major trend? Are all telecom providers offering virtual conferencing services? Read the full article »
Sramana: In the pre-SaaS era, a lot of software got bought and sold that just stayed on the shelf. Siebel was notorious for being shelfware. As a category, is SaaS significantly better in terms of utilization rates?
Jon Kondo: The beauty of SaaS is that if a company is not using the software, then they are going to turn it off. It is a subscription service, which makes it easy to start and stop. We are very conscious of that, which is why we track usage so intently. If we see usage is low, we will interact with those clients. We want to maintain that revenue stream. Read the full article »
SM: What would be helpful would be to double click down on some of those and give me some use cases. How are researchers using it?
PL: Sure. Let’s say there’s a sales rep who needs to be connected with his inventory, and a particular life sciences company that makes medical devices needs to constantly replenish stock or know where its stock of medical devices is located. It could be with the sales rep; it could be in a distribution center; it could be at the hospital itself; or it could be at the metro center. But having built an iOS application that allows that rep to know at any given time, here’re all the surgeries that are happening for his clients or technicians who are using these medical devices and for that sales rep to be able to know his schedule based on these surgeries. He can go to the doctors and talk to the nurses, see which surgical procedures were performed, know what was used and then replenish that inventory all while standing in the doctor’s office and then reducing that inventory back with his ERP systems. That’s just an example of an iPad app that lets us keep track of inventory and makes it easier to create purchase orders and fulfillment and replenishment on the sales rep’s side. Read the full article »
SM: Point taken. But the products in the market also have very large user bases.
DG: Sure. So, did other wireless phones that you know about before the iPhone came out, before the Droid came out with their OSes that changed the way you interact with phones. But there were other phones like Samsung and Motorola that had very large market shares but less than desirable interfaces … and less than desirable user interfaces. So, we’re trying to follow the same path in the communication technology arena and change the way people interact with services. Read the full article »
According to PhocusWright’s Global Online Travel Report 2012, the online travel segment will account for a third of the total global travel market value. Online travel sales are expected to grow by more than 10% in the U.S. in 2012. Experts predict that the U.K. will account for the largest share of Europe’s online travel market in 2013. Gross bookings in the APAC region for the unmanaged business travel and consumer leisure market are projected to grow by more than 30% in 2012. The online travel players are thus focusing significant efforts in expanding internationally.
Sramana: What is the current financing market like for enterprise software? Silicon Valley has tipped heavily in favor of B2C. Having said that, a lot of cloud computing companies are doing well and raising financing. Can you comment about the lay of the land in general?
Jon Kondo: It is a very good time for financing with a cloud or SaaS model. If you were trying to build a business based on traditional software financing, it would be a lot more difficult. There is a lot of sexiness around B2C. Some of them have received unbelievable valuations. There is a very large set of investors that recognizes that there is also a very big business out there when it comes to helping other people run their businesses. Read the full article »
