buzzbishop
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When a company like Deloitte comes out and makes predictions, they do a little more research. They don't just go with current trends, they analyze them and try to pick the trends that are about to change tides. Duncan Stewart, Director of Deloitte Canada Research is currently on an international tour highlighting the company's vision for the horizon.
Here are some of the highlights from his recent stop in Calgary:
NFC AS CURRENCY
Near Field Communication chips are starting to pop up in phones. These are the things that let you "wave to pay."
Get ready to hear a lot more about the digital wallet in 2012. The global payment industry is some $40 Trillion. The profit on those transactions is some $900B. Now, imagine if you could wave your phone to pay for things. Currently only 2% of North American point of sale machines can read them, but with profits like that waiting - things will change.
In the meantime, thousands of other applications for NFC - fromn gambling to gaming to healthcare and security - will gain traction this year.
HARD TIMES FOR HARD DISKS
"To the cloud" is this generation's "Where's the beef?" When it comes to storing data, we're making it ubiquitous. No longer is it on quickly spinning disks in our laptops, it's now on solid state drives, flash memory or big spinning disks in the cloud.
By the end of 2012, solid-state storage for small devices such as MP3 players, smartphones, and tablets will likely account for 90% of the market, compared to just 20% in 2006.
The whispers started online this week. Apple will be unveiling the specs on iPad 3 within the next 3 weeks. Do you want one? You, most likely, already have one (maybe 2) but you wouldn't mind another one in the house so you don't have to share with the kids.
Deloitte calls it "scatter cushion computing" - tablets will become like throw pillows. You'll find them all about the house and the living room, all on the network, all available when the need to connect grabs you.
Almost 5% of tablets sold in Canada in 2012 will be to households that already own a tablet, likely marking the most rapid "multi-anything" market penetration in history. In contrast, it took several decades after introduction for one household to have more than one car, phone, radio or television and ten years for a similar landmark to be reached for computers and mobile phones.
We're playing more games, watching more video, getting more social and we're starting to clog the series of tubes that are the internets. Until new information superhighways can be built, there will be traffic jams. Just as you see with growing cities, you are seeing on the internet.
Until the ISPs can handle infrastructure upgrades (switching the copper with coax), you're going to see throttling and data limits. In Japan, those limits are 900 gigs a month, in New Zealand they are 1 gig. The expected cap for us will be 150 - 250 gigs a month and should only affect 1% of the users - the ones driving the hummers taking up three lanes of traffic.
In 2012, more than 100 million additional internet users around the world will have to pay attention to the meter on their wired broadband connections as explicit monthly bandwifth caps are introduced to alleviate congestion.
The rise of the social web is helping tv regain it's place as 'must see tv.' We've had the ability to time shift our programming for nearly 40 years, yet television numbers still remain strong. They have staved off the 300 channel universe and are now remaining strong against a limitless amount of content from the web.
Why? Because television has once again become social. Twitter, Facebook, Get Glue and others are turning the television experience into a shared experience.
Canadian consumers will continute to watch 95% of programs live or within 24 hours of broadcast in 2012. Maybe we're hardwired to prefer routine, maybe we enjoy the "event" aspect of television or maybe we just find choosing a chore. Whatever the reason, Canadians are sticking to the schedule.
Apple's stock this week is nudging at $500. It has rocketed since the death of Steve Jobs buoyed by strong sales, the promise of new items and the belief by the market that we're not done buying stuff.
Deloitte believes people will defer vacations, put off renovations, or drive a little bit longer with an older car, but they will not put up with tired technology. When you look at the life of a vehicle and the costs associated with it, you're looking at about $10/hr for value. When you do that same math with technology, you end up spending about .40/hr on the device.
Even in a weak economy, lower prices, new form factors and the "bang for your buck" value of technology will all encourage consumer spending on these devices.
That's just 6 of the 10 predictions Deloitte laid out for techology, media & telecommunications in 2012. You can read their full Deloitte TMT 2012 report for the rest.
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