T-Mobile goes narrow, but aims big with new IoT play: Self-styled "uncarrier" T-Mobile is staking a big flag in IoT (Internet of Things) with Magenta, a narrowband network that at $6 per device per year, drastically undercuts that of Verizon's comparable offering for IoT devices:
At one tenth the cost of Verizon’s Cat-M plans ...T-Mobile’s new NB-IoT plan takes advantage of narrowband technology, and the efficiency it provides, to significantly lower the costs of connecting things and unleash the next wave of IoT innovation.
T-Mobile’s new NB-IoT plan lights up new capabilities to connect massive numbers of devices with small and steady streams of data at low cost. NB-IoT is much more affordable than Cat-M and is already the globally-preferred standard to power the rapidly expanding world of IoT applications. Because it can operate in guard bands – the network equivalent of driving down the shoulders on the highway -- NB-IoT carries data with greater efficiency and performance and doesn’t compete with other data traffic for network resources.
POV: T-Mobile made the announcement in conjunction with the Consumer Electronics Show, ongoing this week in Las Vegas. It's a splashy move to say the least and is clearly T-Mobile's biggest bid for enterprise business to date. It's worth nothing that the $6 pricing model is on a limited-time basis, but T-Mobile can deliver adequate performance at even two or three times that much money, the network should gain traction quickly. It could also help drive down pricing on IoT networking from other carriers, particularly Verizon. Overall, the market seems set to gain a viable new option, which is always good for customers and competition.
SAP plans new on-premises HCM app: Like all enterprise software vendors, SAP has been pouring resources into building out a cloud application portfolio. But the reality is that many of its customers will keep large parts of their application footprint on-premises for the foreseeable future. SAP has acknowledged that reality in a new announcement about its HCM (human capital management) software strategy.
Nearly six years ago, SAP acquired SuccessFactors, providing our customers with the best cloud-based human capital management (HCM) solutions on the market. Since then, the number of customers using SAP SuccessFactors solutions has nearly quadrupled, and we continue to see increasing momentum toward the cloud for HCM globally and across all industries.
Our investment strategy follows this market demand, with the bulk of the planned innovations for our HCM portfolio focused on SAP SuccessFactors solutions.
However, SAP is also developing a new on-premises HCM application that is comparable in scope to the existing one, with availabilty in 2023 and support extended through at least 2030. SAP will offer a license conversion program, the details of which have yet to be completed.
POV: SAP competitors may seize upon the announcement as somehow evidence of SuccessFactors' inferiority, but the reality is a bit more complicated. The vendor's customer base is deeply rooted in some of the world's most conservative industries and it's not surprising that there's enough demand for a new on-premises HCM application. To that end, SAP is essentially obligated to provide new innovations to customers that have dutifully paid annual maintenance fees, but still have no inclination to move to the cloud.
Ford launches smart cities push with Autonomic: Automaker Ford is teaming up with a startup called Autonomic to shape a new vision for smart, connected cities. The companies see data from autonomous vehicles, bicycles and next-generation public transportation as a crucial wellspring of insight into how future cities will live and breathe, but at the same time, a difficult matter to wrangle. Here are the key details from a Ford blog post:
If we play our cards right, we can help allow for millions of people to move into cities and keep streets less congested, not more. We can connect people living in transit deserts to the city center for better jobs. We can manage our curbs better, remove parked and idling cars, and instead plant more trees and share fresh air with more in our community.
Building an ecosystem such as this requires the large-scale connection of bits of distinct data that flow from a variety of sources. And those sources — public transportation services, self-driving cars, cyclists and even infrastructure — will need to speak the same language and communicate with each other if we’re to realize the true potential of this type of ecosystem.
The first step along that path is to establish a platform that enables that kind of communication. That’s why Ford is working with Autonomic ... This platform can manage information flow and basic transactions between a variety of components in the transportation ecosystem — service providers, personal vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians, mass transit systems and city infrastructure, including traffic lights and parking locations.
POV: CES is a perennial place for brands to lay out ambitious technology strategies; Ford's partnership with Autonomic falls in line with that trend. Ford's plans are promising in their outlines. The company compared its planned collaboration with Autonomic as designed to build "a box of Legos" that can be snapped together to fit differing needs, not a monolithic, one-size-fits-all platform. This is the right approach given how much variety and complexity the world's cities contain. It will be interesting to see how their collaboration unfolds over the course of 2018.