Interesting Software Trends

(updated on 11.03.15 1311 hrs)

In terms of the "hot" software trends, what do the relevant software companies  ( IBM, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.)  all have in common?

No! ... It is not just about the cloud.

They are all pushing a myriad of "AI" tools (especially the self-learning apps) into their arsenal of technology products. 

IBM has Watson (or Sherlock).   Apple has Siri.  Google has The Brain.   (Click here on information regarding to their AI-based email response tool and click here on information concerning to their RankBrain algorithm.) 
  

Amazon has Alexa and Facebook has M while Microsoft has Cortana.

So, which brand do you trust?


Comments Summation

While the long term impact from  these AI tools is the incremental elimination of low level jobs in the next five to ten years,  Simultaneously, one could see the lawmakers and the unions trying to increase the pay-rate of those workers before those jobs are totally eliminated. 

It is only a matter of time that some of the popular fast food chains will begin to automate their services.

Compass360 Consulting's Predictions and Prognostications.

Source: wikimedia.org

Following is our list of 12 predictions for 2011:

• Certain regions in the U.S. economy (especially N.Y. city, certain parts of New York state, Colorado, Texas, and Washington State) are on the up-shift;
• Netflix will temporarily hit its threshold of saturation;
• The New England Patriots will obviously play in the 2011 Super Bowl;
• IPTV will continued to be the hot technology while the use of cable technology continues to decline;
• Digital publishing of high-tech books will overtake its printed counterparts;
• The incremental use of automated processes and robotics in the service economy;
• Gold surpassing the $1500 barrier while the value of the U.S. dollar continues to drop;
• The rising prices of batteries, hybrid cars and other high-technology products that use batteries;
• The rising prices of various energy sources, commodities (wheat, oil, cocoa, copper, etc) and food;
• The rise of more state government driven user fees;
• The continuing drop of housing prices at various U.S regions; and
• Chinese software companies introducing their brand of web software to western countries.

Interestingly, one can only expect the political blow back from the rising prices to be quite brutal in 2012.

To the well-informed, most of them are obvious. The key is to take advantage of those points before it becomes a prevailing reality.

Here are some more interesting but obvious predictions regarding to the cyber economy from McAfee Labs, Cisco and an Infoworld's columnist. (updated on 12.31.10)

In our cyber economy, most of us are overwhelmed with many dots of information. Identifying the crisises and the opportunities is always the challenge for most people. The successful opportunity finders are those experienced people who can filter the order from the disorder and determine what are the priorities.

Following are the keys to finding the order:

• View the big tangible picture in terms of the terrain, its cycles and the people within it;
• Recognize the relevant strategic factors (dots);
• Examine the connections between the events, the people and the ideas;
• Analyze the integrity of the data; and
• Deliberate the preliminary decision.

We believed that having a comprehensive strategic process is how one becomes effective in a complex world.

We always meet people who know the current state of their surroundings. However, the majority of them rarely understand the cause and the effect of their situation and the rate of change. Without properly understanding the risk-consequences of their situation, they usually take their circumstances for granted.

When a negative event impacts them, they rarely understand the cause of it. Their usual response is to grind out the course of the situation. This decision usually takes a great quantity of time, effort and resources.

Those who anticipate the on-coming causes, are usually ahead of the herd. They are so prepared that they rarely lose their focus of their time, their energy and their resources.

The successful people are those who frequently connect the dots and reap the rewards. They are usually ahead of the curve.

Summary

Following are some questions for you to think about:

• Do you know the strategic factors that connect you with your vendors, your clients, your alliance and your competition?
• If you know your grand settings, how do you take advantage of it?
• Do you know the current and the future profit opportunities that are within your competitive terrain? If so, what are you doing about it?

By understanding the significant connections with the big tangible picture, one gains insights to do the following:

• Maximizing on new profit opportunities;
• Minimizing on current costs; and
• Ensuring quality

Conclusively, he/she will work smarter not harder.

If you are interested in learning more about our strategic process, please contact us at:

http://www.formspring.me/Compass360CG

The Next Big Thing: The Present to The Future

In our last post,we posted a note on the surviving trend of the video store. The digital video store is another segment of the future.

Compass Points

• The cost for renting a movie will cost $3 to $5 and buying one will cost $10 to $15,
• TV shows would begin at $2 per episode. It cannot be rented.
• Apple just started offering 99-cent TV-show rentals from Fox and ABC.
• Due to copyright protection, Samsung's Media Hub limits each video can only be stored on five devices

Is this the next Netflix killer? I doubt it. Netflex has a very strong of product/service branding, a great connection with their client base and the killer instinct to continually evolve.

As one generation becomes more "on-demand", what is the survival probability of the old video store?

Side note: We predicted the on-coming trend of iptv in an earlier post. ... In our book project, we are contemplating on doing a case study on the origin and the impact of the iptv marketplace .

A Surviving "Near to Past" Trend

Here is a "near to the past" business news item about a near obsolete business that holds their competitive position by maintaining their customer loyalty,

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Non-Quantified Assessment

Without knowing the tangible numbers, we can only presume the best case scenarios and the worst case scenarios by assessing the situation by concepts.

Their store will survive as long as the management makes relevant strategic move based on the current state of their "Big Tangible Picture" while understanding the number for their type of client base.

(Side note: Regardless of the grand region, the semi-luddittes will always be there. Knowing the number of their current customer base is one of the many keys toward their concept of success)

We wondered if their unique customer base will always provide enough immediate to long term economic support to the store?

Compass View

To understand the current state and the possibilities of a market terrain , the successful strategist collects the various categories of market intelligence (i.e., the location, the use of intelligence, the management of economics and logistics, the intent of decisions, etc.) within a certain time line. Then he begins the procedure of counting, judging and calculating the data between their competitors.

Compass Rule

The successful strategist thrives by understanding the order, the timing points and the sequence of their settings.

Trends: Mobile Phone Usage

/// This post got misplaced in our cyber filing cabinet

Market Disposition: Market statistics tell us that South Korea is the world's leader in using the mobile phone to purchase goods from vending machines, stores, etc. ... Surprisingly, the U.S. is behind many parts of Asia and Europe when it comes to the practical use of technology because it's currently cost prohibitive over here in the States. In order to make it happen, these companies must willing to embed hardware that will allow these types of transactions to occur.

Due to the U.S. past infrastructure investments (copper wire/fiber phone lines that we use) and current pricing policies, (i.e. being charged for incoming calls, effective cost/minute, etc.) and broadband penetration, U.S. companies lag behind the rest of the world in the use of paperless payments (wire transfers vs. checks), mobile phone and mobile phone internet usage

Here is one interesting article on the state of mobile phone use and another interesting article on what the mobile phone future will be.

The Sign of the Times: The Upswing of IPTV

We previously mentioned that IPTV is the future technology that people should be embracing. ...

Click here for an interesting article on the changing of the cable industry.

The reduction of cable from 63% to a falling 61 sets the tempo of where the IPTV market is heading and the direction of the cable market.

You can find more IPTV information at IPTV Daily.com.

Making Strategic Decisions Without Borders (1)

Some of the current trends are the white collar professionals telecommuting and video conferencing from their home and various public locales. They are also having group meetings at coffee shops. Seriously, it is nothing new. The hot trend is the increase of empty office buildings in the metropolitan cities and more free lancers. Due to the current recession, we expect this development of I/T automation and off-shored labors to continue.

With the increase of free lancers and outsourcing, what are the chances of a project finishing on time, on budget and according to specifications?

We expected the rate of more project teams being unable to hit this macro goal. It will incrementally increase. In a future post, I will discuss why that point will be a trend.

We will also outline the pitfalls of remote project teams members who are collaborating at different time zones and what is our strategic solution.

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Many Workers Travel To Manhattan, But More Stay in Their Boroughs

By Sam Levin

July 30, 2010 | 5:21 p.m

Take that, Manhattan!

The Department of City Planning published on its Web site today its 182-page Peripheral Travel Study—in an extensive effort to identify opportunities for short and long term strategic plans to address transportation needs in the boroughs outside of Manhattan.

What the report finds is that, while a lot of New Yorkers commute from outside the island to Manhattan jobs, more stay in their outer boroughs. More than 880,000 city residents do commute from the four boroughs into Manhattan, but more than 1 million workers live and work in the same borough in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. (Borough commuters into Manhattan join 628,000 workers who reside in Manhattan and another 540,000 from outside the city).

Despite the "common perception that most workers are concentrated in the Manhattan Central Business District (CBD), the opposite is true," the report says.

Manhattan does have the greatest density of employment, and it does draw more workers from throughout the region than any other area. But more people live and work in the same borough than commute to any other. And excluding journeys to Manhattan, there were more than 323,000 interborough journeys-to-work, 44 percent of which where between Brooklyn and Queens.

Guess Manhattan isn't as popular as people thought?

Though The Observer did not read the entire report, it seems that an important finding is that in the outer boroughs, people tend to work relatively close to their residence, and among those that work close to home in the same study area, non-automotive travelling is most popular. Future public policy, the report recommends, should explore ways to encourage workers living and working in the same area to avoid using their cars.

Another interesting factoid, among those working and living in the same borough, the predominant transportation mode in trendy Brooklyn is "Other" (which includes walking, biking, taxi, motorcycle, and work at home).

In the same category in Queens and the Bronx, the primary mode is, unsurprisingly, auto.

What neighborhood wins for highest mean travel time (still excluding Manhattan residents)? Sorry, Southeast Queens (48 minutes!), but that's what you get for being so far away from major subway lines!

Fort Greene and Bay Ridge have the shortest mean travel times for work commutes—38.8 minutes—the study says.

What do these findings actually mean? The study says, "More than 300,000 people travel daily between the boroughs (other than Manhattan) to work. The automobile dominates this travel. Nevertheless, there may be opportunities to expand the use of alternative modes."

Travel between Brooklyn and Queens has potential for growth, the study says. "These boroughs are adjacent and both bus service and bicycle improvements should be explored."

Automobiles, though aren't going anywhere soon. The study says in its conclusion, "Workers are coming from diverse locations which, at least to date, have made the automobile the most attractive means of commuting for many people."

slevin@observer.com

http://www.observer.com/2010/politics/many-workers-travel-manhattan-more-stay-their-boroughs

Future Trend: Rising Electric Prices

Current and Future Trends:

• An incremental slew of empty commercial buildings in the metro. cities in California
• More home offices and informal business meetings are done at coffee shops (since 1999)
• Sales of hybrid cars are slowly rising
• The government subsidizing the building of a smart energy grid
• Charging the battery of hybrid cars and electric vehicles(ev) at home and at various battery recharging stations
• PG&E is currently installing Smart Meter electric meters at residence areas.
• The coming of cars and other energy devices being fueled by natural gas.

News item

• Nissan and GMC will be launching their electric cars (the Leaf) later this year. Therefore charging the electric battery at home will become a necessity.

Turning Point for the EV

• Gas prices will need to rise to $4 - $5/gallon before another surge in hybrid car sales occurs

Our Strategic Assessment:

• High residence's electric bill in California
• The possible rise of natural gas price

There are more micro trends behind this possibility. With the above list of trends, what type of strategic decisions will you make from this strategic assessment?

We will cover more on this on-coming phenomena in a later post.