Mobile devices overtake PCs
The mobile business has become much bigger than the computer industry.
There have been more mobile phones than PCs since the late 1990s. There are now 3,5 to 4 billion mobile phones, replaced every two years, versus 1,7 to 1,8 billion PCs, replaced every five years.
Mobile devices have put supercomputers in our hands, representing the largest shift in computing since the PC era. The capacity and power of these devices are in its infancy and all expectations lead to a doubling of capability every 18 months. In the same way that the PC era unlocked the imagination and innovation of an entire generation, we are seeing a repeat pattern with mobile devices on an unprecedented scale.
History has shown that as computing capacity becomes available, new applications and programmes happily consume the excess. Additional memory, disk, and processing power always lead to substantially better and more innovative products, serving an ever-broader set of consumers. We saw it with the PC, and we will see it with mobile as the number of devices grows. Yet-to-be-developed applications are waiting to take advantage of this processing capability, and it’s going to require mobile operating system innovations to expose this awesome power.
Great operating systems leverage new hardware, provide consistent ways to run applications. They provide a foundation for all interactions with a computing system. For PCs, Windows is the dominant operating system; for servers, Linux is dominant; and for mobile, Android enjoys 82% market share (Gartner, November 2013).
Like Linux (and unlike Windows), Android is open source, which means no one company owns the code. Anyone can improve Android by adding new functionality and tools.
One reason why Android is winning is because open source allows for more innovation. Because consumers are clamouring for increased personalisation and customisation options, the Android open source community has been happily taking up the task of fulfilling that demand.
The growing enterprise trend of bring your own device (BYOD) is here to stay. This will further add to that demand as consumers use their mobile devices at home, at work and on the road. All this demands more and more customised functionality.
Industry 4.0 – Industrial Internet
The Internet of Things (IoT) is spreading everywhere – industrial, business, commercial, consumer. GE is focusing on the industrial side, calling it the industrial Internet. The Germans call it Industry 4.0 – the 4th manufacturing revolution. The first revolution was the introduction of steam and coal energy in the late 1700s; the second was electrification of manufacturing in the early 1900s; the third was the introduction of programmability and the PLC in the early '70s.
Industry 4.0 is the Internet of Things, data and control beyond just information and ideas. IoT is sensors, technology and networking all coming together to allow everything to exchange information.
According to IDC, the spending on IoT was almost $5 trillion in 2012 and expected to be about $9 trillion in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of almost 8%. The installed base of connected things will be over 200 billion by the end of 2020 including 30 billion connected autonomous things. This will become a new construct in the information and communications technology world.
WIRED magazine showed that the future will be about connecting devices to the millions of invisible transactions of daily life. It’s not just about more cool features on individual gadgets, it’s about connecting them all to generate vastly more useful information and the ability to control.
As more devices emerge that connect to the Web, more of them are able to connect to each other. An example is OpenRemote’s software that can connect and automate all kinds of devices. For example, several Internet connected home gadgets – thermostats, door locks and window blinds – which each have separate apps for operation, can be merged with OpenRemote into a single iPad app to control everything.
All this is happening very fast. How is your company involved? Lead, follow or simply slide into oblivion.
Jim Pinto is a technology futurist, international speaker and automation industry commentator. You can e-mail him at jim@jimpinto.com.
Or review his prognostications and predictions on his website www.jimpinto.com
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