Blog articles from 03/2012

About a year ago, I suggested that Microsoft could benefit from buying up RIM. That was when RIM was still a $25 billion company in market cap, its core business had yet to deteriorated to the current bad shape, and the prime asset that Microsoft would salivate most—RIM’s enterprise business—just felt the impact of BYOD. Fast forward to a year later, RIM is now a $7 billion company in market cap; it missed its own financial guidance five quarters in a row, and almost all the...

Designed to solve the headache of splitting drink or dinner tabs, and powered by PayPal, enter Bump Pay. Similar solutions exist, including one from Venmo and even PayPal's own Bump-enabled app, but now Bump has decided to introduce a new app, rather than update its original. The Bump Pay app functions much like its predecessor Bump, which lets users "bump" smartphones together to share contacts and photos. Bump Pay allows users to pay the same way. The app team...

55% of U.S. users of Apple iPhone 4S are “very satisfied” with the Siri voice-command feature, according to new consumer research from the international research firm Parks Associates. The survey, featured in Apple iPhone Siri Users, finds an additional 21% are “satisfied” which totals over three quarters or 76% satisfied, leaving a small number of dissatisfied users. Thirty-seven percent of iPhone 4S owners also want to have a similar voice-command interface for their TV set,...

Good news from the budget last week – the UK government has committed to investing £150 million in 20 ‘super-connected cities’ across the country. We all know building this infrastructure is a key piece in the Connected Home puzzle, and one which will enable accelerated adoption of your products and services into homes across the UK. Make sure you’re ready for the roll out and your consumer offering is clearly defined at the Connected Home Global Summit next month...

By:  Stuart Sikes, President, Parks Associates Parks Associates' consumer study of Siri users revealed several interesting pieces of data. Here are some additional points we found intriguing: 1.  Of iPhone 4s users, 62% use Siri for some function at least several times a week, including 35% of respondents who report daily use.  The least used functions are playing a video, scheduling a meeting, or playing music. 2.  The number of respondents who stated...

Siri is clearly a hit among the initial iPhone user base. But are they ready for it on their TVs? Tomorrow, Parks Associates , will release new consumer research on Siri satisfaction and usage. Here's a sneak peak: Over 50% of U.S. users of Apple iPhone 4S are “very satisfied” with the Siri voice-command feature and an additional 21% are “satisfied,” leaving a small number of dissatisfied users. Check back here for more new data tomorrow.

Despite technology innovations and breakthroughs in interoperability, sales of connected care devices have remained slow, not counting smartphones, tablets, MP3 players/GPS devices that can be dubbed as care data terminals. There are a few important things to note: • Vital-sign monitoring device makers do not release sales figures of Bluetooth-enabled weight scales, glucose meters, blood pressure monitors, and pulse oximeters. • ZigBee-enabled home monitoring kits face market...

With the rise of TV Everywhere and services to deliver content to connected consumer electronics , many are wondering what this means to the future of the set-top box business, particularly from stalwarts such as Motorola (Google) and Cisco. A recent Forbes article touched on this topic. Is the set-top business declining precipitously? Cisco doesn’t think so – it just announced the purchase of conditional access and UI provider NDS. Brett Sappington, our Senior Analyst, has...