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Technology and business developments that will define the industry, direct enterprise strategies, and shape consumer lifestyles

As we took stock of some trends which would make the most impact this year, there emerged a clear divide between the hot and the new. While on one hand there are 'hot trends' that already exist in the market but are expected to significantly ramp up and move towards mainstream adoption in 2006, on the other are the 'new trends' that are slowly getting a foothold in the market.

Overall, the market is abuzz with excitement as the year opens up to some frantic activity on the wireless front. While enterprise mobility will be the buzzword with enterprises extending information and data to the wireless domain, there will be a growing number of security concerns that the CIO will have to address this year. On the home front, the digital lifestyle is becoming a more grounded reality. Surrounding this digital revolution will be a plethora of burgeoning markets like electronic gaming, MP3s, LCD displays, et al.

On the computing front, while desktops move in the direction of keeping to the bare minimum to make low-cost computing a reality, laptops are lapping up the need for high performance with the introduction of dual core processing.

Technology will continue to move at a rapid pace, forcing increased focus on inherent issues of management, maintenance and security. As enterprises wake up to these concerns there will be dynamic shift in the way these companies devise their strategies. Email management and SOA are among the trends that will define the enterprise space in the coming year.

Mobile Apps

Gung Ho on Gaming

India's just about building up an appetite for gaming. Even though the phenomenon of gaming, in India, may never really match up to its US counterpart, it is becoming an integral part of India's digital lifestyle. The year 2006 marks the crossover from gaming being a niche area to its mainstream uptake in the country with large-scale adoption of gaming devices/consoles.

Whetting this growing appetite will be some exciting new offerings which will hit the market in 2006. Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Revolution game consoles will be released during the year, competing with Microsoft's XBox 360.

Mobile gaming has the potential to define and lead the Indian gaming market over 2006, primarily driven by the growing mobile phone market and falling prices. With the introduction of more sophisticated handsets and games, coupled with faster networks, mobile gaming is becoming as wide-ranging and mature as PC gaming. Growth in the wireless domain will lead to the usage of a range of new devices other than mobile phones.

Work Smart, Phone Smart

2006 is the year to 'work smart' for the enterprises as 'enterprise mobility' becomes the norm this year, and more enterprise applications find their way into the mobile territory. However, the year 2006 clearly belongs to email over mobile phone-though the momentum started last year, it will really catch steam and start ramping up among Indian enterprises only in 2006. 

Telecom biggies like Airtel and Hutch actively pushed their respective solutions- Blackberry and Hutch push email-last year, which will bear prominently visible results this year in the form of huge volume ramp-ups.

What makes this segment hot is the emergence of the whole concept of enterprise mobility, bringing in its wake a growing mobile workforce that needs an access to data while on the move. One of the biggest drivers for mobilizing email is the ability to stay connected to email, which is a key enterprise communication medium and has a high impact on productivity while on the move.

There is likely to be a spurt in the number of devices contending for enterprise applications access this year. Email is just the beginning, with more applications to follow suit as the year progresses.

IM-Voice: Chat Reality

Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo voice chat-names one happened to hear a lot last year. But more than the hype, IM-Voice or voice connectivity in instant messaging is a reality to live with in 2006 that will change the way we have been communicating. It may not completely re-define the way we communicate, considering that PC penetration is still too low to warrant a change to that extent, but 2006 may well turn out to be the change agent initiating this whole process of transformation. So telcos can look up and acknowledge possible future competition.

Tackling security issues, enterprises in India will get onto the IM-Voice bandwagon as an alternative tool for more effective low-cost communication. On the consumer front it will emerge as one of the primary tools of communication.

The recent players in the IM-Voice arena are Sony IVE and Peer Me. A more competitive scenario will further lead to improvement in quality of service as well as introduction of more value added features over the year. Though still a long way away to threaten the traditional telephony systems Instant messaging will nevertheless be a force to reckon with in the year 2006.

Storage Capacities

HDDs Race for Higher Capacities

The only thing constant is change. A law that holds very true for Hard Disk Drive capacities. The race for capacity landmarks will continue through 2006 with vendors vying to outdo each other. While there are no fixed predictions on the maximum that HDD capacities will touch in 2006, one can expect some significant capacities resulting from the expected spurt in storage requirements. The terabyte ceiling has already been broken in external drives beginning with Maxtor announcing an upto 1 TB capacity external drive. For internal hard drives the capacities are likely to reach the 650 GB to 750 GB range.

The first of the drives based on the perpendicular recording technology, which has the potential for major capacity boosts, made their debut in 2005. This is likely to catch momentum in 2006 with more products incorporating the technology, leading to capacity leaps this year. The perpendicular recording technology increases the capacity of a platter by 10 fold. However, drives based on this technology are not likely to appear in desktops before 2007, and are more likely to be slated for the iPod-size, 1.8-inch kind of hard drives to begin with.

HDDs and the Digital Market

HDDs in consumer electronics is nothing new, but during 2006 one will see vendor focus intensifying in this space. Experts believe that vendors will be relying on the digital consumer electronics market to drive this year's growth.

HDDs are already finding their way into digital video recorders, digital music players, mobile phones, high-definition TVs, gaming devices, digital camcorders et al. The trend will become more pronounced this year with these devices demanding higher capacities and smaller form factor HDDs becoming readily available. There is an expected increase in shipments of 1-inch HDDs, heralding good news for vendors with an eye on the consumer electronics space. One is likely to see ultra-tiny hard drives (10-40GB) finding their way into cellphone/music player/videocam hybrids over the year. Consumer electronics may not be the most noteworthy market for HDDs, but it's likely to be the flavor of 2006. The small form factor HDDs will, however, continue to face competition from alternatives like flash.

Are Superdiscs the Answer?
The capacity marathon is on in the optical media as well with products based on the Blu-Ray Disc and the HD-DVD formats becoming a reality in 2006. While the prototypes have been launched in the latter half of 2005, the first commercial products will hit the markets only this year.

These next-generation optical disc formats promise to break the capacity barriers. Whereas a single-sided, standard DVD can hold 4.7 GB of information only, these two formats offer much higher capacities. A single-layer Blu-ray Disc can hold 25 GB, which can be used to record over 2 hours of HDTV or more than 13 hours of standard-definition TV. There are also dual-layer versions of the discs that can hold 50 GB. Though HD DVDs come with lower capacities they offer the advantage of low manufacturing costs, as the HD-DVD media is technically similar to standard DVD media. As a result, the discs can be produced with only a slight modification to existing manufacturing lines.

The debate on formats is likely to heat up further in 2006 as the first of the product betas have started making their way into the market. The year is likely to turn out to be the defining one in determining which format will finally emerge the winner.

The Indian WiMax Scenario

Heralding WiMax

With the mobile WiMax standard ratified and designated 802.16e in Dec 2005, we will now see the real momentum pick up in the WiMax space. Standardization will enable vendors build equipment that are interoperable with equipment from other vendors. This will also mean that equipment manufacturers of say laptops will now be able to develop products based on the technology.

The market in 2006 will be abuzz with a lot of activity around product development and certifications, leading up to the actual uptake by 2007. As a result, this year will be crucial in determining the way things are going to shape up in the WiMax space in the future and will set the pace for wireless broadband.

Companies are particularly gung ho about developing countries like India, where WiMax is seen as the way to alienate the last mile problem of telcos and cellular providers. As a result of this a number of WiMax stakeholders will be keeping a keen eye on the Indian market as well as on India's regulatory and spectrum allocation scenario.

Up Ahead: The 802.11n Standard
2006 is an exciting time for the wireless industry as the year is likely to witness the standardized next generation of Wireless LAN, 802.11n. The Standards Board Review Committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is expected to finally ratify 802.11n towards the latter half of the year, which will see products based on this version hitting the market.

With high WLAN data throughput, this holds good news for the next generation of wireless applications. Backward compatible with 802.11g/b/a, 802.11n can almost quadruple Wi-Fi speeds. Apart from network speed it aims to increase network reliability, and extend
the operating distance of wireless networks. While the current WLAN standards such as 802.11 a/b/g offer performances adequate for today's wireless networking applications, they will not be adequate as next generation wireless applications come. The 802.11n standard will also support all major platforms including consumer electronics, personal computing, handheld platforms, and will be usable throughout all major environments including enterprise, home, and public hotspots.

Data Cards vs Hotspots

While the Indian hotspot scenario is looking up for the year 2006, hotspots are in for some competition from the burgeoning wireless datacards. Irrespective of which of the two emerges as the most popular wireless Internet access mode, the user will ultimately be the winner enjoying the more commoditized pricing. 

While most premium hotels and a few airports already boast of hotspots, coffee shops, restaurants and smaller city airports are the next to have them this year. One expects airports in smaller cities to also go for Wi-Fi hotspots. Coffee chains like Café Coffee Day are already offering the service; soon many other coffee shops, restaurant chains, clubs, etc are expected to join the fray. The change in government regulations last year, opening up the frequency bands for unlicensed devices, are likely to have a ripple effect on the hotspot population this year.

Wireless datacards got off to a good start in the Indian market and will gain momentum in 2006 considering the advantage they offer of anytime anywhere access-and no disruptions due to hotspot unavailability. However, Wi-Fi hotspots have an edge in terms of higher speed than CDMA/1X or GPRS, which are in the region of 50 to 70 kbps.

Hungry for Bandwidth

Broadband for Homes

Broadband in India is to become a mass-market game this year considering the growing appetite for high-speed Internet access among Indian homes. Broadband became the buzzword last year, the year starting with the launch of broadband services by BSNL and MTNL, thereby shaking up the entire industry and allowing for a much larger playing field.

The result, a growing commoditization of high-speed Internet access. This process, which already started last year, will gain ground in 2006 with a more competitive pricing scenario. This, in effect, will lead to broadband gaining firm ground in the Indian market. The growing popularity of high bandwidth applications in the home segment will further drive broadband more rapidly into the home territory. Time also to look out for some fireworks as market players slug it out to capture the maximum share of the bandwidth going out to consumers.

10G-over-UTP

While wireless is the buzzword in 2006, it's not all mum on the wired front as rapid developments and newer technologies enter the Indian market. With a few early adopters for 10G-over-UTP last year, the ground has been laid for a rampant adoption of 10G in structured cabling by enterprises. It will find its takers among some bandwidth-intensive businesses as well as data centers. As more applications in the enterprises demand higher bandwidth and speed, 10G will find wider acceptance during the year.

But, will 10G give fiber a run for its money? Not in 2006 for sure. However, the competition cannot be denied considering the advantages in terms of lower equipment costs as well as relatively lower costs of installation and maintenance. From generating interest to gaining a significant share of the structured cabling market, the growth trajectory is all set for 10G in 2006.

High-performance Laptops

After dual-core in servers and desktops, it's now time to experience some high performance computing on laptops this year. Intel's launch of its Centrino Duo Processors is seen as one of the biggest developments for the mobile platform since Wi-Fi.

The newly launched processor runs two cores at the same speed, paralelly. This obviously means that more processor intensive tasks can take place at a time resulting in better performance. Intel claims that new technical advancements enable the Centrino Duo to perform better by almost 70%, compared to earlier processors. This will give a boost to processor-intensive applications that require multitasking performance-meaning that one can watch movies, play games, surf the Net, all at the same time without compromising on performance levels.

Laptop vendors have already started showcasing their offerings powered by the Centrino Duo processors. Is dual core then the face of things to come?

Enterprise Realities

Managing Email

According to industry experts, email volumes currently stand at 56.3 bn per day as opposed to just 9 bn per day in 1999; it is further expected to undergo three fold increase in the next 2 years-to 163.4 bn emails per day by 2007. Managing this huge volume of emails is going to be one of the biggest concern areas for the enterprises in India, as awareness levels increase.     

One can expect a sizeable number of corporates devising specific email management strategies to tackle this issue. This includes separate policy on effective archiving, deletion and retention, assessment of storage requirements, as this is the most important chapter in effective email management, defining email archiving and retention policies, email audits, etc. This year the CIO gets to the task of living well with emails and making the most out of this big repository of key corporate information, intellectual property, and data.

Service Oriented Architecture

In the enterprise segment, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is finally becoming a reality. This is the year we get to see SOA working for the business. Companies worldwide are already taking the first steps towards adopting an SOA approach. The Indian market will find some early takers who will be aligning their IT with service oriented architecture.

With growing awareness levels, SOA will emerge as one of the hottest buzzwords in the enterprise circles in 2006. One of the key factors driving SOA will be the need for cross-platform integration. SOA offers the ability to effectively integrate the disparate systems and applications existing within their enterprises, thereby leading to cost savings and improved efficiencies. SOA is an infrastructure strategy that relies on middleware and allows existing applications to share data.

Security Challenges with Mobility

As mobility becomes the buzzword for 2006, what follows is an increase in the number as well as variety of security threats and concerns that the CIO will face. As a result, the rapidly evolving mobility environment will emerge as a major security concern. There will be significant increase in corporate information moving into the domain of the mobile world. As this trend continues, the threat to security and privacy will also increase in tandem, and expand to mobile devices.

Enterprises that are planning to significantly leverage the mobility wave will be developing security strategies specifically around their enterprise mobility initiatives. This will force a slew of new mobile and wireless security products in the market this year. However, with devices leaving the safety of the corporate control environment, the information assets and intellectual property they carry are increasingly becoming the responsibility of individuals to protect. This is one area that many organizations are yet to fully accept or anticipate.

Market Truths

Compliance Driven Security

The concern over worms and viruses has not abated nor are the hazards from these traditional security concerns getting any less. However, the market is undergoing a fundamental change. It's re-defining the dynamics of the security market as regulatory compliances take the lead as a more important and critical driver of information security, surpassing worms and viruses-as revealed by a recent Ernst & Young survey report.

The need for compliance with regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley, Clause 49 of the listing agreement, etc is going to be the primary concerns addressed by the information security initiatives of organizations worldwide. The trend will be reflected in the Indian market as well through 2006 as awareness levels, with respect to regulatory compliance, increase. While one is likely to see the security strategies of enterprises more strategically aligned to the regulatory compliance requirements in 2006, there will also be a spurt in information security services and products specifically built around meeting compliance issues as the year progresses. Though not forgotten, worms and viruses will have to wait.

Low-cost Computing

While 2006 is the year of converged devices and smart phones, it is also the year when low cost computing gains prominence. Will the PC become commoditized and will the digital divide get bridged through low-cost PCs, are big questions making the rounds. Though 2006 may be too soon to answer these questions with accuracy, the year will surely build on the low-cost computing wave which took off last year.

The sub-10k PC is already a reality but the reality will gain better ground this year as more PC vendors jump on to the low-cost bandwagon. In 2005 the low-cost PC attracted more hype and attention than actual adoption. But, this plain vanilla, no-frills PC may finally take off this year as the market gets over the initial hiccups and the (over)hype surrounding it settles down. Also, one expects to be offered better than the existing configurations when vendors get their marketing machinery into action.

The LCD Explosion

While bulky looking CRTs may still rule the market in India, their sophisticated, and lighter, counterparts, the TFT LCDs, have started their march towards a mainstream identity-shedding off their niche image.   

Last year, the latter witnessed a good traction from market segments like BPO, BFSI and retail. The year 2006 will build up on the 'thin is in' market mood with a ramp-up in numbers. Vendors are quite upbeat about the LCD market considering that the next level of incremental growth is expected to come from here.

The increasing demand in 2006 will be primarily driven by declining prices, which is expected to be steeper in the 17-inch and 19-inch space. The affordability factor coupled with the desire of moving towards a more digital lifestyle might enable LCDs to conquer the market this year.

Shipra Arora 
shipraa@cybermedia.co.in

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