Techaisle Blog

Techaisle's Big Data study of 3,360 businesses shows that mid-market businesses typically started their big data journey in one of four ways. However, the highest success rate (determined by reaching a successful implementation of a big data project within six months of initiation) was achieved when an external consultant or organization was brought in to develop proof of concept, advice on database architecture and ultimately develop the big data analytics solution.

Once a decision was made to embark on a big data deployment project, the mid-market organization tended to quickly align behind the initiative. They did realize that big data was not a typical cloud application deployment where independent department purchases could be made, nor was it infrastructure deployment where only IT could be involved. Big data required a new type of alignment between business heads, namely, Marketing, Finance, IT and a completely new set of players known as data scientists or data analysts.

Study shows that businesses are moving from “whack-a-mole” analytics to “business perspectives” to get newer insights into their operations and better knowledge about their customers as they rethink their marketing strategies because mobility, social media, and other transactional services have increased the number avenues for connections with their customers. There are many different tactical objectives for deploying big data projects but the top among them are sentiment monitoring, generating new revenue streams & improving predictive analytics. And businesses are expecting some clear cut benefits from big data analytics such as increased sales, more efficient operations, improved Customer service.

 

In 2012, a total of 47.2 million households and 1.9 million SMBs purchased a PC for the first time (Techaisle estimates), increasing global PC penetration by 2% in both the consumer and small business segments as an average of 5,200 small businesses and 130,000 households per day purchased a PC for the first time.

According to IDC, a total of 350 million PCs (desktops + notebooks) were shipped worldwide in 2012. Assuming that each first-time buyer in both the consumer and small business segments bought one PC, a total of 49.2 million PCs were first-time purchases. Therefore, the remaining 300 million PCs purchased in 2012 were either for increasing density or for replacements.

There are three elements that contribute to PC shipments. These are:

1. Increasing Penetration: businesses or households that purchase and use PCs for the first time

 

1. Increasing Density: purchase and use of PCs for either additional members of a household or employees within a business

 

1. Replacements: replacing older PCs with new PCs

Increasing Penetration

PC market penetration will continue to be driven by emerging market countries. There are 1.26 billion addressable households in emerging markets but only one in four have a PC. Similarly, there are 44.7 million SMBs in emerging markets, but only two in five have a PC. Both of these figures indicate a huge opportunity for new PC sales as there are still 26.4 million SMBs and 994 million households that
have yet to buy a PC – a huge gap indeed!.

It is true that many of these households and small businesses may choose to purchase a tablet first rather than a PC if the planned usage is focused on consuming content through activities such as emailing, browsing, playing games, following news and watching videos. However, it is also true that PCs will
remain an important part of the device market. A tablet’s weight, portability and convenience cannot be ignored, but Techaisle believes that the tablet market may reach the same set of conundrums – lengthening replacement cycles and fully saturated addressable density – that are affecting the PC market today, causing tablet sales to skid. Since 1982 when the first PC was introduced, a combined one billion households and small businesses have yet to purchase a PC. It is hard to say that tablets will fill that void, especially when the market gets flooded with too many configuration choices and a profusion of different brands with unique value propositions; for a majority of buyers, the tablet purchase decision process will become as difficult as for PCs.

Increasing Density

Increasing density is certainly a problem area within mature markets as the household PC density is more than 1 in most countries. However, in emerging markets the household PC density varies from 0.5 to 0.9 devices per person depending upon the country. Similarly, in the case of small businesses the density is also almost 1.0 in mature market countries and varies from 0.4 to 0.7 in emerging market countries. There is therefore potential for PC vendors to increase density in emerging market countries both within households and small businesses. But here again, we may find that tablets become a device of choice thus impeding density increase. However, these conditions will also hold true for tablets in the next 3-4 years when the number of tablets within a household and a small business will reach a density saturation point beyond which no new tablets will be purchased for additional employees or household members.

Replacements

This is where the most brouhaha is currently. PC replacement cycles are getting extended and users – both corporate and consumers – are buying tablets. Notwithstanding the tepid acceptance of Windows 8, the PC buying process has become a daunting task even for the most technological savvy individual. PCs are variously categorized as Ultrabooks, ultra-thins, light and thin, long battery life, anti-glare screen, Premium HD screen, SSD, HDD, All-in-ones – it makes one’s brain dizzy. So the consumer ends up either pushing back the decision or continues to shop for a suitable configuration at an affordable price. “A PC in hand is worth two in a bush” begins to hold true. The consumer may then default to a tablet, which is still a novelty device. But the question remains, at least, within the context of small businesses – are the tablets they are purchasing really replacing PCs? Let us look at Techaisle survey data below based on total sample size of 9,500 SMBs.

Above data (will not add to 100 percent due to multiple responses) clearly suggests that while there are some incidences of replacements, consistently over 60 percent of SMBs either currently use tablets or plan to use tablets as additions to PCs. However, it is interesting to note that the density of tablets in many small businesses is not always 1.0. For example, a small retail store may have 4 employees but uses 6 tablets and 2 PCs. These tablets are used for point-of-sale, display advertising or self-serve terminals. So in effect tablets are doing the work of PCs with more convenience and a smaller foot-print. It is debatable whether retailers would have used PCs for these tasks in the absence of tablets.

This brings us back to the point that we started with. If 300 million PCs were purchased for either replacements or density increase, are tablets then really replacing PCs, or is the PC market itself getting saturated, with fewer compelling reasons to purchase additions or replacements? Are the PC vendors sufficiently targeting the first time buyers, as this group would have the highest potential for increasing penetration and driving increasing density? IDC also said that a total of 128 million Tablets were shipped in 2012. Approximately 32 million Tablets were purchased by SMBs assuming that SMB share was 25 percent. The two charts above when combined with IDC data gives a rough number of 5 million tablets displacing PC sales. The data for SMBs demonstrates that tablets are not replacing PCs, but are being used in addition to PCs.

Techaisle’s bottom line: PC vendors should therefore market PCs to new users and current users with two very distinct messaging to open up the market.

 

A common SMB usage scenario

An IT administrator of a small business gets a call from an employee saying that he lost his iPad with customer billing info, specs of recent architecture drawing; corporate emails and he did not even have a lock in the iPad. What can the IT Administrator do? This is where Codeproof comes into picture. With Codeproof, the IT Administrator could have remotely located the iPad, locked it and even remotely erased the iPad thereby preventing any data-theft.

A common barrier to Mobility Adoption within SMBs

The need for device and data security for mobile devices is an important deterrent in mobility adoption, especially as consumer and business apps converge onto the same devices. Nevertheless mobility is here to stay but going down the route of mobility is also fraught with unexpected surprises – most important being accidental loss of device with company data, employee walking off with device or malware creating havoc with the device.  Many surveys conducted by Techaisle reveal that SMBs worry about these issues a lot but fail to protect themselves adequately. For example, 69 percent of SMB IT Decision makers in the US are concerned about accidental loss of devices containing sensitive data. And nearly 1/3rd of these decision makers are also concerned about inability to manage device configurations so that they comply with company policies. To top it all, there is the issue of managing employee devices that businesses did not buy.

Techaisle survey of 9,500 SMBs across different geographies show that accidental loss of device followed by imminent danger of mobile viruses are the top concerns of SMBs while using mobile applications. This also clearly demonstrates the need for remote mobile device management, authentication, and remote erasure of data.

 

 

The above data clearly demonstrates the need for remote management, authentication, and remote erasure of data on mobile devices. Data no longer resides on tethered devices such as desktops but is spread across multiple devices that “move”. SMBs need to plan for it to make mobility an enjoyable and productive experience.

Codeproof is a simple to use, Cloud-based, SaaS, Freemium model MDM

In four easy steps Codeproof MDM is up and running on iOS and Android devices. A Seattle-based company, Codeproof offers an integrated BYOD security and mobile device management platform specially targeted at small and medium businesses. Some of its main mobile security features are App-white listing, Malware protection and Mobile policy management. It is built on Amazon EC2 elastic cloud for scalability, anytime, anywhere access.

 

An admin can enroll all mobile devices to Codeproof by installing and enrolling Codeproof App on the device. As the devices get enrolled via the mobile Copdeproof app, the devices automatically appear in Codeproof Cloud console tree. The admin can now remotely manage all devices from Cloud console. When an employee leaves the company, the admin just deletes the corresponding employee MDM profiles (WiFi profiles, Email Profiles, etc.) thus disabling the devices from accessing any type of corporate data.

Codeproof is free for 2 devices and is priced at only 29.99$ per device per year. It is worth a try.

We all know that Tablet usage within small businesses (1-99 employees) has been on the rise. As per several Techaisle surveys the penetration rates of Tablet adoption varies from 12 percent to over 30 percent in some countries within small businesses. Techaisle surveys also definitely show that Tablets are largely being used as add-ons to traditional PCs, however there is some incidence of notebooks in particular being replaced by tablets in mobile scenarios. While most repeat tablet purchases are intended to be add-ons to existing PCs, larger Small Businesses have expressed a desire to replace existing notebooks with these devices. This is indicative of a desire but the actual decision will likely be driven by a more logical analysis of capabilities of both devices over the near term. The use of Tablets within small businesses has spread from corner offices and executive suites to a broader adoption within rank and file workers to support line of business and productivity applications. Although the Senior Management and the Sales Executive Personnel are the prime users of Tablets, it is found that among the larger size businesses IT Departments are increasingly using Tablets as they work towards application customization and management of tablets.

Techaisle’s surveys in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Germany, UK, and the US show there are two clear stages of application usage within small businesses.

• Discovery stage – where only basic applications are used. Initial adopters start with Emails, Internet Search, Social Media, and Productivity applications but quickly transition to Deployment stage.

 

• Deployment stage – in this stage small businesses guided by enhance productivity and motivated by Tablet’s mobility start deploying business related applications.

A comparison of applications being deployed by small businesses across different countries:

Looking at the above data it becomes quite obvious that sales, collaboration, and line of business applications come to the fore-front of most small businesses for Tablet deployments.

Small businesses are giving a clear signal to ISVs that developing for Tablets better be on their product road map. Over one-third of small business using Tablets are also planning to develop custom apps for Tablets, and over three-fourth say that it is very important for ISVs to develop enterprise level applications to support Tablets.

The scenarios change slightly for Smartphone application deployment where payment processing appears more often across most countries, but that is a topic of another discussion.

Detailed SMB Mobility Adoption & Trends reports are available for purchase for each country Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Australia, Germany, UK, and the US. If interested please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.