IPASS A storm in technology, in connectivity, in mobility, in the rise of the machines… - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[onlythebest]

Gibt es hier noch investierte ?
Habe meine Depotleiche aus 2009 in der letzten Woche aufgestockt. 2016 wird ein Wi-Fi Jahr und IPASS endlich zum Durchbruch verhelfen.

so long
only.


From Terminator:

Sarah Connor: What did he just say?
Gas Station Attendant: There’s a storm coming in.
Sarah Connor: (sigh) I know.

A storm in technology, in connectivity, in mobility, in the rise of the machines…

Certainly no one will win a Noble Prize for predicting change in the technology industry. Change is assumed, and technology that doesn’t change simply dies (or are you still using that 8-track cassette player?) But as a leading provider of global mobile connectivity, iPass has to understand the changes and macro trends we’ll be experiencing in mobility and Wi-Fi in the next 12 months. It is fundamental to our business planning. After all, various industry analysts number today’s mobile connectivity nomads at over 5 billion consumers. And with the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), intelligent devices have already outnumbered humans on the planet. Certainly, the era of wirelessly connected everything is upon us, and 2016 may well be the year that Terminator’s Skynet begins to look like a real possibility. So, for what it’s worth, this is how I see 2016 rolling out.

Mobile apps for the enterprise will accelerate. Yes, this may sound obvious, but it was only a few years ago when enterprises put a chokehold on their employees and their devices, carefully throttling the apps that employees could – and couldn’t use. But now, in a world of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and proliferating smartphones and tablets, enterprises, rather than continuing to resist, are embracing mobile apps, as productivity gains are increasingly hard to ignore. For more information, a good source on the issue is Emergence Capital’s Kevin Spain’s Mobile Enterprise Trends Report.

And for another easy one, Wi-Fi will continue its rapid global expansion. While no one really knows exactly how many Wi-Fi hotspots exist in the world – or where they are for that matter – we can safely bet there are as many as 100M, and we know that there are tons more than there were last year at this time. Several tons more. The reason is obvious: there are tens-of-millions more intelligent, bandwidth-hungry devices that need to connect, and they want to connect everywhere. Wi-Fi is truly becoming ubiquitous, as evident by the fact that a monster company like Microsoft is embracing Wi-Fi for virtually all of its products, and of course there’s Google’s highly vaunted Google Fi. At this year’s CES (The International Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas last week, it was reported that 2,200 Wi-Fi hotspots would be required to meet demand, up from 166 only two years ago.

Sticking with the theme of Google Fi, expect to see the continued proliferation of MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators). An MVNO, like Google, is a wireless communications service provider that does not own wireless network infrastructure, but instead enters into a business agreement with an MNO (Mobile Network Operator) to negotiate bulk-rate access to network services at wholesale rates, then sets retail prices independently. One of the earliest, and most successful, MVNOs was Virgin Wireless, proving that there was indeed a broader demand for mobile access than the services – and pricing – offered by the major Telco’s. Google’s entry into this market certainly adds credibility to the space; and in 2016, we can expect this market to swell, adding to a field already rich with over 1,200 MVNOs worldwide, including well-known brands, like Cricket Wireless, Republic Wireless, Family Talk Wireless, Infinium Wireless, Metro PCS, and TruPhone.

A big challenge in 2015 was finding ways to monetize Wi-Fi, which many users expect to be free or part of their mobile phone subscription. The degree to which Wi-Fi emerged as a customer retention tool probably was a huge surprise to many carriers; but the trend certainly became apparent when mobile phone operators saw customers flee to the competition. In fact, Wi-Fi has become so popular that many consumer brands are looking to Wi-Fi as their own means of making sticky customers. Consider Microsoft’s plans to embed Wi-Fi services in virtually all of the products it will roll out in 2016, as well as premier credit cards that include Wi-Fi as a perk for cardholders. It’s a safe bet that in 2016 Wi-Fi-services-as-a-benefit will be showing up in a wider range of consumer products and services.

Finally, let’s go to outer space. With the continued saturation of available spectrum, across both cellular and Wi-Fi bands, expect to see new technologies emerge in 2016 to increase capacity for the insatiable appetite for bandwidth. Globalstar, as you probably know, has been promoting its planned broadband Terrestrial Low-Power Service (TLPS) for several months, battling with regulators and carriers in an attempt to convince both that TPLS will not create unmanageable interference in current licensed and unlicensed spectrum. After months of debate, I expect the FCC will approve Globalstar’s request this year, and open up channel 14 as a brand new, uncluttered Wi-Fi band. Meanwhile, expect Globalstar and others to tap into communications satellite capacity, in bands that provide satellite phone services today, and offer new technologies and services to harness this bandwidth for mobile data transmission.

So, Sarah, back to you for the wrap:

Sarah, to Kyle Reese: Are you saying this is from the future?
Kyle: One possible future. From your point of view. I don’t know tech stuff.
Sarah: Then you’re from the future, too. Is that right?
Kyle: …Right

[onlythebest]

Hoffen wir mal, dass der CEO hält was er verspricht!

BY GARY GRIFFITHS, CEO

The Good, the Bad and the Better
A few months ago, I wrote a blog named The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I hoped in that piece to honestly assess the opportunities I had inherited when joining iPass and detail the depths of the obstacles in the gauntlet we would be running: investors brandishing pitchforks, customers and partners waving tomahawks, and activists throwing Molotov cocktails. I signed my first 10K, our annual report, as CEO last week, and we are currently in the final throes of closing the fourth quarter of the “new” iPass. It seems like a good time to reflect on the past year.

Well, we promised change, and if you’re a change fan, I think you got what you paid for. There simply aren’t many aspects of the company that are the same – or even similar – to a year ago. For example, just today we met with one of our largest customers, a global giant whose name you’d all recognize. The meeting went pretty well. We gave them an inside view of our roadmap – of iPass SmartConnect, its cool features and customer benefits. And they loved it, except for one thing: “For all the time we’ve been an iPass customer,” their executive said, “this is the first time we’ve ever had a technology briefing – the first time we’ve seen your roadmap.” I was shocked, but that was at least one explanation for customer churn – clearly one of the “bads” we’ve had to deal with.

But one of the “goods,” at least with respect to change is that this customer now realizes that not a single iPass employee that they’d dealt with in the past is still with the company. We’re 100 employees leaner than we were a year ago, and of the 155 on the roster today, more than a third have been on board for less than a year. That’s a lot of change – and the closing gap to profitability is another “good” that we’ve achieved over the past twelve months by operating with a smaller management team and streamlining processes.

Another one of the biggest changes I see – one that’s slightly less obvious, is that we’re a simpler company to understand today. It’s not hard: we’re a software company with a simple message: we deliver connectivity to our customer that is unlimited, everywhere, and invisible. As most of you reading this blog know, we don’t own a single network. We’re like Uber in that we’re the largest Wi-Fi network in the world, but we don’t own a single hotspot. We buy capacity at wholesale and sell it at retail. So in a world where everyone wants to be connected – all the time wherever they are – this is a pretty simple value proposition. Sure, the technology may be tricky, and supplier contract negotiations complex, but who cares? Certainly not our customers who just want to connect. It’s like my car – as long as it starts in the morning, I don’t give a damn how the carburetor works. In fact, I doubt if most cars even have one anymore. Anyway, I’m amazed at how many people have said to me, “You know, I never really understood what iPass did in the past, but now I get it.” Go figure.

Speaking of technology, while the changes in our product are becoming evident – iPass SmartConnect is the poster child for this change – I’m proudest of the new attitude these changes have inspired. Our engineering team is pumped. They are excited. Pee-in-the-pants excited. And that’s partially because every day iPass SmartConnect is showing new, expanding capabilities, n ew features that some day could offer new benefits to a whole new class of customers. It’s like being in a Silicon Valley start up again. Wait – we are a Silicon Valley start up. Except we don’t have to constantly look for more capital from VCs ( but then again, we don’t enjoy the stratospheric valuations of private tech companies, but that’s another blog…).

The other changes, well, you’ve heard them all: a new, much larger addressable market. Lots of new customers. A global network nearly three times the size it was a year ago. A new brand, a new logo, etc. And, most importantly, a new vision of being on one billion devices by the end of next year. Now THAT’S a BIG change from worrying about a couple million international business travelers.

One thing that hasn’t changed much is our stock price – not withstanding the nice run-up we’ve had in the past week. But I truly believe that as long as we don’t stop to rest – that we keep innovating, keep changing, and start executing – the market will take care of our stock price. I believe that enough to have purchased another 50,000 shares last week – that’s 130,000 in total since taking the helm. This past year was setting the table. Now, I’m ready for the feast