Connected Intelligence Era: The Golden Age of Mobile
– A Mobile Future Forward Research Paper
http://www.chetansharma.com/connectedintelligenceera.htm
This paper is the 5th paper in the Mobile Future Forward Series. It is a required reading for Mobile Future Forward participants.
History and Background
In 1925, a soviet economist Nikolai Kondratiev observed in his book “The Major Economic Cycles,†that the growth of human history has been intertwined with economic cycles that resemble waves spread across multiple decades (figure 1). The duration of the cycles might vary but the pattern repeats itself. If we study the technology revolutions of the last 300 years that have shaped human history – the industrial revolution, the age of steam and railways, the age of steel, electricity, and heavy engineering, and the current age of information and telecommunications, each of these cycles lasted on average 50 years. There was GDP growth with every cycle and with each technology cycle, we made earth a better place to live even though sometimes it might not seem that way.
Early in the 20th century, an Austrian economist, Joseph Schumpeter expanded on the theory of business cycles and development and wrote perhaps one of the most influential book in economics – “The Theory of Economic Development.†Schumpeter posited that the entrepreneurs changes the equilibrium of any business cycle and is the prime cause of economic development (figure 2), which proceeds in cyclic fashion along several time scales. In fashioning this theory connecting innovations, cycles, and development, Schumpeter kept alive the Russian Nikolai Kondratiev’s ideas of 50-year cycles.
In 2003, another economist Carlota Perez from Venezuela expanded on the Kondratiev cycle theory in her book, “Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and the Golden Ages.†She drew upon Schumpeter’s theories of the clustering of innovations to explain why each technological revolution gives rise to a paradigm shift and a New Economy and how these opportunity explosions, focused on specific industries, also lead to the recurrence of financial bubbles and crises (figure 3). By analyzing the changing relationship between finance capital and production capital during the emergence, diffusion and assimilation of new technologies throughout the global economic system, Carlota’s book discussed some of the pressing issues in front of us.
This brings us to the present time. Where are we in the big economic cycles? Are we in the golden age of the last technology cycle of information and telecommunications that gave birth to the Internet and the modern wireless ecosystem as we know it or are we perhaps on the verge of a new age that will transform human history for the next 50 years? Given that the markers of transition are not always clear, we won’t know for sure which wave we are embarking on for some time but we are fairly certain that we are entering the golden period of the mobile industry.
There is also a strong possibility that we might be onto something new, something more transformative, something different that we would humbly propose is the start of theConnected Intelligence Era. These two operative words are going to define the next phase of human evolution. The confluence of mobile broadband network, smarter devices, pervasive connectivity, and our ability to program the intelligence around us is going to dramatically change every industry vertical from the ground up. Consider the health industry – sensors inside the body can send alerts days before a stroke, telemedicine can help direct a surgery in remote parts of Bhutan, mobile devices will educate and guide us on nutrition, wellness, and medicine compliance. In fact, technology might eliminate the need to go to a doctor completely except in the case of chronic diseases or an emergency. Some of this is already happening but we will see implementations on a global scale that will hopefully reduce the enormous burden on the global GDP.
Similarly, the travel and tourism industry is being transformed by intelligence at the fingertips of travelers in unfamiliar lands. The education segment especially in the developing world is being changed by the availability of affordable tablets. M2M is making the energy sector reinvent itself. In a few years, it will be hard to imagine a car without mobile broadband connectivity.
As we outlined in our Mobile 4th Wave paper series, change is in the air. Mobile is becoming the critical tool to drive human ingenuity and technological growth. Fueled by the revenue growth curves of voice, messaging, and access, the industry has flourished beyond anyone’s imagination.
We as an industry are on the verge of incredible milestones in human history. Very soon, for the first time, mobile connections will exceed humans on the planet. Mobile broadband networks are being deployed at the fastest pace ever. Smartphones are in such great demand that in some countries, feature phones are already going extinct. The trifecta of fast broadband networks, well-designed mobile computing devices, and the insatiable supply of content, applications, and services has unleashed consumer demand like never before.
The last thirty years of industry growth were primarily driven by network access to voice, messaging and data. The next thirty will be defined by access to services and solutions that are customized to the individual consumer lifestyles. Enterprises around the globe are also rethinking their business processes and business models and how they can take advantage of the connected intelligence around us. As an industry, we have reached an annual run rate of $1.7 trillion in revenues. But how will the next trillion dollars be generated? Which services are going to dominate? Which players will get the lion share of the revenue stream? How will regulators regulate? How are we going to deal with the vexing issues of privacy and security? How will consumers adapt to the changing dynamics and will we truly realize the potential of the 4th wave? The next decade will yield the answers and determine the new winners of the mobile ecosystem.
In this paper, we make the case that we are in the beginning of the “Golden Age of Mobile†and discuss its impact and the early years of the transformation some of which we are already starting to see.
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Chetan Sharma
We will be keeping a close eye on the trends in the wireless data sector in our blog, twitter feeds, future research reports, articles, and our annual thought-leadership summit – Mobile Future Forward. The next US Wireless Data Market update will be released in Nov 2014. The next Global Wireless Data Market update will be issued in Sept 2014.
Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this paper are our clients.
We will be discussing many of the ecosystem and technology issues, opportunities and challenges for the coming years in our annual mobile executive summit Mobile Future Forward on Sept 24th in Seattle. Some of the confirmed speakers are: Bill Ruh, VP – Global Software, GE; Tim Campos, CIO, Facebook; Erik Moreno, SVP, Fox Networks; Glenn Lurie, President, AT&T; Steve Mills, CIO, Motorola Mobility; Hank Skorny, VP/GM, Intel;Dr. John Saw, CNO, Sprint; JD Howard, VP/GM, Lenovo; Dave Webb, CIO, Equifax; Dr. Hassan Ahmed, CEO, Affirmed Networks; Mark Fernandes, Managing Dierctor, Sierra Ventures; Ujjal Kohli, Founder, Rhythm NewMedia; Vik Kathuria, Global Chief Media Officer, Razorfish; Erin Kienast, SVP, Starcom Worldwide; Josh Will, Senior Category Manager, Best Buy; Steve Elfman, President, Sprint; Glenn Laxdal, VP, Ericsson; Matt Grob, EVP/CTO, Qualcomm; Julie Woods-Moss, CMO, CEO of Nextgen Business, Tata Communications; David Richter, VP, Uber; Paul Brody, VP & Mobile Practice Leader, IBM; Mathew Oommen,President, Reliance ; Andreas Gal, CTO, Mozilla; Chris Putnam, SVP, Synchronoss; Brian Angiolet, SVP – Consumer Product Innovation, Verizon; Sharath Dorbala, Head of Mobile Financial Services, Amdocs; Rajeev Tankha, Senior Director – Applications, Oracle; Andy Chu, VP – mCommerce, Sears Holdings; Philip Fasano, EVP and CIO, Kaiser Permanente;Erik Ekudden, SVP, Ericsson, Benedict Evans, Partner, Andreessen Horowitz; Dr. Mani Prakash, VP – R&D, Covidien; Dr. Corrina Lathan, CEO, AnthroTronix; Chia Chen, SVP, Digitas; Eric Mugnier, SVP, M&C Saatchi Mobile; Rob Chandhok, President, Qualcomm, and many more to come. We hope to see you there for the brainstorm.