Coimbra is one of the first cities in Portugal to install public transport digital displays in locations without power from the grid.
Known as "the city of students," Coimbra’s culture revolves around students, explains Luis Antunes, CEO of POWERQUBIT, local fleet management powerhouse.
The Coimbra Municipality Urban Transport Services or the SMTUC connects the fourth-largest urban centre in Portugal via an extensive bus (and trolleybus) network. Its 120 public transport lines cover more than 2000 km, with 150 buses ferrying passengers to and from, including most of the student body. More than 21,000 students call Coimbra, the location of Portugal’s oldest university, their temporary home.
There are 1350 bus stops: on an average day a student (or commuter) could spend anywhere from 35 to 120+ minutes using public transit, waiting at a stop or station from 12 to more than 20 minutes.
Now a smart digitalization of remote public transport stops in Coimbra was made possible with Visionect technology, the vision of SMTUC and the CMS of POWERQUBIT (in charge of all operational aspects of the transport signs).
The first fully autonomous solar-powered electronic paper displays from Visionect were introduced three years ago.
Now “the city of the students” boasts 25 completely self-sustainable bus stops (15 installed in 2017, 10 in 2020 and more underway)-- all available in a display XXL format (32-inches in diagonal).
And all powered by solar energy, a natural resource for a city which basks in sunlight for close to 1900 hours each year. That’s up to 10 hours of sunshine every day.
Using 99% less power than LCD, the Visonect ePaper screens can be rolled out with just a few bolts, powered by a solar cell and connecting via the cellular network.Live-content plugs in easily with POWERQUBIT’s transport CMS connecting to Visionect’s Software Suite.
Live passenger information across the whole of Coimbra’s public transport network brings higher passenger satisfaction, a better customer experience, fewer complaints, improved accuracy of bus arrival predictions and an increase in service uses.
And it does so, says Antunes, with reduced operating costs for the public transport provider and a future-proof, sustainable platform.
With Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 and dimensions of 145.2 mm (H) x 93.3 mm (W) x 9.9 mm (T at hinge), there’s room for an eSIM5 and one Nano SIM. It runs on Android 10.
But don’t call it a smartphone. Microsoft really, really wants to create a new category of mobile device-- that is, a popular new category.
“We designed Surface Duo for people who want to get more done with the device in their pocket. Our internal research shows that 3 out of 4 people report struggling to complete complex tasks while away from their computer. That’s because smartphones with a single screen aren’t designed for you to easily do multiple things at once,” says Panos Panay, Chief Product Officer for Windows + Devices.
“Think about it. You continually have to switch between apps to get even the most essential things done – breaking focus, breaking flow. Just like using two monitors at your desk, having two distinct screens lets you open up two apps side by side…”
He goes on “..as we look ahead to the next wave of mobile productivity and creativity, we see an opportunity to create something new with Surface Duo-- not to reinvent the phone, but to inspire people to rethink how they want to use the device in their pocket.”
]]>GlobalData contradicts the many third-party market forecasts for blockchain technology who predict astonishing levels of revenue and growth.
"While we do see strong growth in spending on blockchain technology over the next seven years, GD forecasts that spend on blockchain technology itself will not reach $1 billion by 2025," says Charlotte Dunlap, Senior Analyst for Application Platforms.
"Growth in services revenues directly attributable to the implementation of blockchain will see even higher rates of growth, albeit from a lower starting point. The revenues aren’t in blockchain; they’re in the surrounding transformation projects."
According to GlobalData, while the buzz around blockchain intensifies, platform vendors are playing out mindshare grabs through an upswing in strategy and ecosystem updates. "Cloud platform providers are being pressed to define the early stages and use cases of this emerging market, which promises to modernize decades-old financial and supply chain systems into digital ledgers."
About blockchain, these days you hear less charges of ‘hype’ and more practical discussions about how technology providers and systems integrators might build points of interoperability between disparate blockchain implementations and cloud platforms.
GlobalData confirms the industry is moving beyond the education and proof-of-concept (PoC) stage and into a phase which aims to demonstrate how blockchain performs in production. This requires concrete steps towards interoperability among partners and various blockchain implementations.
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Most tech companies profit from our data by serving up ads while others also lease or sell our info (even to data brokers). It's a consumer business worth millions of dollars--so lucrative those data brokers are called "data privateers." Like pirates of old except there has been no mutiny on this bounty.
While it's our data they're selling, we don't earn a cent. In an era of digital disruption, where media constantly bombards us to take our businesses digital, we've been blind to our own increasingly valuable digital profile.
Now two companies want to change that...
Insilico Medicine and The Bitfury Group plan to create the world’s first personal data marketplace run on blockchain and powered by artificial intelligence. The marketplace will let you take control of your personal data--and profit from it.
]]>78 companies on the list are in London, making the British capital a hub for innovation and commerce in the EU even as the UK prepares to leave the bloc.
Let's call it "Techxit..."
Paris is second with 45 companies, followed by Milan with 34 and 32 in Berlin.
Chances are this list isn't perfect. We imagine it's easier to accumulate info on companies in Western Europe than elsewhere in Europe. But it's a great compilation.
The "Technology" companies account for nearly 33% of the list. But it is getting harder and harder to distinguish "technology companies" from "companies" in the Age of Disruption.
]]>
The company will enter the market with a bare metal product that contains server class compute nodes based on a system on a chip (SoC) with SATA, networking, serial port and boot FLASH interfaces on the same chip.
“Microservers are densely packed clusters of low power servers running computationally light workloads between thousands of processor cores, 2x reduction in Capex, 2x reduction in power consumption, 10x reduction in space, 14x increase in rack performance,” says Fred Buining, CEO and Managing Director. Buining [shown in picture] was previously Director Technology and Markets for Logic Supply Europe.
At ILA, multiple microserver nodes will be clustered in a 2U case with maximum of 64 nodes, providing up to 1536 cores (depending on which SoC is chosen). It is the World’s Densest 64-Node Microserver System.
]]>
Jamboard. It’s Google’s 55-inch 4K touchscreen-- the first hardware product in Google’s rebranded G Suite of cloud-based tools. Formerly Google Apps for Work, G Suite is a set of intelligent apps for business by Google Cloud.—you know many of these collaboration tools from apps like Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Docs.
The problem that Google saw: their tools make online long-distance collaboration easy online, but put everyone in the same huddle room and there’s Google confusion. People would have to agree which tools to use--and spend meeting time sorting it all out. They couldn’t walk in and be both creative and collaborative in G Suite at the same time.]]>
Intel’s leaders believe drones are an important computing platform for the future—and they hold a new Guinness World Record to prove it.
They set the new record for having The Most UAVs Airborne Simultaneously with 500 drones lighting up the night sky. They outdid their previous record of 100 drones in-flight simultaneously in less than a year.
Yet the World Record may not be as high flying as an even more important record: these were all Intel-built and Intel-branded drones. Yes, it’s "Intel Outside" this time...
In October, Intel announced their first Intel-branded commercial multirotor drone – the Intel Falcon 8+ System [shown in photo below] with complete flight system redundancies built in.
Recently they announced their expanded capabilities in the drone sector with their acquisition of MAVinci GmbH – a private fixed-wing company with best-in-class flight planning software.
But Intel isn’t stopping there.]]>
Before you pass by this news, let us quickly remember the fastest-growing channel for third-party maintenance is through commission-based partnerships with the authorized VAR community. More on that, later in this article.
This acquisition will trigger renewed interest in TPM in Europe, a race to acquire growing TPMs, and an avalanche of opportunites for European solution providers.
Founded in 1981, US-based SMS provides IT infrastructure services to a client base of more than 3000 businesses.
SMS calls itself "the global market leader in Third-Party Maintenance (TPM) services, which it offers in conjunction with its full suite of IT system support services."
And it is true SMS has at least 900 engineers on its staff and serves clients through more than 100 service centers across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Covering equipment from all the major IT original equipment manufacturers, SMS recorded revenues of approximately USD$ 245 million in 2015. SMS is more than 10X bigger than most of its category.
But it is a big world there and the race to become a truly global provider is on.
The main reason for the acquisition by Partners Group can only be to grow the SMS's global sales force and expand its portfolio of services and global presence for its clients.
The owners of SMS who sold it were private equity investment groups (Thomas H. Lee Partners and Summit Partners)-- the sale to Partners Group moves SMS to the league of bigger investors, institutional investors with more international resources.
This acquisition intends to give SMS the ability to continue the company's growth trajectory both organically-- and through select acquisitions.
In 2013, SMS acquired UK-based Olympic Support. In 2014, it acquired Careitec A/S in Denmark to provide additional support in Scandinavian countries. In 2015, it acquired Prob-Solve Solutions and GMT360 in the UK. SMS is looking to continue its global expansion organically, and also through continued targeted acquisitions.
Partners Group will provide the funding for further growth. Swiss-based Partners Group is a global private markets investment management firm with its pockets filled by 850 institutional investors worldwide. With more than EUR 49 billion (USD 55 billion) in investment programs under management, Partners Group searches for deals in private equity, private real estate, private infrastructure and private debt.
Seventy percent of SMS's business has been direct to the end customer (largest direct verticals for SMS are healthcare, retail and financial services). Following a new imperative, SMS also is growing an affiliate network for channel sales.
Fueled by a need for cost optimization (particularly for postwarranty and EOSL data center and network devices), end-user interest and demand for alternatives to OEM support for data center and network maintenance are increasing.
Gartner says TPM contracts offer customers an average of 60% savings off of OEM support list prices. However, depending on equipment type, location and product density, Gartner has seen the range of savings with TPM contracts is 50% off OEM list up to 95% off OEM list.
You might want to watch the SMS video called "What is the OEM Treadmill?"
The main loser, in the TPM wars, will be the OEM, the vendor who has always counted on the built-in service fees not only for profit but as a driver for hardware refresh.
Today's TPM (Third Party Maintenance) market is extremely fragmented (with most providers even in the big USA market making less than $10 million in annual revenue from TPM). Very few providers have true global scale at this time, but many--like SMS-- are looking to build out global capabilities through acquisition and partnerships.
Gartner Research says today, 85% percent of the time, a TPM competes only against the OEM, not in a competitive bidding situation against other TPMs. But this is changing fast.
The IT research expert also says, by 2020, 80% of North American VARs will have active commission-based sales with at least one independent TPM.
Can we expect less in EMEA? It may not be identical in percentage but it makes sense it will follow, in general, the USA model. Europe has also seen the attraction of 3rd party support in software: European giants like SAP have attracted a big 3rd party ecosystem.
Gartner explains TPM is offered by two types of providers: traditional TPMs and secondary hardware suppliers.
Traditional TPMs traditionally have had more than 80% of their company revenue from annuity support contracts, and most providers have been around for many years. Many have very recently received investment funding.
Then there are the secondary hardware suppliers where more than 80% of their company revenue comes from secondary hardware resale. Realizing that managing parts and logistics is a key factor to success in the TPM market, many secondary hardware resellers begin TPM practices. Atlantix Global Systems, CentricsIT, Curvature and CXtec are the secondary hardware suppliers that provide the third-party support.
By 2018, 75% of secondary hardware providers will have a formal third-party maintenance offering.
Gartner also identifies other types of hardware support...
Resale (OEM support) — The most commonly purchased support is OEM-delivered support. These SKU-based hardware support packages are purchased from different sources, including the OEM itself, or from partners, including communications service providers (CSPs), system integrators (SIs) or value-added resellers (VARs). Examples of OEM support include Cisco Smart Net Total Care (formerly SMARTnet service), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Datacenter Care and Juniper Networks' J-Care.
Collaborative (co-delivery support) — Some OEMs, including Avaya, Cisco and EMC, have programs to authorize channel partners, including CSPs, SIs and VARs, to provide their branded support, which is backed by the OEM. This is commonly called "co-delivery" or "collaborative" support. In these programs, the partner typically is taking Level 1 and Level 2 calls and managing the relationship with the customer, but is able to escalate to the OEM when needed. Typically, collaborative support partners are financially motivated to do more on their own, meaning, they receive a higher discount on the price they pay the OEM for support if the number of escalations to the OEM is minimized. Examples of collaborative support include Dimension Data's Uptime and IBM Managed Maintenance Solutions (MMS).
Multivendor support (MVS) (hybrid of resale/collaborative/TPM) — This is when a service provider combines elements of other support types. Globally, MVS contracts are typically offered by global OEMs, CSPs and SIs; for example, from Dell, HP Inc., IBM, Fujitsu, Zensar and others. For example, HP Inc. may provide a maintenance contract that includes HP Inc. devices, and end of service life (EOSL) devices from a number of other OEMs in an MVS contract.
Gartner notes the third-party data center maintenance, third-party network maintenance and secondary hardware markets are coming together. With the exception of niche providers that strategically work only as a subcontractor to other TPMs, most providers in this space want to offer support across servers, storage and network.
"Today, there is more cross pollination between secondary hardware sales and TPMs," says Gartner. They list these trends...
- Server- and storage-focused TPMs are building or acquiring network TPM practices.
- Network-focused TPMs are building or acquiring server and storage TPM practices.
- Secondary hardware suppliers are entering the TPM market.
- Traditional TPMs are entering the secondary hardware market.
Providers in this market are changing to be able to offer both support services and secondary hardware across server, storage and networking platforms.
And that means competition will continue to grow. And market interest is fueled by that competition.
If you are an Solution Provider or VAR, you can expect a knock on your door. Or you can do yourself a favor and search out that TPM commission deal. Now.
Go Gartner
Go SMS
At Google I/O 2016 for developers, Google introduced its Daydream — the next generation of its virtual reality.
Google VP of VR Clay Bavor says Daydream will include “all the ingredients you need to create incredible, immersive VR experiences.”
“Over time Daydream will encompass VR devices in many shapes and sizes. But today is about how Daydream will enable high quality VR on Android smartphones.”
Daydream-- both hardware and software — is an advanced successor to Google Cardboard, the disposable headset standard released two years ago. It's a mobile VR system powered by the next wave of Android N devices, built to a company-approved standard.
Google Cardboard worked with almost any smartphone, but Daydream will only work on new phones with specific components (with special sensors and screens) to be released this autumn.
A Daydream home screen will let you access apps and content (while using a new headset) and an early look shows a whimsical forest landscape (shown in photo). Inside this environment, Google has created special VR versions of YouTube, Street View, Google Play Store, Play Movies, and Google Photos. It's also recruited outside media companies to bring their apps to Daydream-- streaming platforms like Netflix and gaming companies like Ubisoft and Electronic Arts.
The Google exec added that: “Hulu, Netflix, HBO, even IMAX are bringing their libraries to Daydream so you’ll be able to watch shows and movies in a virtual cinema, or an immersive 3D film in a virtual IMAX theatre.”
Some hardware partners that will make Daydream-ready phones include Samsung, HTC, LG, Xiaomi, Huawei, ZTE, Asus, and Alcatel.
Daydream is Google’s “Phase Two” in Google’s mobile virtual reality ambitions. The scale of Android-- with all of its content, service, computer vision and AI assets-- puts Google in a strong position to become the leading force in the virtual reality that will come eventually into AV, digital signage, UC and industrial technology.
Watch the Google I/O Keynotes, including the VR Keynote