ReleaseWire Connect

Semiconductor technologies continue to evolve and amaze even those that previously forecasted aggressive growth. New materials, new structures, new manufacturing tools, and new advancements in modeling and simulation form a breeding ground for novel high performance electronic and photonic devices.

The deployment of LTE networks is progressing with the industrialized nations in North America, Europe and Asia already deploying operating LTE networks. Currently 165 operators have announced plans to deploy LTE networks in 62 countries. Nineteen LTE are currently operational covering 380 million subscribers. Thirty more LTE networks are due to be deployed in 2011 and forty-three more networks become operational in 2012 (for a total of 92 operating networks by the end of 2012).

Wireless systems are evolving towards the development of broadband applications, including multimedia services in a way to compete with wired LAN systems. It is expected that users will eventually demand the development of new applications with broadband access and bit rates higher that 2 Mbps, including broadband WLANs, multimedia, and interactive broadcasts in a global environment based on terrestrial and satellite systems.

The Google Update Report provides timely analysis and projections about Google market prospects, products and applications, product and company integration, current and potential mergers and acquisitions, and more.

Cloud computing is seen by many people as the natural evolution of Grid computing concepts. Both, for instance, rely on the use of service-based approaches for provisioning compute and data resources. The importance of understanding business models and the economics of distributed computing systems and services has generally remained unchanged in the move to Cloud computing. This understanding is necessary in order to build sustainable e-infrastructure and businesses around this paradigm of sharing Cloud services. Currently, only a handful of companies have created successful businesses around Cloud services.

Virtual Network Operations (VNO) represents an enormous opportunity for telecommunications on a medium to longer term basis. With margins continuing to erode for core bearer services, network operators of all type must offer value-added services (VAS) for profitability. The VAS applications will tend to be those offered by various third parties in a VNO environment facilitated by Service Delivery Platforms (SDP) and an open IP Multi-media Subsystem (IMS) service creation and delivery framework.

Mobile commerce is expected to attain an annual compound growth rate of 39 percent over the next five years. This growth is driven by the introduction of the tablets and the next generation smartphones. Mind Commerce predicts that the location commerce will be one of the key initiatives across the mobile/wireless value chain within the next three years.

Cloud computing has dramatically changed IT operations and enterprise business support functions. It is poised to facilitate substantial impacts in mobile business models and operations.

Despite its tremendous promise, m-commerce is facing significant acceptance barriers, which are caused largely in part by user interface restrictions of mobile devices. Generally, mobile users find it inconvenient to scroll through large amounts of information using a small screen and often inconvenient keypads.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is rapidly becoming a cost-effective technology. This is in large part due to the efforts of Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense (DoD) to incorporate RFID technology into their supply chains. In 2003, with the aim of enabling pallet-level tracking of inventory, Wal-Mart and DoD followed a suit and issued the same mandate to its top 100 suppliers. This drive to incorporate RFID technology into their supply chains is motivated by the increased shipping, receiving and stocking efficiency and the decreased costs of labor, storage, and product loss that pallet-level visibility of inventory can offer.