Beware ‘street BYOD,’ say Gartner analysts

Beware ‘street BYOD,’ say Gartner analysts: Page 2 of 2

By A. Asohan April 1, 2014

Beware ‘street BYOD,’ say Gartner analysts: Page 2 of 2

Of Her and Electric Dreams

The two Gartner analysts also spoke about their firm see as the next big thing: Cognisant Computing.

“It’s a term we coined for how in the next 10 to 20 years, the concept of personal virtual assistants will take off and avatars would be able to make decisions for you,” said Tay (pic above).

“It would be like the movie Her – or like the older Electric Dreams, which was hardware-based, but ‘Cognisant Computing’ is software based, built on your applications and services learning more about you and being able to make decisions on your behalf,” she said.

Electric Dreams is a 1984 movie about how a personal computer – then a new, magical concept to Hollywood – achieves sentience and falls in love. The more recent Her is about a man (Joaquin Phoenix) falling in love with an operating system (voiced by ) developed to meet his every need.

“There are four processes (pic below) to this: Synch Me, See Me, Know Me, and Be Me,” said Tay, noting that the ‘Synch Me’ stage is pretty much advanced already with services like DropBox.

“See Me is location-based, and we’re about there too – the next two steps Know Me and Be Me, is where cognisant computing really takes off,” she said, especially when you have machine-to-machine communications (M2M) and the Internet of Things (IoT).

“For it to really take off however, issues like monetisation and privacy/ security will have to be addressed,” she added.

While Gartner said privacy will be an issue for some consumers, for many it will only be an issue if they do not get enough in return for their personal data. Consumers tend to give up a lot for convenience. The benefit of certain apps might instigate behaviours that were unthinkable yesterday, the company said.

By 2017, Gartner believes that mobile phones will be smarter than people not because of an intrinsic intelligence, but because the cloud and the data stored in the cloud will provide them with the computational ability to make sense of the information they have so they appear smart.

The company expects Cognisant Computing to become one the strongest market forces affecting the entire ecosystem and value chain across IT. Monetisation will flow from the increased knowledge of the consumer and the fine-tuning of offers that can now be achieved, and are increasingly perceived as personal and highly relevant – which should lead to an increase in spend, Gartner said in a statement.

The mobile commerce opportunities are vast as the smartphone is empowered to make purchases via the consumer’s mobile wallet or credit card, all via their mobile phone, it added.

Beware ‘street BYOD,’ say Gartner analysts: Page 2 of 2

Gartner also said that Cognisant Computing will have an impact on hardware vendors and on other services and business models.

Hardware vendors will continue to face the challenge of hardware commoditisation as ecosystem owners will focus on shifting consumers’ focus away from the hardware and onto their services and brands.

“Many hardware vendors, whose margins are being squeezed, are also getting into the analytics side of things,” said Vishal.

With the move into a Cognisant Computing world, the battle to own the consumer will intensify as vendors will try and control the data in the cloud, and through that the relationship, with the users, the analyst firm said.

“However, even when the technology becomes available, it will be a matter of practicality and ROI,” said Vishal.

“Expect it to take off in the West sooner than here, but even then, it might happen in bits and pieces, as certain technologies become cheaper and more viable, those aspects might be rolled out to the market first,” he added.

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