US, South Africa, China and India at risk?

BOSTON, USA: Yankee Group identified four countries, the United States, South Africa, China and India, as “at risk” in their continued journey toward ubiquitous connectivity, which Yankee Group terms Anywhere.

Despite the current economic turmoil, Anywhere continues to drive significant financial opportunities for countries, enterprises and consumers. Countries identified as at risk are impeded by a mix of regulatory policies and business model weaknesses that in turn hamper their abilities to claim larger shares of the three areas of economic expansion created by the Anywhere revolution.

These are:

The opportunity to supply increased consumer and enterprise demands on the Anywhere Network will grow from today’s $590 billion to $1 trillion by 2012 (Source: “The Anywhere Economy,” Yankee Group, 2008).

A market for consumer broadband connectivity experiences that capitalize on that network that will grow to $1 trillion worldwide by 2012 (Source: “Getting the Anywhere Net,” Yankee Group, 2009).

A transformation of enterprise IT to Anywhere IT will drive the market for those technology products and services from today’s $2.2 trillion to $4 trillion worldwide by 2016 (Source: “Introducing Anywhere IT,” Yankee Group, 2009).

A new Framework Report, “Many Roads to Anywhere: A Global Field Guide” by Camille Mendler, Yankee Group vice president and Dianne Northfield, Yankee Group director, reveals the state of the countries at risk, and includes their broadband penetration (as defined in the Yankee Group 2008 Anywhere Index as the number of wired and wireless broadband lines in a country or region per person):

The United States, currently ranked 16th worldwide in broadband penetration, is losing pace. The country’s early start in broadband access helped bring today’s penetration to 55 percent of the population, but the creation of a robust national broadband policy is more than 25 years overdue.

South Africa, with broadband penetration at 17 percent yet with 100 percent mobile penetration, is at a critical time. It needs to allow service providers to compete effectively to face the challenges of a saturating market.

China, with only 6 percent broadband penetration, is hampered in addressing its tremendous opportunity by arcane licensing structures. Despite China’s vast economic potential, investors may turn elsewhere if they cannot achieve unfettered service launch across fixed and mobile environments.

India’s broadband penetration, barely over 1 percent, is held back by a schizophrenic regulatory environment. India’s global profile is threatened, with potentially serious local consequences for investment.

Report co-author Mendler advises, “There is no single road to Anywhere, but the key to evolution is a country’s ability to adapt, collaborate and innovate as market needs evolve.”

A companion report, “Turning Service Providers into Anywhere Providers” by Philip Marshall, Yankee Group senior research fellow, and Benoît Felten, Yankee Group senior analyst, offers advice for today’s service providers to focus on three converged lines of business, under the umbrella of a single strategy, to profit from the Anywhere Network:

* Open access integration to enable complex services and applications across a wide variety of devices and appliances, such as converged telephony applications.

* Harvest and personalize to capitalize on opportunities to distribute services offered by established third parties.

* Federate and incubate to create an environment for long tail applications to thrive and ultimately be harvested and personalized should they prove commercially viable.

The report contrasts the distinct technology ecosystem and operational requirements for each line of business, with particular emphasis on devices, network and IT evolution, and service management and personalization. It creates a framework for prioritizing and operationalizing applications into one of the three proposed lines of business.

“Service providers recognize the inevitability of Anywhere and are struggling to transform their strategies to meet its demands,” said report co-author Marshall. “There is a lot at stake: If service providers get it wrong, they will see continued capital value erosion, witness the perils of straddled strategies, and experience the loss of customer loyalty and revenue to other players in the Anywhere Network ecosystem.”