Next year sees the release by Ofcom of two blocks of spectrum, 800 MHz and 2600 MHz, a move which will have a major impact on the mobile broadband market. The House of Commons Culture and Media Select Committee has been hearing evidence from interested parties, including Intellect.
It must have been hard for anyone keeping up with the news to have avoided all the politicking around the health reforms in recent weeks (well it’s always been a subject for politicking) as the ‘listening exercise’ came to a close. But I think there has been a big omission in these debates that the politicians have yet to fully explore. While the focus has much been on the particularities of the reforms – GP commissioning, competition etc. – the biggest threat, and not the main focus, has only been mentioned in the preludes to speeches and papers. That threat is the crisis facing the NHS in its entirety. In a Radio 4 programme on 05 June 2011, Sir John Oldham and John Appleby (King’s Fund chief economist) outlined the future of a NHS costing close to 30% of GDP over the next 50 years if we provide services they way we do now. This is quite unsustainable, and a re-organisation of the NHS and GBP20 billion savings by 2015 will not be enough, a new social contract may be needed. But we live in the now, so for now we focus on the current reforms…
All three parties have been quite vivacious about these reforms, often overplaying and aggrandising their claims. But it is no surprise that one way or another, most of the proposed reforms have been on the table or even piloted in this country by both the Conservatives and Labour over the last few decades. It’s just that no one has tried to do it all at once. GP commissioning is not new, nor is introducing a bit of competition and private providers, but somehow when the Health & Social Care Bill was introduced in January things started to unravel for health secretary Andrew Lansley.
Today the government has announced greater centralisation of purchasing for common goods and services. This makes good sense, and is something the technology industry has long advocated as a way to minimise duplication and reduce the costs of procurement (though ICT services can be slightly more complicated than stationery, of course). Even greater savings will be possible if local public service delivery bodies take advantage of centralised deals, and the technology industry is keen to do its part to help make this possible.
Tesco has become the latest big player to stake a claim in the Video on Demand gold-rush by buying an 80 per cent stake in movie streaming service Blinkbox.
The deal pitches the high street retailer against Amazon’s Lovefilm and Sky in the UK and mirrors a deal by WalMart, the US supermarket group who own ASDA in the UK, who bought Vudu, a similar service, in the US last year.
This could be the start of a major upheaval in the VoD market given Tesco’s position as a major retailer of TVs and it’s huge customer base, many of whom it has strong links with through its clubcard offering.
Richard Brasher, Tesco’s UK chief executive said the deal will mean the company can link the purchase of a product to the building of a digital collection.
So, next stop Tesco working with CE manufacturers to offer VoD services bundled with connected TVs, tablets or other devices. products.
So how does that shake up this emerging market? Well the existing players will certainly be taking note of Tesco’s move given their marketing and spending power, plus links with customers. For CE equipment makers it could offer opportunities to drive interest in connected TVs and other devices. Businesses that operate in this area, such as broadcasters, who haven’t made their move yet may be running out of time.
By the time we get to our CE Conference, the future of digital entertainment in July it will be interesting to see how this market will have developed and I’m sure Tesco’s purchase will attract interest in the retail and understanding the connected consumer sessions.
As George Osborne puts the finishing touches to his Budget speech and dusts of his red box what are the top issues that the technology sector would like to see covered in the Budget? A short, snap-shot survey of Intellect members came up with good news and bad news.
The good news is that this is a sector ready for growth. The bad new is that 75per cent of people who took part in the survey said they don’t think the Government understands the importance of technology based innovation for delivering growth and that they are not giving it enough prominence. So if it’s correct that the Government don’t “get tech” then what does the sector want them to do? Better support for the sector as a whole and particularly for SMEs were popular requests. However, more than 50per cent said they felt there was a lack of a strategic vision for growth coming from the Government and they expect to see this addressed when the Chancellor stands up on Wednesday.
This is a subject that Intellect raised with both Vince Cable MP and Ed Vaizey MP at a recent meeting. We believe that there is untapped potential to drive productivity growth through better use of technology across the economy. We will be developing this argument over the coming months working with Government and others, but we hope to see the issue mentioned in the Budget and an indication that the Government is begining to “get tech.”.
The good news for the Chancellor, and I’m sure he could use some, is that almost 95 per cent of companies that took part in the survey said their top priority for the year ahead is increasing sales. The other top two priorities where accessing new markets and developing new products. This is a positive picture of a sector that is looking to grow.
The C word dominated the Annual Regent Intellect Conference today (Feb 3). Nothing to do with slips of the tongue by BBC presenters, yes Mr. Naughtie, Mr. Paxman, but the hot C word from the world of IT, cloud. You could hear it come up in almost every conversation in the coffee breaks and lunchtime. Speakers had a lot of to say about where the cloud market currently is and, more importantly where it is going to. Ian McVicar, of Lombard said they were not seeing big demand from their clients for funding for cloud but he added that he expected to see cloud take up would move at different speeds in different industries.
Part 1
The annual Intellect-OGC Conference is now halfway through, with the morning session setting the context and landscape of the public sector. As we all know, tough economic times means that the public sector finds itself in a predicament. While budgets are getting cut and savings/efficiency being maximized, the demand for public services is increasing. Thus this year’s conference is aptly named ‘doing more for less’.