Tech & Telecom news — Aug 31, 2018
PRODUCTS & SERVICES
Connectivity
The Australian telecom market is on the way to full Fixed-Mobile convergence, as the remaining Fixed-only (TPG) and Mobile-only (Vodafone Hutchison) operators have agreed to merge, in a deal that would create a $10.9bn combined entity named TPG Telecom and controlled by Vodafone Hutchison (50.1%) (Story)
Video games
It is definitely a bad year for Tencent, and the company’s stock is falling again today (-5%), now hit by new Chinese regulations to limit online game releases, on concerns at the impact of gaming “addiction” on children’s eyesight. Regulators also aim to impose notification schemes to limit the time spent playing online (Story)
Several companies, including Nvidia and Sony, are working in new “cloud gaming” services, looking to increase reach by reducing users’ needs to buy expensive hardware. This is an old idea, but now enabled by the recent huge development of cloud and CDN solutions to support streaming media services like Netflix (Story)
Artificial Reality
With mainstream / mass-market apps still in the future, education looks to be one of the most promising fields to use Virtual Reality in the short term, and Facebook’s Oculus is now busy working with schools, libraries and museums across the world to build pilot programs and better understand the opportunities (Story)
Enterprise
Charter and Comcast are working to use their new MVNOs in the US to increase the scope of their offers to businesses, a key growth driver for cable at the moment (e.g. Comcast growing 11% in B2B). This would also signal a dynamics of businesses interested in buying Fixed and Mobile connectivity in a single bundle (Story)
Together with AI, cybersecurity features are also becoming a space for cloud giants to add value and differentiate vs. competitors, as security risks are a key driver for the migration to the cloud. AWS is now working on several new cryptographic tools to improve security around their cloud-based enterprise services (Story)
Devices
Apple has sent official invitations for the annual iPhone event, on Sept 12, and the inevitable leaks are already revealing what’s to be expected, with 3 new iPhones, all in the iPhoneX shape and equipped with FaceID, but at 3 different sizes, and possibly a new high-end iPad and a new version of the Apple Watch (Story)
HARDWARE ENABLERS
Components
Even amid efforts of cloud providers to increase their high-speed computing capabilities, demand for GPUs actually fell last quarter (-1.5% vs. 1Q18). This is interpreted as a sign of a deceleration of the cryptocurrency markets, that is making it difficult to make money through GPU-based mining (Story)
Network vendors
More problems for Chinese network vendors, Huawei and ZTE, now under question in Japan over spying fears, after similar debates in US and Australia led to regulatory bans. Japanese cybersecurity experts say they will study if tighter regulation is needed to limit espionage risks through Chinese companies’ equipment (Story)
SOFTWARE ENABLERS
Virtual Assistants
Virtual Assistants have started to permeate all kinds of consumer electronic devices, and a good example is Sony, which sells Android TVs equipped with Google Assistant, but able to interconnect with Amazon Echo speakers (and Alexa) too. Now Sony will also support Alexa in its sound bars and wireless headphones (Story)

