Back to the future?

 

A GTF reader has commented on a recent article from The Economist on mobile banking. He notes that before online banking, there was closed client-side applications such as Microsoft Money and Inuit’s Quicken. It wasn’t until leading financial institutions migrated their online offerings to their own web sites on the Internet, that they were able to secure mass market adoption for homebanking.

 

Now the future is looking to mobile access as the next evolution in customer self-service in banking. And suddenly, those old questions surface again – should financial institutions go the proprietary route with a downloadable application, share branding and revenues with third parties, carriers and others; or work on an open platform using the mobile web browser embedded in the mobile phone?

Thinking green

I’ve been thinking about the energy needed to run the world’s corporate IT infrastructure. According to Gartner,  it adds up to 0.75 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. And the forecast is for much worse to come. When the environmental cost of keeping data centres cool with air conditioning is considered, the gap between the emissions produced by the two sectors shrinks still further. Yet to date, most of the hi-tech sector’s green focus has been on the need to recycle computer equipment.

It helps that the options for ‘relatively green’ are expanding. The US Environmental Protection Agency is about to turn up the heat on computer makers, with an overhaul of its Energy Star efficiency ratings for computers, developed in concert with the country’s energy department. Among its features, Energy Star’s website offers a power management calculator that displays the reward for activating those power-saving settings in dollars saved and pounds of greenhouse gas emissions prevented. The list of companies that has already embraced Energy Star includes Citigroup, Ford Motor Company and BP and through the scheme, Americans saved enough energy in 2005 to avoid greenhouse emissions equivalent to 23m cars. Not much noise, however, from smaller companies - which is where the change really needs to happen.

From Products to services?

GTF recently attended the San Francisco conference put on by Harbor Research, an international consulting and business-development firm. The meeting took a close look at smart sensors (for a techie definition, here’s Intel’s take). More and more people are starting to believe these devices can radically transform a commoditised product company into a hybrid product-and-services company

Connected devices are, of course, a key element in the Web 2.0 movement. And by using remote sensors to monitor equipment – on everything from tractors to blood-analysis equipment to printing presses – companies can add new repair, maintenance and consulting services to the products they have always sold.

“When devices and programs are connected to the internet, applications are no longer software artifacts, they are ongoing services,” says Tim O’Reilly, chief executive officer and founder of O’Reilly Media, firm that coined the term Web 2.0, in his definition of Web 2.0.

Companies presenting at the Habour Research Smart Services Forum shared some of the ways to use so-called smart sensors to offer services that accompany their core products, thereby boosting profits and customer fidelity. We’ll be writing about some of the examples in the coming weeks. In the meantime, if you’ve had some experience with smart sensors - please let us know