Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
With 2013 now upon us, I have finally succumbed to public pressure and will unveil my “predictions” for the new year. (And when I say “public” pressure, I mean the voices in my head. They are very convincing.)
I have for the most part avoided these sorts of parlor tricks, instead leaving such hocus-pocus to the professionals. Sure, some people make educated guesses on what is likely to happen over the next 12 months, using “evidence” and “logic” to discern events that could/should/ought a happen, but those people have too much free time on their hands and/or are very smart. For me, I have always figured that if I had that sort of prognostication abilities, I would have won all of the lotteries that have ever been offered. And since I haven’t, I don’t.
But, having somehow survived what was expected to be certain death as predicted by our Mayan friends, I figured it may be time to turn over a new leaf. Why not give this predicting game a try. It’s not like people ever hold you to these or for that matter remember them two minutes after reading them. This will allow me to remind everyone a year from now on those that I somehow predicted correctly, and completely forget those that somehow went askew.
So, with that, here are my top five predictions for 2013:
–This prediction is a bit confusing, so stay with me here: The device market will witness some cosmic craziness as smartphones will continue to grow in size while tablet devices will continue to shrink. At the apex of these sizing changes, time travel will be found and teleportation will become common. However, these capabilities will only be available to those with devices running either the Symbian or Palm operating systems and will require those fortunate few to also be in control of a Betamax player to get somewhere and a Microsoft Kin to return. Only one person will have the right combination, but their Kin will run out of battery life in transit and they will be forever lost.
–Another prediction you can take to the bank: Small cells will become so small that the “cell” part will be in reference to the cellular make up of humans. That’s right, sometime in 2013, someone will come up with a small cell that will be injected into the human body producing truly mobile hot spots and will be yet another step on the human evolution chain towards becoming robots.
–Getting back to the device world: By the end of the year, Nokia and Microsoft will have slayed their device/OS competition in regaining their spot at the top of the smartphone heap. This will happen by Nokia embedding NFC technology in all their devices that will have a secret ability to connect with devices not running the Microsoft Windows Mobile OS and infecting those devices with Microsoft’s “blue screen of death.”
–A rejuvenated Research In Motion will rapidly gain market share with its BlackBerry 10 OS and devices once people realize that they are in fact infused with real Canadian maple syrup. The BB devices will also be able to counter the Nokia/Microsoft “death” thanks to RIM’s proprietary e-mail server that will be reinforced with new security measures in the form of unemployed hockey players and reindeer.
–And finally, LTE networks will continue to expand, with carriers investing an increasing amount in marketing in order to convince consumers that their network is superior. This will result in at least one desperate carrier deciding that in order to really gain the upper hand in the eye of consumers it will begin labeling its network as “4G LTE Turbo Corinthian Edition Plus Extra.” As with all marketing claims, this one will have no basis in fact, yet will still manage to embed itself in the minds of consumers who are always on the lookout for more Corinthian anything.
Some may scoff at my predictions, and to those I say “scoff away!” Sure, some of these may seem a bit out there, but when even one of them comes to fruition, I will make sure to remind one and all of my prognostication abilities while at the same time run to my nearest lottery broker. And when none of these come true … well … you can’t blame a guy for trying.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–Wireless trade association CTIA hit for the bleachers this week announcing that it will fold its current two trade shows into one “super” show beginning in 2014. This has been a long overdue move that has rendered a 72% increase in my approval rating for CTIA. However, this move will also remove a significant talking point between a majority of attendees at CTIA events, thus increasing the uncomfortable silence during meetings we all feel at various times at these events.
Even better, CTIA announced that its first “super” event will be held in Las Vegas (awesome) at the same time that rival trade association the Competitive Carrier Association is holding its fall event in Las Vegas.
This is a great move by CTIA as in general trade associations are fairly boring entities that have somehow managed to convince companies that they need to pay money to be part of them in order to become bigger in the eyes of politicians. Or something like that. I have never really given enough thought to why trade associations exist to figure out how they exist.
Anyways, with this move, CTIA has thrown down the challenge to CCA, which over the past several years has managed to convince most wireless operators that their voice will be more clearly heard by a trade association with a three-letter acronym than one with four letters.
I am not sure how this will all play out, but I can only hope it gets ugly enough that I begin to care more about trade associations.
–Nothing against Danny DeVito, but why is he scheduled to talk about technology at the Panasonic booth at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show? What, was (insert any other random person in the world here) not available?
I welcome your comments. Please send me an email at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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