Employees’ bring-your-own-device (BYOD) behaviors are “here to stay,” research firm Ovum said Wednesday. An Ovum study found nearly 70 percent of full-time employees who own a smartphone or tablet use it to access corporate data -- a sign that business leaders need to adapt to this change in behavior rather than “being steamrolled by it,” the firm said. About 15 percent of full-time employees who use their personal device for work purposes do so without their IT department’s knowledge, and nearly 21 percent do so despite their companies having anti-BYOD policies, Ovum said. “Trying to stand in the path of consumerized mobility is likely to be a damaging and futile exercise,” said Richard Absalom, Ovum consumer impact technology analyst, in a news release. “We believe businesses are better served by exploiting this [behavior] to increase employee engagement and productivity, and promote the benefits of enterprise mobility.” Ovum collected survey data from 4,371 consumers in 19 different countries, all of whom were full-time employees in organizations with 50 or more employees (http://bit.ly/11rUuri).
PwC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2013-2017 projects a rise in global entertainment and media spending from $1.6 trillion in 2013 to $2.2 trillion by 2017 (http://pwc.to/ZO5QaL). In the global entertainment and media market, digital revenue will be the main driver of growth over the next five years, it said, growing to 47 percent of the total by 2017, from 35 percent in 2012. In 2014, mobile Internet access is expected to surpass fixed broadband in global Internet access revenue, at $259 billion, more than 50 percent of total Internet access spending. The report projects the penetration of mobile Internet devices will reach 54 percent by the end of 2017 compared to 51 percent for fixed broadband. The report expects growth to be driven by emerging markets, with Brazil, China, India and Russia alone accounting for 45 percent of fixed broadband subscriptions and 50 percent of mobile Internet users by the end of 2017. The report projects IPTV will be the fastest growing pay-TV platform in 2017, but only in certain markets, including the U.S., China and South Korea. Cable will remain the dominant platform globally for delivering pay-TV services, though its share will decline, between 2012 and 2017, the report said.
CenturyLink will offer Blue Ridge Networks’ cybersecurity solutions to its federal, state and local government clients, CenturyLink said Wednesday. Blue Ridge solutions are integrated with the infrastructure of CenturyLink subsidiary Savvis’s cloud computing and managed hosting services; CenturyLink will also sell Blue Ridge services through other contract vehicles (http://bit.ly/13FGt8q).
With dramatic cuts in operating expenses, Windy City Cellular (WCC) can sustain operations at 70 percent of prior 2011 funding levels, and Adak Telephone Utility (ATU) can sustain operations at 95 percent of 2011 levels, the companies said in a revised proposal to the FCC, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/10Qdmk3). They have been working with the FCC for months to come up with a financial proposal that would let them get a waiver of certain USF rules. The companies submitted a publicly redacted five-year financial forecast reflecting similar funding levels.
Marketers can target advertising to consumers’ individual set-top boxes using technology developed by TV advertising company Visible World and cable tech provider FourthWall Media, the companies said in a press release Wednesday. The release said the technology will give advertisers an ability to tailor advertising to viewers similar to Internet ads, such as telephone service ads that run only in homes whose occupants aren’t already subscribers. “In a study we recently completed, examining 144 cable operator marketing campaigns covering an 18 month period, we found that ads that targeted their message to the right subscribers got a 70 percent better conversion rate than their overall campaign results,” said Visible World CEO Seth Haberman. The release said the partnership will allow the companies to turn on “addressable advertising” in homes already running FourthWall’s cable platform, which “runs on Motorola, Cisco, and Pace hardware” and is “deployed in millions of homes with numerous cable operators.”
Clear Channel Media will share broadcast and digital revenue with Dualtone Music Group and its artists, Clear Channel said in a Wednesday release. Artists on the label include The Lumineers, Shovels & Rope and Guy Clark. The agreement allows Clear Channel to pay less in streaming royalties in exchange for paying terrestrial royalties. Clear Channel has announced similar agreements with Big Machine Label Group, Glassnote Entertainment Group, DashGo, RPM Entertainment, Robbins Entertainment, Naxos, eOne, Wind-up Records and Fearless Records.
Fifty-five percent of cellphone owners in the U.S. say their phone is a smartphone, according to data from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project released Wednesday (http://bit.ly/17oFoXR). About 35 percent of Americans have some other kind of cellphone, and 9 percent do not own one at all, it said. The survey was done by phone by Princeton Survey Research Associates from April 17 to May 19 among 2,252 adults. Half were reached by landline and half by cellphone.
Scripps Networks Interactive will use the cloud video platform from Encoding.com to enable distribution for its TV shows on Amazon Instant Video, Encoding.com said in a Wednesday release (http://prn.to/17oCp1p). It said Scripps will share shows from HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, Cooking Channel and Travel Channel.
SES requested modification of earth station license E000696. SES wants to add two new antennas, NWM-16 and NWM-17, “in C-band to be located within 1 second in latitude and longitude of the geographic coordinates of E000696,” it said in its application to the FCC International Bureau (http://bit.ly/12sG913). It also requested a 30-day special temporary authority beginning on or about June 17, to receive transmissions in the 10.95-11.2 GHz and 11.45-11.7 GHz bands from SES-6 at 26 degrees west during in-orbit testing, SES said in another application (http://bit.ly/13lwd68). Granting the application will serve the public interest “by enabling SES to fully test the satellite before commencing commercial service,” it said.
Iowa has received a bid or bids for sale or lease of the Iowa Communications Network and notified the vendor or vendors of the receipt, said ICN Director of Government Relations Jontell Harris in an email to interested parties Tuesday. The state issued a request for proposals about the network earlier this year (CD Feb 19 p7). The deadline for bids was last Thursday, one month later than the state initially planned, and Harris declined comment last week on any information relating to the bids. In her Tuesday message, Harris pointed to a February document promising that the contents of all bid proposals will be posted online once the selection process concludes. “ICN must continue to be cautious and follow State procurement laws to avoid compromising the remainder of the RFP and evaluation process,” she said.