2011 Was The Year Of Mobility
But wait! There's more! Mobile seizure of the web access portal has only just begun, and if the growth of applications is any indication, access to cloud services is only going to continue the exponential growth we've witnessed.
Smart Online wrote, at the start of January 2012, about 2011: "Finally, it was in fact the year of the mobile [device]." A rundown of the cloud-based access shows the current and future dominance of web access going forward:
- 324 million smartphones were sold through 3 quarters of 2011
- Just on Dec 25, 6.8 million Android and iOS devices were activated
- 700,000 Android activations per day
- 242 million apps were downloaded on Dec 25, last Christmas it was 150 million
- Number of apps in apple store –600,000; number of apps in android store –500,000
- Number of app downloads in the last week of December – 1.2 billion worldwide with almost half from the US
IT'S THE SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE
Functional apps are those that can be used to run traditional PC-based software systems. Software as a Service, SaaS, is the emergent technology sector that will be dominant as people continue to become more mobile, more portable. As this demand for mobility continues to increase, so will the demand for SaaS. The days of buying software at Office Depot or Best Buy and installing it on your hard drive are dwindling, and they're dwindling fast!
Proof? The number of people slowly (in just one year) converting to mobile tablets. Smart phones will access content, to be sure. Tablets will access content and SaaS.
CNN REPORTS 19% OF PC USERS OWN TABLETS
CNN reported January 23, 2012 that 19% of the US PC owners now own a tablet, be that an iPad, Galaxy or other tablet device. The sheer size of this sector of mobility growth means access to cloud services and cloud data is going to keep exploding, in terms of the data. That number is twice what it was just a year ago, according to the CNN report.
Companies are already shifting their focus to accommodate this trend. Some companies, like A Book Apart (admittedly, we know this company specifically targets web developers) earn a substantial portion of their revenue from cloud-based sales, that is sales to devices and not of paper-bound editions.
WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU
Mobile devices use solid state storage technology. There are no spinning disks. Right now, SSD (solid state drive) technology is not capably of large-capacity storage. Frankly, it doesn't need to be, because people will store their content in the cloud, accessing it from multiple devices and platforms. The SaaS will be the cloud software the runs the show, the devices will be the access "terminals" that store only limited personal data.
Now we need storage in the cloud, in addition to the software in the cloud!
