Plastic Mobile Has Breakfast with Deloitte’s Duncan Stewart

…as well as about 750 other execs, media personnel and tech enthusiasts, but, whatever.

At 7:30 this morning, this odd pastiche of professionals piled into the SONY Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, ON, to hear Duncan Stewart, Director of Technology, Media and Telecommunications, entertain and educate about Deloitt’e annual #TMTPredictions.

The tech arm of the professional services giant put together some very interesting facts and advice on what’s in store for our evolving industry in 2012. Among the most interesting prophecies were:

• continued growth of the ever-surprising TV
• the advent of data caps in many leading countries (i.e. the death of unlimited ISP deals. Le sigh.)
• the metamorphosis of our smartphones and tablets to “little PVRs”; and
• the immediate future of NFCs (hint: it’s not what you think).

One mobile prediction that really stood out was the hypothesis that the purchase of tablets would continue to increase, but that it would be less by new buyers and more concentrated by a secondary tablet in the home – apparently we’re not very good at sharing with our families.

Likewise, while the creation of apps continues to surge, Duncan Stewart pointed out that a great number of them are not unique - meaning that, while a number of new apps are being developed, so are existing apps being expanded to cover other operating systems. So, an app that was made last year for iOS, may this year be added to the Android and Microsoft markets.

According to Duncan Stewart, developing a mandate (like we have here at Plastic, not to brag, but we’re just saying) to develop cross-platform apps as often as possible, or as often as makes sense for our partners, will be crucial to increasing efficiencies in the future, and staying competitive in the mobile game.

Home entertainment guru, Panasonic, is exploring another area of household appliances: produce. Yup. Their Japanese business daily The Nikkei has produced the first coud-based fruit and vegetable home growing unit.

Tech Crunch posted about the 100x50x30cm “Smart Vegetable Garden,” noting that Panasonic claims that users can harvest their fare in 40 days, about 30% quicker than when using conventional methods. As well as being able to see the fruits if your labour sooner, the whole mini biosphere can be managed by a cloud-based system that will track the growth, water and temperature, as well as the nutrient levels of the soil.

This handy little eco-gadget can be connected to multiple units, and can be indoors or outdoors, though we suspect limiting its use to the warm-weather months if you opt to garden in its natural environment.

Last, your Smart Garden can be bundled with a home solar energy system that Panasonic is currently selling in Japan.

Some skeptics are concerned that this may be an exciting new avenue for other homegrown…err…plants. But at the outrageous cost (US$7,800), we’re more certain that some tech-trend loving, organic zealot celeb will be the first to snatch this up. Happy gardening!

A recent study conducted by Javelin Strategy & Research and PaymentOne of online and mobile buying behaviours discovered that four out of five consumers would spend more online if there was a more secure alternate method of payment. The survey suggests that online merchants are missing out on an annually, aggregated revenue of $110 billion.

Whoa. Talk about a commerce gap.

An article in cellular-news noted that the survey found that consumers believe – at a whopping ratio of four to one – that direct carrier billed mobile payments are more secure than online credit and debit card digital purchases. Phil Blank, Managing Director at Javelin Strategy & Research, said “If digital merchants simply offered consumers an alternative way to pay, such as mobile carrier based payments, 79 per cent of decisive consumers indicated they would spend more, driving significant new incremental revenue from subscriptions, transactions and purchases. 300 percent more survey respondents perceived carrier billed mobile transactions, where financial information is never shared or loaded onto the phone, to be safer than “mobile payments” requiring consumers to input credit or debit card info.”

While 95 per cent of consumers surveyed had mobile phones, only 36 per cent had used them to purchase something. We suspect that will change very shortly. A note to merchants everywhere: drop your lengthy, arduous credit card forms  (known for timing out…grrrr) in favour of a mobile carrier alternative and, well, jackpot, my friend. Jackpot.

The buzz continued to circulate over the weekend about RIM’s future in the mobile space. Research In Motion Inc. is currently meeting with a stock price that values the company at less than the by and large regard of its assets. After myriad product delays and an international three-day service outage, RIM’s stock price has fallen more than 68% this year and was trading this morning at about $18.61 per share.

However, two weeks back an article in the Los Angeles Times suggested that, although the faster iPhones and Android devices have been raking in market share from Research in Motion’s once-addictive and adroitly nick-named “CrackBerry,” analysts and executives are not ready to count the smartphone out just yet.

Further commentary over the weekend seemed to imply the that upcoming BBX operating logic, which will run on a new line of RIM’s BlackBerry tablets and smartphones, might just be the company’s salvation, bringing a third contendor back into the current two-man race.

BBX Photo Leaked on The Verge

As reported today, “People reckon it’s a melting ice cube,” Leon Cooperman told  Bloomberg. ”We reckon the new operating logic is going to surprise people.” BBX, which is set to launch early next year, will enable apps built for Google’s Android operating logic to run on BlackBerry devices. The new line of BBX phones will also focus more on touchscreens and less on physical keyboards, which have been a hardware trademark of BlackBerry phones. Those fairly lacklustre items aside, we still know very little about the BBX. But that isn’t deterring Leon Cooperman, RIM investor and hedge-fund manager slash founder of Omega Advisors Inc., which bought a sizeable stake of about $28 million in RIM last quarter.

According to the Dow Jones Newswires, he also recently reported a purchase of 1.43 million shares in RIM in a regulatory filing, betting that the BlackBerry-maker’s new devices are attracting customers. “We bought (the shares) because we think (the stock) is undervalued, and we will be proven right or wrong in a few weeks when they report results,” Cooperman is quoted as saying in an article in businessmobilebriefing.com.

While we at Plastic Mobile love a tale of the underdog rising to acclaim, we’re not convinced we’d bet our beer money on the new BBX operating system.

Tweet us @plasticmobile with your verdict – will Cooperman and RIM be high on a much-needed success, or will they live to eat their BlackBerries?

Canadian operator, WIND Mobile has announced the trial of a live LTE network, and the introduction of High Definition Voice Calling across its network.

LTE (Long Term Evolution) is currently being tested by Rogers, Bell, TELUS, and also other Canadian carriers are planning to upgrade to this new technology, while WIND Mobile has just conducted a successful 4G live trial (commonly known as LTE ).

In addition, Huawei and WIND recently announced a partnership that will bring HD Voice to their customers.

HD Voice is a technology that provides improved audio quality and the reduction of background noise. Canadian WIND Mobile is the first career that delivered HD voice in North America. At the moment, the HD Voice service only works on selected handsets.

“We’re very proud of our network quality and of the efforts of our people to perform ongoing and rigorous testing to maintain quality and advance innovation,” said Ken Campbell, Chief Executive Officer of WIND Mobile.

HD Voice and the LTE test are examples of the technologies WIND Mobile is uniquely positioned to offer.

While consumers’ expectations of smartphones are rising everyday, the mobile industry hasn’t educated consumers about the limitations of mobile devices and this has led to idealistic expectations of mobile phones and mobile ads. A part of their unrealistic expectations is that smartphones can do just about anything and everything for them.

Before the Smartphone’s boom, most cell phone owners were satisfied with only clear voice calls, fast texting, and simple games. But times have changed and consumers have great expectations from their mobile devices; they want the best smartphones at the lowest possible prices. They demand more features, better performance, the coolest apps, and indirectly the best mobile ads.

The competition in mobile OS market is intense and bloody! Everywhere you go, you see Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, or Symbian devotees trying to make their friends switch or upgrade; marketers and advertisers are adding mobile to their strategy; manufacturers and app developers fight for increased market presence; wireless carriers try their best to attract more customers, and basically everyone in the mobile industry is fighting for more profit, higher market share, or stronger presence.

As a result of this hype, today more than ever before, mobile advertising is up swinging. Mobile advertising campaigns have become the key to making money with mobile marketing. This means that the opportunities for making money are endless, but the question is how can you turn mobile ad campaigns into successful mobile marketing that puts money in your pocket?

How to best turn mobile ads to dollars?

Cell phone adoption rates, especially smartphone adoption rate are rising everyday, so is the importance of mobile advertising; therefore, marketers should keep in mind the necessary qualities in creating successful mobile ads.

Marketers should also bring into consideration that many consumers are still less than thrilled about ads on this very personal device. In order to increase the usefulness of the channel, mobile marketers must cater the features and formats of their mobile ads to their consumer’s preferences. Meaning that they should understand not only do consumers expect mobile ads to inform, but also they expect the mobile ad to provide relevant information tailored to their preferences.

According to a survey from Yahoo! and Nielsen Company, being informative was the most important quality of mobile ads for a wide variety of products and services. Relevancy was a relatively close second in most categories. Respondents cared relatively little about the graphical and multimedia elements of the ads. This contrasts with research on iPad advertising, which has shown that tablet users pay more attention to the look and feel of the ads and care more about the colors.

According to the InsightExpress “Digital Consumer Portrait” published in 2010, the heaviest mobile users generally did not find mobile banners annoying, while full-page ads were seen less favorably.

Based on the research that has been done on mobile ad campaigns and our expertise in this arena, we recommend marketers to focus on relevant information for their mobile ad. A smartphone user’s satisfaction of mobile ads will only improve if the mobile industry releases flawless, informative, relevant mobile ads that truly offer excellent value and choice for the user.

As mobile ads are getting millions of clicks and eyeballs, it’s important to create an ad that meets users expectation. Time on a mobile ad with a brand is a great deal for a retailer; it is a very intimate experience exploring a brand on such a personal device; isn’t it?

The most interesting article that I came across this week was about cell phone payments and an interview with RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis.

I have been particularly interested in payment processing with mobile devices for some time now and specifically noticed that its really starting to take off in other places of the world such as Asia.  I always imagined that if payment processing were to take place, it would really need to be driven through the carriers.  I guess Mike Lazaridis also sees it that way.

In his interview with Laptop, there were discussions about PayPal and the ability for apps to be paid for through Paypal.  Unlike Apples iTunes model, this means that Blackberry users have one extra step and that is to sign up with PayPal.  Obviously Lazaridis recognizes this barrier and has mentioned that they are working with carrier partners to get the payment processes to be handled on their end.  If this does in fact happen, the mobile space in North America would forever be changed.

The only reservation I have is where the carriers would draw the line on payments.  Would they allow for payments only from applications or would they allow payments to be processed through retailers and be billed to a cell phone bill at the end of the month.  And if they did in fact allow for billing by retailers would they ultimately become a credit agency?  Would they allow some of their users to make purchases and they would prohibit others?  Will they begin to replace VISA, MasterCard and AMEX?

I can’t say for certain what role they will play but I am sure that they will take a larger role in our daily payment process. This is only a little while away and it will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.