7 TRENDS & INSIGHTS MWC 2017

Hello there!

Bill Gates once said that “Development and adoption of new technologies is usually slower than we expect, but when it happens it’s faster and the impact is much greater than we could ever have imagined.” (loosely quoted).

Expectations have been set extremely high on the impact of devices, AI, VR/AR, IoT, 5G and in particular automation, but current experiences and roadmaps don’t live up to the hype. MWC 2017 provided a somewhat sobering picture of the current state of the market as well as the vision and future impact.

Here’s a quick summary on the big trends and insights from MWC based on hundreds of interviews, tours, presentations and announcements.

“Development and adoption of new technologies is usually slower than we expect, but when it happens it’s faster and the impact is much greater than we could ever have imagined.”

– Bill Gates

No big news other than that Nokia and Blackberry are back, Sony launched an amazing camera phone that few people will buy, Fairphone makes progress with modular devices, and Chinese manufacturers (Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Oppo, etc.) have very strong portfolios.

7 TRENDS FROM MWC17IMAGE BY FAIRPHONE (CC BY-SA 2.0)

1. Devices

Industry leaders spoke about the importance of meeting future traffic and speed demands (100x), the success of pre-standard trials, how great 5G will be, radio spectrum changes, new service verticals that will be enabled, and that we are still three years away from large scale commercial rollouts.

7 TRENDS FROM MWC17IMAGE BY MICHAEL COGHLAN (CC BY-SA 2.0)

2. 5G/Network

Growing demand across all industries, 200+ technology suppliers with some leaders such as Telit, Eseye, Aeris, Jasper and Fujitsu. First implementations of the LoRa Alliance standard, Sigfox growing coverage and ten times higher number of real case studies versus 2016.

7 TRENDS FROM MWC17

3. Internet of Things

Many exhibitors claim they do AI, but few truly do because it is complex and takes time. However, this is changing fast thanks to cloud platforms (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Ayasdi, Sift Science, etc.). TechSee’s Augmented Vision provided a great example of moving from learning from humans to semi-automation and finally full automation.

7 TRENDS FROM MWC17

4. AI & Machine Learning

Meeting expectations of automated voice and text communication powered by AI/NLP is very challenging. Currently Alexa is the only widely supported cross-device solution followed by Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana, Samsung Vive and MindMeld.

Image: Hipmunk in Facebook messenger7 TRENDS FROM MWC17

5. Conversational Interfaces

VR everywhere with amazing showcases by HTC (Vive), Samsung (Gear VR) and others, but few people are buying the devices so far. AR/Mixed Reality devices such as Microsoft Hololens and Vuzix are making big progress with a growing enterprise demand.

7 TRENDS FROM MWC17

6. VR/AR

Mobile technology is transforming the car industry by improving security and safety, enabling new business models, integrating payments and enhancing the customer experience with several announcements to support Amazon Alexa and Microsoft Cortana voice interfaces.

Image: Vodafone concept car7 TRENDS FROM MWC17

7. Automotive

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this report.

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