Sunday, May 17, 2015

The Future of Personal Communications: A Holistic Approach to Keeping up With Consumer Demand

This next piece is brought to me from Gene Aikens, founder and CEO of Franklin, TN-based The Power Company.

In today's digital personal communications age, the average person goes through 35GB of data each day, from storing music, photos and movies to uploading sales presentations. As products like Apple's iPhone and Google's Android have caused mass mobile appeal, there will be a big need for new technologies that not only allow these personal "pocket" computers to help us effectively manage our daily lives, but provide ample security and storage. 

And contrary to what legions of cloud providers state, the cloud is not the universal solution for digital communications storage.

Some of these new technologies could completely revolutionize our mobile society, and feed consumers’ appetite for quick and easy on-the-go communications, storage and access. In order to seamlessly integrate and connect all of these mobile devices, consumers will need a universal flash drive, for example, to share files between different operating systems without connecting to a cloud-based system. With all the problems consumers have experienced with the cloud and browser-based storage, we need devices that makes technology users feel more secure by not utilizing an Internet connection.

Mobile phones should have been our personal computers two years ago. As an industry we need to envision the future digital landscape and come up with novel technologies that allow consumers to access what they want when they want it.
Take the Flex-Card, for example. Most consumers and corporations use flash drives/USB to hold sensitive information. The problem is we automatically attribute a flash drive/USB to a computer or the need for a computer to access those files. But, now with a smart phone in our pocket, we can use a mobile USB, whether you’re a DJ who wants to hold all of your 20,000 songs to play directly off his iPhone, a salesman who wants to back up all his presentations, or parents who want to store all their kids’ movies to save space on their iPad.
As we move toward mobile devices becoming comprehensive personal computers, it will be crucial to solve the current glitches associated with transferring data, such as contacts, from one device to the other. A year from now, all major apps will also need offline storage as a space saver on mobile devices.
On the business side of mobile communications, it will also become more and more important to have a device that can store and push out content quickly, efficiently and securely, as companies vie for consumer attention and traction.
While the industry has been pushing to make the mobile phone a personal computer in your pocket, we are not quite there yet. From popular mobile music apps like Musixmatch to hot, wearable electronics like the Apple Watch, the market has had a plethora of new product launches, but not enough communication technologies to make these devices work in harmony. The leaders in this digital race will be the ones who develop a holistic approach to digital communications, and truly empower, engage and satisfy the digital consumer.

1 comment:

  1. and they are still not shipping this product yet - they were discovered to be using another companies software without authorization (http://www.photofast.com/home/contact/fake-i-flashdrive/), they are a rip off and should be avoided

    ReplyDelete