Policy update – Oct 2012

October 28, 2012 By

I write a monthly policy update since I track digital policy issues. Here is the update for October

 

 

The announcement by commissioner Neelie Kroes on the EU’s much awaited Cloud strategy at the end of last month was very significant and we will be covering it in a separate article. Already the industry is beginning to take notice. It is significant announcement that could have some significant implications for Cloud providers over the next few years.

My view is: When the Internet started off, countries and others like the EU had no regulation point/ reference point. Hence, we saw a lot of benefits but some challenges as well. Now, the Cloud achieves the same thing as the Internet, but offers regulators a reference point. The EU recognizes this and uses it through this document for specific initiatives like the Single market. In other words, the Cloud is the technological means to achieve the single market. The Cloud has certain regulatory points and they can be used to better the lives of citizens and overcome challenges. We will see a new ‘cross border’ negotiation. At one level we will see dialogue at OECD etc between nations for the principles, but at the Cloud level, the dialogue will be more implementation based. Another way to look at it is, left to itself, the Internet will not solve certain problems (it was not designed to). The Cloud provides regulators that opportunity

Thus, two areas feature prominently in this month’s discussion – The Cloud and Mobile. Gigaom lists 7 reasons why Europe really matters to cloud computing (Clean, innovative energy,  Eastern Europe’s talent pool,  London’s financial center, CERN, OpenNebula, One-third of Twitter’s firehose and Individual rights)

So what else is happening in the world of policy and ‘under the radar trends’?

While we do not cover news, there have been some significant announcements like the launch of windows 8 and Surface - Hands-on, at last: Microsoft formally debuts Windows 8 and Surface

Gartner also made two significant announcements - Gartner: Top 10 strategic technology trends for 2013 (Mobile device battles, Consumerization , Mobile apps and HTML5, Personal cloud,  The Internet of things, Hybrid IT and cloud computing,  Strategic big data, Actionable analytics, Mainstream in-memory computing, Integrated ecosystems and Enterprise app stores) and IT Spending to Reach 3.7 Triiilllion Dollars by 2013, Gartner Predicts

And Facebook hits one billion users, not counting fake accounts   and Facebook Brand Engagement Grows 896% Year-Over-Year

 

Mobile

Mobile has been in the news in more ways than one this month. The significance of mobile is now not disputed especially in terms of revenue and growth for web based companies and that trend is highlighted strongly this month.

Innovation

Open Data and Big Data

 

Disruption

Many industries continue to be disrupted.

 

Security

 

Media and newspapers

 

Miscellaneous

  • Pirate Party falling out of favour across Germany - According to a new article in Germany’s main news magazine, Der Spiegel, the German Pirate Party has been rapidly losing support across the country. The organization can thank mismanagement, disorganization, and poor public relations.
  • New HTC phone to be sold without charger
  • Trolls filed 40% of patent infringement lawsuits in 2011 Trolls have long been the standard villain in patent debates. Often little more than an empty office in East Texas, patent trolls produce no useful products themselves but earn millions of dollars by threatening patent lawsuits against productive companies. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that patent trolls are a serious and growing problem, but until recently there has been little hard data to back up the evidence.

Internet governance

Cloud

Till November!

Kind rgds

Ajit

 

Image source: Halloween – wikipedia

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