For Wi-Fi, PCs and Macs are Now a Minority

It's a big week for interesting stats relating to Internet usage breakdowns by device. Comscore has released numbers that say that the iPad accounts for 97 percent of tablet usage on the Web-no shocker there. And cloud networking company Meraki has published some data based on device usage numbers from its customers networks:

Whenever I look at numbers like these, I try to remind myself that we don't know how precisely they map to the world at large. But they're still fun to ponder.

Takeaways:

• In 2010, at least 64 percent of Wi-Fi users were using traditional computers-Windows PCs and Macs. In 2011, that's down to 36 percent. 58 percent of Wi-Fi users are on mobile devices-iPhones, iPod Touches, iPads, and Android devices.
• In 2010, a slight majority (53 percent) of Wi-Fi users were on Apple devices. In 2011, that's up to 60 percent. Only 23 percent are on Windows.
• Android accounted for a measly one percent last years; in 2011, it's a meaty 11 percent.
• iPad users consume 400 percent as much Wi-Fi data on average as owners of Android handsets, iPhones, and iPod Touches. That's presumably at least in part because a sizable percentage of iPad owners have Wi-Fi-only models, whereas all iPhone owners and most Android handset users can also get data over cellular networks. (I also imagine that iPads get far more use at home than phones do.)

I was startled to see Windows account for only 23 percent of Wi-Fi usage given that the vast majority of PCs on the planet run it. But many of those Windows machines are desktops, and desktops are far less likely to be on Wi-Fi than notebooks are.

In case you're curious, here are current stats for device usage here at Technologizer. (These are visits to a blog, so it's an entirely different sort of data than Meraki's figures for Wi-Fi usage by device-which is why my breakdown bears little resemblance to Meraki's breakdown.)

• Windows: 52 percent of visits (54 percent of these visits were via Windows 7)
• Mac OS X: 25 percent
• iPhone: 8 percent
• iPad: 8 percent
• Android: 4 percent
• Other: 3 percent
• iPod: 1 percent

Schools Upgrade Wireless to Support the iPad

Given the thousands of innovative education applications designed specifically for tablets as well as the integrated learning experience such apps can offer, it’s no wonder that iPads and other mobile devices are entering K-12 schools at an aggressive rate. In some cases the schools have rolled tablets out to every student, and in other cases students and teachers are bringing personal devices from home. Either way, schools are upgrading their wireless networks to accommodate the influx.

Red Lion Area School District in Red Lion, Pennsylvania and Rainbow District School Board in Northern Ontario, Canada both recently upgraded their networks to better support iPads and other mobile devices. The chief concerns, of course, are higher demands for bandwidth and the need for stricter network security.

Red Lion Area School District (RLASD) deployed over 120 Meraki 802.11n access points (APs) across 11 locations, with the largest number of APs at the 3000-student senior high school. “We needed a wireless solution with centralized management that was customizable,” said John Lenhart, Network Manager at RLASD. “We also needed something affordable but that still had enterprise-level features like active directory RADIUS authentication and the ability for a protected guest network.”

Lenhart explained that RLASD didn’t have the budget for a 1:1 initiative and therefore wanted to allow staff and students to bring in tablets and mobile devices from home—but still wanted to be able to protect the network with port filtering and AD authentication. Meraki’s cloud-managed solution enabled Lenhart to create separate SSIDs for district-issued devices vs. personal devices while also utilizing splash login pages, SSID schedules (only broadcasting the network during school hours), and NAC for added security.

Lenhart can also see what devices are authenticating and who is doing what. Macs, PCs, iPads, and iPhones have all joined the network with no problems, though Lenhart is keeping an eye on his bandwidth. The RLASD network is averaging nearly 200 GB/week. “We’re using Meraki Traffic Shaper to throttle down the student networks a little bit,” he said.

Figure 1: Red Lion Senior High

“The high school is really leaning on the wireless with a lot of devices.” –RLASD Network Manager John Lenhart

Rod MacLeod, Manager of Information Services at Rainbow District School Board, also praised Meraki’s Traffic Shaper as a way to prioritize bandwidth for learning activities at the district’s nine high schools. “Application shaping is the future of how things will work, rather than the old days when we tried to do everything by port,” he said.

Like Lenhart, MacLeod chose to upgrade his network to meet increased demand. “We had provided laptops for teachers, and more students were bringing personal laptops, iPhones, and iPads to school,” he said.

At the same time, he had concerns about his inability to monitor or limit the network traffic occurring on these portable devices. Rainbow’s deployment of 157 Meraki 802.11n access points across nine high schools provided greater capacity in conjunction with centralized management and more sophisticated insight and control.

To read more about Rainbow District School Board’s deployment, check out the case study. If you want to prepare your school for the iPad and its interactive learning applications, check out the Meraki iPad web page, or register for the iPad webinar.

Fourth time's a charm? Why Apple has trouble with cloud computing

On Monday, Apple unveiled iCloud, a new service for remote storage of user data. Some people, including our own Jon Stokes, are skeptical of Apple's chances of getting iCloud to work at scale. And history seems to be on their side. iCloud is at least Apple's fourth attempt to create a viable cloud computing service. The previous incarnations included iTools in 2000, .Mac in 2002, and MobileMe in 2008. As Fortune wrote about MobileMe a few weeks ago, "MobileMe was a dud. Users complained about lost e-mails, and syncing was spotty at best." iTools and .Mac were not exactly resounding successes either.

Apple's perennial difficulty with creating scalable online services is not a coincidence. Apple has a corporate culture that emphasizes centralized, developer-led product development. This process has produced user-friendly devices that are the envy of the tech world. But developing fast, reliable online services requires a more decentralized, engineering-driven corporate culture like that found at Google.

Cloud announce new vendor partner - fromdistance - Cloud-enabled Mobile Device Management

~click the logo to visit the microsite~

As you know, devices like iPad and iPhone are driving the adoption of Wireless LAN services. The security of the data which resides on these devices, and their propensity to be lost or stolen, means the security and management of these devices is becoming absolutely critical to your clients business strategy.

fromdistance have a unique value proposition to channels who have clients wanting to secure, manage and control their BYO (Bring Your Own) or company supplied smartphone and/or tablet estate. Provisioning, policy enforcement, monitoring and remote lock/wipe/kill are just some of the core features fromdistance delivers.

The solution can be sold in one of 3 ways:

1.     SAAS based, per device, per month using the fromdistance hosted platform 

2.     Self-Hosting whereby you, as the service provider, are able to host your own platform and white label it as your own 

3.     Behind the Firewall / LAN based Virtual Appliance for clients who are keen to keep control and security in house 

No other MDM (Mobile Device Management) vendor offers all three options. 

Devices supported include:

·         Apple iOS - including iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch

·         Blackberry - alongside an existing BES deployment

·         Android - Any flavour, any form factor

·         Windows Mobile - including Windows Mobile 7

·         Symbian

Microsite - http://www.cloud-distribution.com/fromdistance

Partner Price List - http://www.cloud-distribution.com/other/docs/fromdistance/fromdistance_pl.pdf

Data Sheet - http://www.cloud-distribution.com/other/docs/fromdistance/fromdistance_ds.pdf

Feature Overview - http://www.cloud-distribution.com/other/docs/fromdistance/fromdistance_features.pdf

Cloud are keen to have interested partners evaluate the solution (in all three guises) in mid June so please let us know if this is something you'd be willing to do ?

Best regards

Scott Dobson
Cloud Distribution Ltd
+44 (0) 1635 800410
+44 (0) 1635 800411 (DDI)
+44 (0) 7740 282182 (Mobile)

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This e-mail is confidential and is intended for the use of the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use or dissemination of this communication or any part of it is strictly prohibited. If you receive this transmission in error, please notify Cloud Distribution Ltd immediately using the contact details above and then delete this e-mail. Please note that e-mail may be susceptible to data corruption, interception and unauthorised amendment. Cloud Distribution Ltd do not accept any liability for any such corruption, interception, amendment or the consequences thereof. 

Cloud Distribution Ltd, 1210 Parkway, Arlington Business Park, Theale, Reading, Berkshire RG7 4TY

Are iPad Deployments Simply Inevitable?

Apple’s iPad has continued to be in strong demand and this shows no sign of slowing down. Its popularity isn’t limited to the consumer market, and enterprises continue to adopt the device as a business tool. During our recent iPad webinar, our audience confirmed the iPad is continuing to gain traction in the enterprise.

While discussing second quarter results, Apple’s COO Tim Cook noted:

Employee demand for iPad in the corporate environment remains strong and CIOs continue to embrace iPad in an unprecedented rate. In just over a year since its debut, 75% of the Fortune 500 are testing or deploying iPad within their enterprises. Some recent examples of enterprises that are deploying iPad include FORTUNE 500 companies such as Xerox, AutoNation, Yum! Brands, ADP, Boston Scientific, Estée Lauder, Disney, Stryker, Prudential Financial, Rite Aid and USAA.
Transcript excerpt courtesy of Seeking Alpha.

We asked our May 26th webinar audience about their own adoption and deployment plans for the iPad, and this is how they responded:

The results closely correlate with Tim Cook’s remarks. In our survey, 71% of organizations have either already deployed the iPad or are testing it in their networks. Another 26% are still evaluating and have not solidified their plans.

Even if you haven’t started officially deploying or supporting the iPad, perhaps you’d like to know how many users have brought their own iPads and access the wireless network. Using the Meraki dashboard, it’s really simple to see the iPadsthat have logged on and what kind of impact they have. If you’re looking for practical tips on integrating the iPad in your wireless network, check out our iPad whitepaper.

How Many iPads Are On Your Wireless Network?

Do you know what impact iPads are having on your wireless network? Meraki’s Client Fingerprinting automatically recognizes and categorizes Apple iPads. Network administrators can see the iPads on their network and, just like with all other client devices, can see how much bandwidth they consume and what applications they are using.

To see those iPads, just search for “ipad” in the list of clients. This is an example from one of our customers’ networks:

iPad search result

Over the past month, 101 iPads connected to the network, and they transferred just over 67 GB in total. These search results are sorted by usage, so the top results listed are the iPad clients that consumed the most bandwidth.

Similarly, the Summary Report page lists the top clients on the network and lets you identify the most popular and most bandwidth-hungry clients on the network. Notice Apple iPad, iPhone, and iPod are all listed separately:

Summary report - Top operating systems

Once you’ve identified the iPads on the network, it’s also very easy to drill down and see what applications are being used on iPads, and which ones consume the most bandwidth. This example, from one of our customers running a network in a public area, shows an iPad that used over 3 GB of data in one month’s time. Over 75% of that was due to music and video consumption, and the tooltip shows Google Video alone accounted for more than 800 MB of the 3 GB.

Usage details of one iPad user

If you have already deployed a Meraki wireless network, see for yourself what impact iPads are having on your network. If you’d like to learn more, don’t miss our free webinar on integrating iPads into wireless networks on Thursday, May 26 at 11am PT. Register for free here.

Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 8: iPad dock revealed!

The Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 8. Do iPad docks come much more bonkers than this? We doubt it. B&O have hatched a dock specifically targeting Apple’s tablet, but also catering for iPhone and iPod, and it looks like it’s left over from the set of 2001. Read on for more photos and the full details.




The selling point for the BeoSound 8 is that it can take the iPad, along with the iPhone, iPods and everything else. There’s the docking plug for Apple devices, but there’s also a line in, and USB input.

The white speaker discs are conical behind, and you can slot a bunch of different colours onto these white cones. The two plate-like speaker fronts are actually floating, mounted on an aluminium bridge, so the base of the disc doesn’t actually touch the surface the BeoSound 8 is placed on.

The central control is the glowing aluminium disc, and there’s also a remote that mirrors the design of the BeoSound 8 control. If you’re a Bang & Olufsen addict, there’s some good news for you here too – the BeoSound 8 is compatible with all other Bang & Olufsen remote controls, the Bang & Olufsen alarm clock, and best of all for moneybags music fans, if you’ve got a Bang & Olufsen phone you can turn the volume down on the BeoSound 8 via your mobile.
The speakers are active two way speakers, which means that in the BeoSound 8 there’s a four drive units and four amplifiers. It’s delivered with a wall bracket, and there’s a positioning control which means you can tell the system where in the room you’ve put the BeoSound 8 and it will adjust its acoustics to suit the place best. Now, are you ready for the BeoSound 8 price tag? Deep breaths please….. £895.


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Windows Phone 7 to rival iPad for developer attention in 2011

Chart A represents mobile platforms developers chose in 2010 while Chart B shows new app platforms they plan to support in 2011.

http://www.millennialmedia.com/

Developers say they are most interested in Android, Windows Phone 7, and the iPad as platforms for their mobile apps in 2011, according to a report titled "State of the Apps Industry Snapshot" released today by Millennial Media. The firm, known for its mobile ad network, worked together with technology analysis siteDigiday and Wall Street analyst Jordan Rohan from Stifel Nicolaus to procure the data. The team surveyed app developers, publishers, and advertisers in the most recent quarter to learn their plans for next year.

Both publishers and developers have grown their cross-platform application development this year and plan to further diversify in 2011. Android, the iPad, Windows Mobile, and Symbian saw the most significant increases from 2009. In the image above, Chart A represents mobile platforms the participants are developing for in 2010 while Chart B shows new app platforms they plan to support in 2011.

As you can see, the iPhone has been the number one platform of choice in 2010, followed by Android, the iPad, RIM, and Windows Mobile. Meanwhile, Android, Windows Phone 7, and the iPad are projected to get the most attention for new apps next year.

Given its rapidly growing market share, it's not very surprising that Android might see the biggest growth next year. Mountain View's platform could very well overtake Cupertino's in 2011 if these numbers hold, especially given that Millennial noted Apple (as well as RIM) saw a year-over-year decrease in developer support. Apple is currently dominating the tablet space, so the attention given the iPad is no surprise. Windows Phone excitement, however, is a little more eyebrow-raising since it's not yet a tested platform. Could it be that Microsoft is still the best at rallying developers, developers, developers, even in the mobile space?

On the other side of the spectrum, we have Palm, with the weakest developer interest, at 4 percent. The ailing Symbian platform was not much higher at 6 percent. Nokia is switching to MeeGo so the latter isn't a shocker, but the former implies that HP is not inspiring much confidence with its webOS decisions.

http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/LNw9QS8XYD4/windows-phone-7-to-rival-ipad-for-developer-attention-in-2011.ars

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