Are wearables truly this big? (The Apple Bounce)

An interesting research paper was pointed out to me by a colleague today. Entitled Wearables Device Market Forecast, from Tractica (follow the link to learn more), the summary projects a growth from 17 million in 2013 to 187 million units in 2015.

I am not doubting their research (and I admit, I only have access to the summary), as projections are based on many factors.

I just don’t believe it. Only 720,000 Androidwear watches were sold in 2014. They have glaring weaknesses, but some are not too bad (full disclosure: I wear an LG G Watch R). I guess the key question is whether the Apple brand can really drive an entire market — one that they did not invent.

Apple has been amazingly successful in so many markets. They revolutionized the market with the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Were they always first? No, a lot of products before. Were they always best? Again, no, superior devices have fallen.

But Apple is, well, Apple and their power is indefinable.

I just still can’t get my head around 187 million, particularly now that Apple has backed away from so many of the ‘really cool’ features (see my prior blog post).

OK, now that I have been a downer, I admit I want the market to explode. I like my watch, but don’t love it. I want it to be smaller, lighter and have better battery life. I want to market to continue to innovate and nothing does that like competition and volume.

I guess time will tell. I’ll make a note to look back in 2016 and see what actually happened.

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Major software vendor acquisition: TAI

There was a major upheaval in the vendor space with msg global and Logiq3 acquiring TAI. For those not in the know, TAI has been a major player in the Ceded Reinsurance space for a long time. Their impact on the market is hugely disproportionate to their small size.

This is a big deal for all their customers and those considering becoming their customer. They have investment behind them now, which should be good.

Of course, acquisitions come with disruption, as we have seen in the industry before, so we are hopeful this will transition smoothly and those involved will continue to be involved.

Something to watch for today.

Read the press release

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The security breach of the month, week, day…..and why you should consider the Cloud

I don’t want to pick on one particular company, but the breach at Anthem hits pretty close to home — our industry is under attack.

Should this surprise you? Absolutely not. What is particularly concerning is that these are companies that are spending enormous sums of money to stop these intrusions.

And are still getting hacked.

JPMorgan Chase, Home Depot, Target, Michaels.

I list these, not just as a reminder, but because I personally was affected by all four breaches. I’m on my third credit card in just over a year because every breach forces a new one.

The JPMorgan Chase and the Anthem breaches are different and more onerous.

In the Target breach, and others like it, credit cards were compromised. You can close a credit card account.

In the recently disclosed Anthem breach — everything was lost. Name, Address, Social Security number, employer, net worth.

In other words, everything to steal your identity.

I can’t close my life and open a new one.

Is there a purpose to this rant?

There is.

First, the technology exists — and is reasonably affordable — to encrypt this data. Is it a big project? Of course. Do you still want me to be your customer?

How is it that in 2015 critical data about me is sitting in a data center and not encrypted?

Second, one of the biggest arguments against using applications in the Cloud is that having data in your own data center is more secure.

Really? Seems not.

I was recently discussing running a Life insurance system in the cloud with the CIO of a larger insurer. They put forth the ‘safer in my shop argument’, so I asked them a simple question.

Is your budget for security larger than Google, Amazon or Microsoft (three of the largest Cloud vendors)?

After much thought, he replied that it was not, and our discussion changed paths.

So maybe it is time to rethink the importance of your own data center. Beyond just security, is it your core competency to run a data center? Does it bring new revenue into your company to run a data center? Is it cheaper to run your own data center?

I believe the answer to all three is a resounding No.

So when you are out looking for new applications and technology, I suggest it may be time, or beyond time, to think differently.

Oh, and start asking your personal bank, credit union, insurance company and more: “is my data encrypted?”.

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Seeing claims and risks in 3D : Might HoloLens succeed where Google Glass didn’t?

There have been radical changes in user interface and computing technology over the last decade or two. The Nintendo Wii propelled a new style of gaming to the forefront and touch enabled smart devices have done wonders for Apple, Samsung and Google’s Android platform. All of this seems to have made Microsoft’s old WIMP based Windows platform less relevant, despite moves to touch enabled interfaces and Windows mobile in recent years.

Perhaps now though Microsoft has found the key to the next generation interface with HoloLens. With a tip to Google Glass this is a wearable headset based system more focused on enabling the holograph interface to interact using augmented reality to undertake various tasks. Perhaps Microsoft have found the killer App Google Glass was missing? Or perhaps the high end 3D gaming style interfaces are better at capturing our imagination than the simpler, untilitarian mobile interfaces we find on todays phones….

What might this mean for the Insurance industry? The interfaces and augmentations imagined for loss adjusters and those in the field apply equally to this new technology, albeit the headset is much more intrusive. Leveraging this technology to engage with people on the ground and share a common visualisation, to direct loss engineers to the right items and help provide data about clients in catastrophe affected areas in a rich and useful manner are all possible.

Augmented reality and chunky headsets aren’t new, but the experiences previewed by HoloLens have sparked the imagination of those who have seen and played with it. With the response to HoloLens being very positive so far I wonder if we will see a relaunch of Google Glass or it’s successor sooner than one might have expected.

For those who are interested the technology appears to have it’s origins in big data, as this article from April last year talks about leveraging the Holograph interface for visualising large datasets.

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On the cusp: regional integration in Asia

It’s 2015, the mid-point of the decade and a good time to start looking at major trends in Asian financial services over the next five to ten years.

One of the major themes will be regional integration, which is another way of saying the development of cross-border markets. There are at least two important threads here: the ongoing internationalization of China’s currency, and the development of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in Southeast Asia.

RMB internalization is really about the loosening of China’s capital controls and its full-fledged integration into the world economy. And everyone seems to want a piece of this action, including near neighbors such as Singapore who are vying with Hong Kong to be the world’s financial gateway to China.

The AEC is well on its way to becoming a reality in 2015, with far-reaching trade agreements designed to facilitate cross-border expansion of dozens of services industries, including financial sectors. While AEC is not grabbing global headlines the way China does, we see increasing interest in Southeast Asia among our FSI and technology vendor clients.

From Celent’s point of view, both trends will open significant opportunities across financial services. In banking, common payments platforms and cross-border clearing. In capital markets, cross-border trading platforms for listed and even OTC products. In insurance, the continued development of regional markets.

Financial institutions will be challenged to create new business models and technology strategies to extract the opportunities offered by regional integration. It’s the mid-point of the decade, and the beginning of something very big.

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World Economic Forum

As you all likely know, the World Economic Forum is this week in Davos.

I have reviewed much of the information, as the world economy interests me, and one area was the list of 100 strategic partners.

I clearly do not know every company but it appears that 13 of the 100 are banks. That makes sense, given the topics.

So I look at companies whose focus is insurance. We are a huge part of the economy, so I thought we would be equally represented.

Just six.

Two are local Swiss insurance giants — Zurich and Swiss Re, so you would expect them to be involved.

One is a huge world-wide insurance brokerage, risk management and consulting firm — MMC (full disclosure, Celent is a part of MMC).

That leaves three insurers.

Aetna

Old Mutual

Prudential

I obviously don’t know why other major insurers are not involved, but it does seem interesting. My perception, having been in this industry for over 30 years, has always been that insurance companies are followers, not leaders.

You only have to look at our research on online customer service in the Life insurance industry to see that, as an industry, we are not very advanced.

Shouldn’t we be? What is really keeping insurers from leading in multiple areas? We have experts in risk and financial management. We have experts in technology. We know everything there is to know about mortality and morbidity.

Shouldn’t we be leading?

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Google Glass is Dead–Long Live Google Glass!

On January 15, Google announced that Google Glass was not ready for prime time. Google is withdrawing it from general availability, but says it will relaunch at some unspecified future date.

With the benefit of unaided 20-20 hindsight, Google Glass was a consumer product designed by engineers to appeal to, well, other engineers. Consumers who bought the $1500 device, started to be called a number of things, but “cool” was not one of them.

The form/function of Google Glass (a hands-free, heads-up display, sourcing various kinds of data and information, with a video recording capability) suggests several business uses, for example, in insurance: field loss estimators and loss control engineers. And there are of course many other professions with similar needs (e.g. service and repair technicians).

The form/function of Google Glass will live on, probably in several diverging incarnations. But whether any of these descendants will be recognizably a “Google Glass” or whether their wearers/users will ever be cool; remains to be seen.

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