Juniper Research is out with the latest report on mobile cloud computing. The company forecasts that the annual revenues from cloud-based mobile applications will reach nearly $9.5 billion by 2014. The main factors that will contribute to this growth are need for converged collaborative services, the widespread adoption of mobile broadband, and the deployment of key technological enablers such as HTML5 and the Open Mobile Alliance’s Smart Card Web Server (SCWS).
Unsurprisingly, Juniper found that the enterprise applications will account for the majority of revenues over the next five years. This, however, doesn’t mean consumer services will fail. Quite the contrary, the research company argues revenues will come from time-based subscriptions to services such as mobile online gaming and advertising from cloud-based social networks.
However, there are some obstacles of concern. For instance, many enterprise customers are wary of entrusting their personal data to remote third-parties. The report author Dr Windsor Holden said: “Not only is it imperative for cloud providers to ensure that access to and storage of customer data is secure, but that the procedures that they put in place in this regard – including data backup strategies – are transparent to the customer.”
On the same note, lack of capacity may continue to be a constraint on the growth even after LTE and WiMAX networks are deployed.
Still, operators could see the opportunity to develop new revenues streams as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) providers and market these kinds of services to both companies and end users…
Additional details are available from Juniper’s website.