GARTNER FORECAST REPORT CARD- DTNS WEEKLY TECH UPDATE 02/16/2017

Hey all, thanks for reading! This is the weekly newsletter companion to Daily Tech News Show at http://dailytechnewsshow.com/ 

You can get this newsletter by backing DTNS for $5 a month or more at http://patreon.com/dtns 

I'm shaking things up in the old weekly tech update this time. I'm putting the column first and the news recap down below. Love it? Hate it? Just let me know in the comments on the post. 

CLOSER LOOK - HOW WELL DOES GARTNER DO?

Last week we were discussing one of Gartner's forecasts on Daily Tech News Show, and one of our patrons who goes by "thisguy" in the live stream chat (irc.chatrealm.net  #chat) asked how good Gartner is at predicting things. I said they were pretty good and thisguy did what I would do if I were him and asked if I have any links to that effect. I said no, I was just going by my own experience but it got me thinking if my own experience was lying to me. So I decided to check. Thanks for the idea, thisguy!

To start, I did four searches on Google with the end dates limited to Jan. 1, 2015, Jan. 1, 2013, Jan. 1, 2011 and Jan. 1, 2009. That helped surface older predictions.

I pulled articles from the first three pages of results in each search relating to the types of topics we cover on DTNS. A lot of Gartner predictions are about IT spending, CRM, Fab parts. I did not include these and so this report makes no comment on those sectors.

This isn't a comprehensive scientific survey of all of Gartner's forecasts. To do that I'd need to pay for access to Gartner's data since that's how they make their money. This is an informal look based on what we can glean publicly. So while it won't give you a precise accuracy rating for Gartner, it should point to whether they are "always wrong" or not. 

Let's see what I found. 

IoT Device Usage 2015

PREDICTION: 4.9 billion IoT devices will be in use in 2015.

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2905717 

REALITY: Gartner reported 4.9 billion IOT units installed for 2015.

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3165317 

GRADE: Spot on. A

3D Printers by 2017

PREDICTION: The 3D printer market will grow from $288 million to more than $5.7 billion by 2017.

https://www.gartner.com/doc/2598122/forecast-d-printers-worldwide- 

REALITY: While we still need to wait a bit to be sure, the 3D Printing market reached $5.165 billion in 2015

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2016/04/25/wohlers-report-2016-3d-printer-industry-surpassed-5-1-billion/#6484c2867cb1 

GRADE: Looking good. B

Computer Shipping 2014

PREDICTION:Worldwide combined shipments of devices (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) are projected to reach 2.4 billion units in 2014

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2791017 

REALITY Worldwide combined shipment of devices reached 2,419,864 in 2014

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3010017 

GRADE: Dead right. A

PC Sales 2014

PREDICTION:  The global PC market is on pace to contract 2.9 percent in 2014. 

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2791017 

REALITY: Worldwide PC market declined 0.2% in 2014.

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2960125 

GRADE: Nope. Off by more than 2 points. D

Mobile Phone Sales 2014

PREDICTION: Sales of mobile phones are expected to reach 1.9 billion units in 2014. 

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2791017 

REALITY: Sales of mobile phones 1,878,968

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2996817 

GRADE: Close enough. A

Windows Phone MarketShare 2014 - 2018

PREDICTION: Windows phones will exhibit strong growth from a low base in 2014, and are projected to reach a 10 percent market share by 2018

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2791017 

REALITY: Windows Phone marketshare sunk below 1% in May 2016

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/23/11743594/microsoft-windows-phone-market-share-below-1-percent 

GRADE: Not even close. F

Windows Phone/iOS 2015

PREDICTION: Gartner and IDC says that Windows Phone may grab a 20 percent of the market by 2015. iOS from 16-17% and Android to 49%.

https://techcrunch.com/2011/09/02/gartner-idc-windows-phone-to-steal-second-place-from-ios-by-2015/ 

REALITY: Android 76%, iOS 20.4% Windows 2.8%.

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3215217 

GRADE: Not really close. for Windows F, for iOS C, for Android F

App Store Revenues 2011, 2014

PREDICTION: mobile app store revenues will triple from $5.2 billion last year to $15 billion in 2011, and keep growing to an astounding $58 billion by 2014.

https://techcrunch.com/2011/01/26/mobile-app-store-15-billion-2011/ 

REALITY: App store revenue in 2012 $8 billion

App store revenue in 2014 34.99billion

https://techcrunch.com/2013/01/22/report-market-for-paid-apps-hits-8b-in-2012-while-average-revenue-per-app-drops-27/ 

http://www.businessofapps.com/app-revenue-statistics/ 

GRADE: In the parking lot of the ballpark but not IN the ballkpark. For 2011 D, for 2014 D

Tablet Sales 2012-2013

PREDICTION: 821 million smartphones and tablets will be sold worldwide by the end of 2012 and that figure is going to rise to 1.2 billion in 2013. 

http://www.androidauthority.com/gartner-predicts-sales-1-2-billion-tablets-smartphones-2013-128950/ 

REALITY: 850.7 million smartphones and tablets shipped in 2012. 

For 2013 I manually combined the numbers for a total of 1.195 billion

http://www.talkandroid.com/155940-smart-devices-shipped-over-1-billion-devices-in-2012-smartphones-and-tablets-grew-exponentially/ 

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2674215 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2091940/global-smartphone-shipments-topped-1-billion-in-2013.html 

GRADE for 2012 pretty close, B for 2013, nailed it A

Phone OS 2014

PREDICTION: In 2014 Symbian will have 30.2% Android 29.6% iOS 14.9%. RIM 11.7%

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1434613 

REALITY: Symbian 1.79% Android 59.15% iOS 23.51%  RIM 1.33%

http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2015/01/who-will-win-the-smartphone-war.html 

GRADE: Who knew, right? F

We ended up with the following distribution

A's 4

B's 2

C's 1

D's 3

F's 4

So basically a fairly even spread a little heavy on the low grades. Gartner seems to do best with established markets and short term forecasts. New markets and longer term predictions get more unstable. Which is probably what we should expect.

So my advice would be when you hear those Gartner numbers, if they're for a solid market for a year or two out, you can put some faith in them. If they're for an emerging market or for more than a couple years away, treat them like an educated guess. 

You may have noticed the predictions seemed to cluster around 2014 and 2015. That's a result of choosing the range I did, but it could also reflect a change in how Gartner released numbers to the press. It was difficult to find public numbers on the actual sales and shipments. Search results are much more likely to return predictions than actual real figures. 

NEWS RECAP

Microsoft blamed a “last minute issue” for delaying its expected February Patch Tuesday fixes until March 14. Microsoft was expected to patch a zero-day flaw in the company’s file sharing protocol. http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634576/microsoft-patch-tuesday-februrary-2017-delay 

Apple will hold its 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference from June 5th to June 9th in San Jose at McEnry Convention Center. WWDC has been held in San Francisco for the past several years. Registration for tickets will begin March 27th. Apple says it will live stream all sessions. https://9to5mac.com/2017/02/16/apple-announces-wwdc-2017-june-5th-9th-held-at-san-jose-mcenery-convention-center/ 

KGI Securities Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple will launch three new iPhones this year with wireless charging and OLED displays. Kuo also reports an additional graphite sheet will be needed for better thermal control, since the wireless charging increases the internal temperature. 9to5 Mac noticed Apple is now listed as a member of the Wireless Power Consortium bolstering the reports. The Wireless Power Consortium is the group behind Qi, a wireless charging standard that uses inductive power transfer.

Kuo added more details on his forecast for the next iPhone in a letter to investors obtained by Apple Insider. Kuo says his sources indicate the phone will not have a physical home button our TouchID sensor but reserve the bottom of the screen as a function area for virtual buttons. An unidentified new bio-recognition technology will take over device security. https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/09/2017-iphones-wireless-charging/

http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/02/15/apples-iphone-8-to-replace-touch-id-home-button-with-function-area 

https://9to5mac.com/2017/02/13/apple-joins-wireless-power-consortiumqi-lending-weight-to-rumor-of-wireless-charging-for-iphone-8/ 

Amazon released a business-conferencing platform called Chime with voice calling, video messaging, and virtual meetings. A free tier allows users to attend meetings and make one-on-one voice or video calls. The paid options at $2.50 per month per user adds user management options, and the $15 per user per month options adds the ability to host meetings with screen sharing and video for up to 100 users. Chime is available on Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android, as well as through partnerships with Level 3 Communications and Vonage. https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/13/amazon-chime/ 

WhatsApp is taking its two-step verification feature out of beta. In the latest version of WhatsApp go to Settings > Account > Two-step verification > and Enable. The system works by generating a six-digit passcode users need to enter if they switch to using WhatsApp on a new phone. WhatsApp will ask for the code periodically to help users remember it. It can be disabled through a backup email or from within the app. http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/10/14574294/whatsapp-two-step-factor-verification-security 

Intel confirmed at its annual Investor Day that the forthcoming 8th Generation Core microarchitecture, code named Coffee Lake, will be produced on their 14nm process. This would be the 4th generation of processors made on that process node, beginning with the Broadwell architecture in 2014. In a change from the past the Xeon data center chips will be the first developed on upcoming 10-nm and 7-nm manufacturing nodes. Intel's highly anticipated Cannon Lake CPUs—which are based on a new 10nm process—do not yet have a release date. http://www.pcworld.com/article/3168319/components-processors/intel-demotes-pcs-giving-datacenter-chips-first-crack-at-new-technologies.html 

Snap Inc. has set a value of $16.2 to $18.5 billion for its upcoming stock IPO. Shares will be priced between $14 and $16, which could bring in up to $3.2 billion in capital. It will be the highest valued US stock IPO since Alibaba’s $25 billion issue in 2014. https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/16/snap-ipo-valuation/ 

The Indian Space Research Organization launched 104 satellites into space Wednesday on a PSLV rocket, setting a record for most satellites launched into space at once. The rocket included 88 Dove satellites from US firm Planet for high-res imagery and India’s mapping satellite, Cartosat-2, among others.

https://thenextweb.com/space/2017/02/15/india-just-broke-the-world-record-by-launching-104-satellites-in-a-single-mission/#.tnw_IWtnxUGz 

The Wall Street Journal reported Samsung will launch the Galaxy S8 at an event in New York in March. The Guardian and VentureBeat have previously reported the phone would be announced March 29th and go on sale April 21st, though those dates have not been set permanently yet. The Galaxy S8 is expected to have two models with curved displays, rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, thin bezels, a headphone jack and a virtual assistant called Bixby, built on S Voice services not on tech from Viv Labs. http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-galaxy-s8-rumors-march-release-date-report-2017-2 

Caavo announced its streaming media box which plugs into your other boxes, like Apple TV, Roku, and your cable box to provide a unified front-end for finding shows. Caavo uses machine learning to interpret what’s getting sent to it from the other boxes so it knows it sent the right command. Essentially it tries to do what you do when you control a  box by looking at what’s on the screen. It also has a skill on Amazon Voice Services.  Caavo was founded by the late Blake Krikorian, former Slingbox CEO, and is run by former Microsoft employee Andrew Einaudi. Caavo will go up for preorder in June for $400 shipping in September. http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/15/14620510/caavo-tv-streaming-box-machine-vision-ai-gamechanger 

At the RSA conference Tuesday, Microsoft President Brad Smith proposed a Geneva Convention for cyberwar. Smith called on Russia and the US to agree to “ban the nation-state hacking of all the civilian aspects of our economic and political infrastructures.” He said an independent organization consisting of tech experts could work along the lines of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He also called on tech companies to become a ""digital Switzerland"" and pledge not to aid governments in offensive activity and the adoption of a coordinated disclosure process for software and hardware vulnerabilities." http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-cyber-idUSKBN15T26V 

https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2017/02/14/need-digital-geneva-convention/ 

Disney’s Maker Studios has dropped YouTube celebrity Felix Kjellberg, known as PewDiePie because of videos with antisemitic content. The Wall Street Journal found nine videos posted since August with anti-semitic messages or Nazi imagery. Kjellberg said the content was meant to be joking, and that he was not "supporting any kind of hateful attitudes", admitting the videos in question were "ultimately offensive". YouTube also canceled the second season of YouTube Red series “Scare PewDiePie and removed Kjellberg from the Google Preferred advertising program. https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/14/maker-studios-parts-ways-with-pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-jokes/ 

Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority chairman and executive director Mattar al-Tayer announced that starting this July China’s Ehang will use its 184 quadcopters to carry single passengers around the city.  The Ehang 184 can go 30 miles on a charge and carry person weighing up to 220 pounds, along with one small suitcase. Quadcopters are monitored from a command center, and passengers choose from a list of predetermined locations." https://thenextweb.com/asia/2017/02/14/autonomous-passenger-drones-will-fly-you-across-dubai-starting-this-july/#.tnw_OymT4lC0 

Bloomberg has sources who say Verizon is close to a renegotiated deal for its acquisition of Yahoo which would reduce the price of $4.8 billion by about $250 million. Yahoo announced two major data breaches since  the original acquisition deal was announced. In addition, Verizon and the remaining part of Yahoo that Verizon is NOT buying, which will be called Altaba, will share legal responsibility for the breaches. Users are receiving notifications today about unauthorized access to their Yahoo accounts in 2015 and 2016, which occurred due to previously disclosed cookie forging.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-15/verizon-said-to-reach-revised-price-for-yahoo-in-wake-of-hacks 

https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/15/yahoo-notifying-users-of-malicious-account-activity-as-verizon-deal-progresses/ 

Verizon launched unlimited data plans in the US Monday. The Verizon Unlimited plans cost $80 a month for individual lines, with discounts for family plans and for using paperless billing and AutoPay. The unlimited tier allows 22GB after which speeds may be slowed if there is network congestion. Users can also use up to 10GB of data for tethering to another device. Verizon says high-definition video can be streamed, but did not specify whether that is 720p or 1080p. http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/12/14592822/verizon-unlimited-data-plan-announced-2017 

Thanks for supporting us. Feel free to forward this newsletter to others and let them know how they can subscribe!