ral4, here some further DD indicative to Sphere 3D's market potential of "Converged Virtualization Solution for MSPs"
Honestly, I guess a lot of people (including myself) must have been wondering what the market potential is for Sphere 3D in this sector and why they are partnering with Ericsson to approach this market! Hopefully, after reading the below notes and linked articles, the light will start to shine...
Target market is Managed Service providers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Managed_services A managed services provider (MSP) is most often an information technology (IT) services provider that manages and assumes responsibility for providing a defined set of services to its clients either proactively or as the MSP (not the client) determines that services are needed. Most MSPs bill an upfront setup or transition fee and an ongoing flat or near-fixed monthly fee, which benefits clients by providing them with predictable IT support costs. As organizations face significant challenges in scaling and managing their global Information Technology infrastructure while effectively reducing costs, it becomes much more cost effective to gain access to best in class tool sets, hardware, software and even niche technology experts by only paying for what they use by using managed service providers. Many studies have shown a reduction in IT hardware and software expenses using MSPs.
http://searchenterprisewan.techtarget.com/definition/managed-service-provider A managed service provider (MSP) is a third-party contractor that delivers network-based services, applications and equipment to enterprises, residences or other service providers. Managed service providers can be hosting companies or access providers that offer IT services such as fully outsourced network management arrangements, including IP telephony, messaging and call center management, virtual private networks (VPNs), managed firewalls and monitoring/reporting of network servers. Most of these services can be performed from outside a company's internal network with a special emphasis placed on integration and certification of Internet security for applications and content. MSPs serve asoutsourcing agents for companies, especially other service providers like ISPs, that don't have the resources to constantly upgrade or maintain faster and faster computer networks. In addition to such basic communication service as leased line wide area network (WAN) and frame relay service, an MSP can manage and integrate a range of activities associated with enterprise networks, including cloud storage. Managed service providers sometimes are referred to as management service providers. In the past, management service providers was used to describe infrastructure services delivered on a subscription basis, but with the advent of cloud computing, managed IT services and management services have become synonyms.
Smartphone surge to put pressure on networks: Ericsson Growth beats expectations. Subscriptions for smartphones globally will rise faster than previously thought, almost tripling by 2019 and forcing operators to roll out high-speed networks to cope with surging data traffic, Ericsson said. The world's top mobile network equipment maker said it expected 5.6 billion smartphone subscriptions globally by the end of 2019, up from 1.9 billion in 2013, as more people in emerging markets buy cheap smartphones instead of basic phones. This will help drive a surge in mobile data traffic by ten times between 2013 and 2019, mostly thanks to video, Ericsson said. It expected monthly smartphone traffic would reach 10 exabytes by 2019, or one billion billion bytes. In its previous biannual report on global telecoms trends, released in June, Ericsson forecast 4.5 billion smartphone subscriptions by the end of 2018. In Monday's report, that figure was raised to 5.1 billion. "We have added not just another year, but we have also taken into account what we see in the market and what we see in different regions as a further uptake of smartphones," Ericsson's strategy chief, Douglas Gilstrap, told Reuters in a telephone interview. He said smartphones would become more affordable while infrastructure build outs in Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa would help drive usage. More than a quarter of a billion smartphones shipped in the third quarter, according to Strategy Analytics, an increase of 45 percent from the same quarter last year. Samsung made 35.2 percent of those and Apple 13.4 percent. To meet the higher pressure on telecom networks as data traffic surges, operators will expand high-capacity 4G, or LTE, to cover more than 65 percent of the world's population by 2019, up from around 10 percent in 2012, Ericsson said. It said 55 percent of all mobile phones sold in the third quarter were smartphones and expected that in 2016 the total number of smartphone subscriptions would overtake basic phone subscriptions.
Ericsson is the market leader in LTE.Today, 50 percent of the world's LTE smartphone traffic is served by Ericsson networks, which is more than double the traffic of our closest competitor. LTE presentation video and LTE key facts LTE is the global standard for the fourth generation of mobile broadband (4G), supported by all major players in the industry. It is the fastest developing system in the history of mobile communication. Ericsson has supplied the large majority of all commercial LTE networks and has signed contracts with the top ten ranked operators by global revenue 2012. Telstra claims world first with 450Mbps LTE in cooperation with Ericsson
By now it should be 100% crystal clear that Sphere 3D is cooperating with the best possible partner to offer its Converged MSP Solution ("SCMS") to the IT Telecom Managed Services Provider Market.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
