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Everyone knows the biggest battles in technology are today being fought by a small number of large organizations. We intuitively know who these great powers are: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and maybe Microsoft. But we’re not so clear on what it is that makes those particular companies the key protagonists rather than other equally large digital companies — Samsung, Sony, Nokia and Yahoo! among them — who appear to be sidelined.

Calling this a battle, or “The Great Tech War of 2012″, misses the point. It’s far too negative a sentiment when these companies’ main focus is on long term strategy. They are aiming to construct a future in which their products and profits will prosper.

These great digital powers are now building Digital Civilizations, rather than a series of mere products, individual platforms or even ecosystems (around a platform). They are pursuing strategies that reach far beyond the confines of existing markets. They are causing widespread market collisions as they push industries to overlap, merge or cease to exist. They are outflanking and disrupting companies that follow less ambitious corporate strategies.

These new Digital Civilizations use identity to tie numerous disparate products, many devices, multiple platforms and product portfolios together into their long term strategy. Each Civilization has hundreds of millions of active users — often with credit cards attached — far more than even the largest telecom operators or media companies. They straddle industries rather than operating within legacy market sectors. They have an organizing ideology underlying their strategy that motivates and attracts talented employees, excites partners, and is the foundation for the marketing that entices users to become their customers.

What defines these Digital Civilizations? What makes them new and different? Many organizations, companies, industry consortiums, and companies have parts of this strategy in place within their current products. But the new Digital Civilizations have all of the following characteristics:  Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s round-up of recent wireless, smartphone, tablet, and other mobile data.

There’s a summary of the data at the top with more figures, analysis and links to all of the sources included further down after the break.

1. comScore: August 2011 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share

In one of its key countries, the US, RIM is really struggling. RIM sees a decline of 1% in share of the mobile handset market and a dramatic 5% fall in share of smartphone OS platforms in just a three month period. But these figures pre-date the introduction of RIM’s completely new portfolio of low end Curves and higher end Bold’s and Torch’s all running BlackBerry OS 7.

Despite widespread sentiment that Apple is losing out to Android in the US, the company’s share of the total US mobile market edged up by 0.7% between May and August. This reflects continued strength for the iPhone 4 although the handset design is a year old.

2. Apple: Latest iOS, iPhone and other Apple statistics from the “Let’s Talk iPhone” event

Apple’s own figures from the iPhone 4S launch re-enforce how well it was doing on the eve of Steve Job’s death. Some of the many metrics (many stats further down after the break):

• 250m iOS devices sold, including iPads, iPhones and iPod Touch models.
• 18m total app downloads cumulatively.
• 500,000 iOS apps in the store, of which 140,000 are for the iPad.
• 67m Game Center users.
• >16bn songs sold by the iTunes music store.
• $3bn paid out by App to app developers to date

3. Nielsen: In U.S. Market, New Smartphone Buyers Increasingly Embracing Android

Data on new smartphone buyers shows that Android is growing dramatically and now represents 56% of recent smartphone acquirers. However, Apple is maintaining its smartphone market share (28%) when comparing recent smartphone acquirers and all smartphone subscribers. Result: More bad news for RIM and Microsoft Windows Phone, it’s these other smartphone platforms that are being squeezed by the rise of Android, not Apple.

4. J.D. Power: The Right Blend of Design and Technology is Critical to Creating an Exceptional User Experience with Smartphones and Traditional Mobile Devices

Customer satisfaction is greatest for thin and light devices, even among smartphone users. Current feature phone owners demonstrate the same trend as smartphone owners for portable devices but have a lower tolerance for weight with their satisfaction levels dropping off when devices weigh over 4 ounces compared with a threshold of 5 ounces for smartphone owners.

My take: This explains partly the success of the iPhone 4. Apple’s handset is a particularly thin and light smartphone that has wide appeal to normal mobile customers, not just savvy users. J.D. Power data picks out the iPhone as the highest rated phone for satisfaction.

5. Nielsen: 40 Percent of U.S. Mobile Users Own Smartphones; 40 Percent are Android

Apple and Android are neck and neck in appeal for those adults that intend to buy a smartphone in the next year: Both appeal to 30% of prospective buyers. But among an “Innovators” group of early adopters 40% intend to buy an Android smartphone compared with 32% for iOS. My take: This data demonstrates that the iPhone has broader appeal across mainstream users than Android.

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