Cisco led mindshare in Software Defined Network (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) market discussion last week. While the company historically competes with VMware in the SDN space, CRN reported that partners working with both vendors “are now deploying Cisco and VMware’s SDN side-by-side and finding them more complementary than competitive.” This eliminates the “either-or decision between Cisco and VMware,” and creates opportunities to solve even more complex challenges. This announcement made a big impact on market discussion, accounting for nearly 25 percent of SDN and NFV Twitter conversation last Thursday.
Chart of the Day: Partners Are Using Cisco & VMware SDN Solutions Side-by-Side, big news in SDN & NFV social discussion
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Smartphones make everything easier. A smartphone puts all your pictures, music, social media accounts, emails, and even credit cards right in the palm of your hand. With all this convenient digitalization, though, consumers do not discuss “payments” as much as other use cases. Based on over 75,000 smartphone consumer reviews collected from January 2016, consumers mention using a Smartphone for financial transactions in less than one percent of reviews. This small amount of discussion was led by buzz from Samsung Pay featured in Samsung’s newest models.
Chart of the Day: Consumers show limited interest in smartphone transactions, but Samsung Pay is in the lead
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A lot has changed since Steve Jobs publicly denounced the need for a stylus in his introduction of the iPhone in 2007. Namely, Apple released a stylus. While our fingers remain attached to us, and are therefore far less likely than a stylus to be lost or broken, Apple announced a stylus as an accessory for their business focused iPad Pro in their September 2015 keynote. The inclusion of a stylus with an Apple product clearly deviated from the company’s early messaging, but a stylus provides increased accuracy, needed for the advanced functions of the iPad Pro.
Since the release, iPad Pro consumers have been happy with the device, reporting higher delight for Apple’s iPad Pro than Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4. Analysis of recent consumer reviews about the stylus used with each tablet shows that consumers are also more satisfied with the Apple Pencil than the Surface Pen. The bars of the funnel below display the percentage of iPad Pro and Surface Pro 4 feedback in which consumers mentions of Stylus, Apple Pencil, and Surface Pen. Red is negative sentiment; blue is positive, and gray is neutral. While Microsoft consumers mention the stylus at a higher rate than Apple users, consumers report far more disappointment with the Surface Pro 4, with the majority of negative feedback mentioning broken tips and poor responsiveness. Apple’s branding is also stronger, as Apple users refer to the devices as an “Apple Pencil” more often than a generic “stylus,” while Microsoft users use “stylus” over “Surface Pen.”
Chart of the Day: iPad Pro consumers like the Apple Pencil, while Microsoft Surface Pro users have complaints about the Surface Pen
Nest announced that they will shutdown the cloud service that empowers the Revolv Hub, the hardware of a company Nest acquired in 2014, in order to focus on the Works With Nest initiative. Our research on Smart Home Ecosystems found that Works With Nest is failing to grab the attention of consumers, as they are far more interested in Amazon Echo and Homekit integration. However, consumer satisfaction for the Nest App has been slowly increasing since Nest added Nest Cam and Dropcam capabilities in their 5th generation app.
Nest’s app controls all the company’s devices including their smart thermostats, detectors, and security camera, and Dropcam (another company Nest acquired) users can control their devices with this app as well. Nest App users have been growing more satisfied as time goes on, as demonstrated by the trajectory of the orange points in the chart below. Buzz and delight for the Nest App improved after an influx of 3rd Generation Smart Thermostat consumers began using it after the new device was launched in September 2015, and continues a a steady upward path. While consumers have grown more satisfied with Nest’s Smart Home software over the past few months, delight remains low. Will their new focus on Works With Nest improve the overall Nest experience? Stay tuned on this blog to track consumer perception along the way.
Chart of the Day: Satisfaction is improving for the Nest App, but it still has a long way to go
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Nest recently announced that they would shutdown the service that keeps Revolv Hubs running, leaving consumers with a device as useless as a container of hummus. Revolv is owned by Nest and shut down their service so they could pour all their “energy into Works with Nest.” Nest also owns Dropcam, a smart security camera company.
Shortly after Nest acquired Dropcam, the company launched the Nest Cam smart security camera as an improvement to the Dropcam Pro. While consumers reported higher delight for Dropcam cameras when the Nest Cam was launched in June 2015, consumers have been losing interest and delight as Nest Cam users are becoming happier and more prevalent. Dropcam users are being transitioned to the Nest App, but given Nest’s recent announcement about shutting down Revolv, we can’t help but wonder if Dropcam users should also be worried about their Nest owned devices becoming bricks.
Trajectory in the chart below shows delight over time, size of bubbles represent review volume per week.
Chart of the Day: Nest Cam delight is improving as Dropcam users are stuck with disappointment
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