Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Are the Good Days of the Smartphone Industry About to be Over?

Smartphone Industry Are the Good Days of the Smartphone Industry About to be Over?
The good, old days of the smartphone industry, where one saw long waiting lines before a new release or headlines telling “millions of units sold” might well have been numbered. As industry analysts have been observing lately, the smartphone sales haveslowed down, making many people of this industry wonder whether their fortunes are about to take a turn.
As of the second quarter of 2013, more than half of all phone shipments worldwide are smartphones as lower prices have made them more accessible. The arrival of new features (and gimmicks) overtime have perhaps equally lured people onboard the ship as well but obviously nothing timely is without its side-effects.
The myriad of features added in smartphones with the passage of time have killed the need to upgrade. Tech-enthusiasts, for sure, will upgrade as quickly as possible but the average person will find a smartphone of today to be more than enough for a lot more time than one might think.
And this, coupled with the disappointment brought by to the lack of new features and improvements in the bad ones is possibly the biggest cause why Apple and Samsung, among several others have missed sales targets.
Earlier this year, the prey of all this fiasco was Apple which missed analysts expectations and saw its shares slide from $700 to $417. This time they are Samsung and HTC, who are both facing similar problems, seeing their shares slide and sales miss targets simultaneously especially in the case of the latter.
Of course, it is still early to predict anything decisive but one thing is for sure: market is surely getting saturated with the laundry list of smartphones flooding the market with way more features than people need, thereby killing the necessity of upgrading.

7-Point Action Plan Proposed for Cyber Secure Pakistan

inp 08 50 7 Point Action Plan Proposed for Cyber Secure PakistanTo address security issues related to the internet , Senate Committee on Defence and Defence Production organized a policy seminar on “Defending Pakistan Through Cyber Security Strategy” in coordination with Pakistan Information Security Association (PISA) yesterday at Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Services (PIPS), Islamabad.
Senator Mushahid Hussain, Chairman of Senate Committee on Defence and Defence Production, in his welcoming address, said that the cyber security threat can affect Pakistan’s national defence, security, intelligence, diplomacy, nuclear and missile programme, economy, energy, education, civil aviation as well as industrial and manufacturing units both in the private and public sector. “Cyber security is an issue of paramount importance for Pakistan’s stability and progress.”
Ammar Jaffari, President of Pakistan Information Security Association (PISA) highlighted the importance of National Cyber Security Policy. “As a Global best practice to achieve desired results Pakistan need to have a road map which can only be achieved under a National Cyber Security Policy.” He said.
In the Q&A Session, Senator Farhatullah Babar suggested to form focal ministry or division exclusively to handle cyber security issues. He said laws for data protection should be introduced and in this regard, industry experts have to join hands with Parliamentarians. Senator Mushahid Hussain informed Senate Defence Committee has already taken initiative to form Joint Task Force for Cyber Security having technical support of PISA to present recommendations and situation analysis.
In his concluding speech, Senator Mushahid Hussain thanked the members of Senate Defence Committee and announced the Senate Defence Committee is proposing the following 7-point Action Plan for a Cyber Secure Pakistan:
  1. Relevant legislation to preserve, protect and promote Pakistan cyber security, drafting for which has already begun. We will presents bills in Parliament for Cyber Security.
  2. Cyber security threat should be accepted and recognized as new, emerging national security threat by the Government of Pakistan, similar to the threats like terrorism and military aggression.
  3. Establishing a National Computer Emergency Response Team (PKCERT).
  4. Establishing a Cyber-Security Task Force with affiliation with Ministry of Defence, Ministry of IT, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Information and our security organizations plus relevant and leading professionals from the private security so that Pakistan can take steps to combat this new emerging threat and formulate Cyber Security Strategy for Pakistan.
  5. Under the office of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, an Inter-Services Cyber Command should be established to coordinate cyber security and cyber defence for the Pakistan Armed Forces.
  6. Within the framework of SAARC, Pakistan should take the initiative to initiate talks among the 8-member states particularly India to establish acceptable norms of behavior in cyber security among the SAARC countries so that these countries are not engaged in cyber warfare against each other. If Pakistan and India can have an agreement not to attack nuclear installations, why not an agreement seeking the prevention of cyber warfare against each other?
  7. Soon after Eid, the Senate Defence Committee, in cooperation with the Pakistan Information Security Association (PISA), will have a special media workshop to promote awareness among the public and educate opinion leaders on the issue of cyber security.
The seminar was attended by a number of representatives from civil society, government officials, ministries, academia and media as well.