Synchronoss, a new position.

It looks like their Revenue and Earnings are growing nicely but I think the cloud is going to be very competitive. Google already gives 15 gig for their cloud storage free. Also Microsoft gives 15 gig for their one drive and if you get 360 it is unlimited, also free. As stated above Apple has their own storage.

I am with Verizon and I declined their cloud storage because I already have Google and One drive for my storage. Just something to watch.

Andy

If cloud were an undifferentiated commodity, of course you would be right. What sets Synchronoss apart is ease of adoption, if they activate your device all you need to do to get backup and synchronicity is to click a checkbox.

Unlike real “increasing returns” businesses that take the lion’s market share, often in excess of 50%, cloud will probably be fragmented into half a dozen clouds (Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Synchronoss) with little mobility between them. Core vs. Context should keep the carriers from deserting Synchronoss and Synchronoss should get a large part of the non iPhone mobile business.

In a presentation kindly linked by someone here, Synchronoss wants to expand from Personal Cloud to Corporate Cloud. Lots of room to grow. The best time to own the stock is between 20% and 80% market penetration.

No position yet but thinking hard about it. It’s wonderful to be able to buy backup as easily as picking up a toaster. :wink:

Denny Schlesinger

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No position yet but thinking hard about it. It’s wonderful to be able to buy backup as easily as picking up a toaster. :wink:

I agree Denny and that is my point. When you get an Android phone it asks you if you want 15 gigs of “free” personal cloud. It looks like Verizon gives you 5 gig of free storage and then if sign up for their more everything plan it will give you 25 gig. I’m not sure about this, especially the Corporate cloud because with all of the recent hacks I think Corporate cloud is a core to any company.

But I could be completely wrong because looking at all the access to customers they have just in cell phones it could have a huge run.

Andy

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while buying new phone, agree to $10 a month charge for backup and emergency recovery.

Does Samsung have its own cloud? I don’t know and just ask. I assume it does. If a Samsung customer owns both Samsung phone and Samsung tablet, he would want to keep them in synch, right? How does he do it? Does he have to sign up a 3rd party cloud service for that? If true, that alone would be reason enough to ditch Samsung and convert to iPhone and iPad.

I would think all major smartphone vendors would have their own cloud. But I have never used other smartphones than iPhone - sorry I used blackberry for a short while way back. So I could have been spoiled by Apple.

Regards,
-M

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Core and Context

While I quite understand the McD example, sometimes companies maybe to fixed on what the Core is when it comes to revenue generating products. Bathrooms are not, Cloud can be…

I get nervious of any company that makes a strategy to focus on the core. If McDs says now that Chicken is outside of its Core which are hamburgers, I would run as they are out of ideas…

Maybe many don’t realize there is still a Motorola out there after the spin off of phones and then sold to Google and to Lenovo…

But Motorola is still around selling 2 way radion systems to police and gov’t and now very focued on their core:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2014/08/06/motorolas…

But now what? Better and better 2 way radios?

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M,
That is another great point. I have a Samsung s5 and they give me 50 gb of free storage. I do not use it though because I want to keep all my cloud together. Or mostly together. I have google and one drive. I think the more we talk about this the more it is starting to seem like a “commodity”.

Andy

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No one ever said: “Let’s go to McDonald’s, they have such clean restrooms.”

Denny, I assume you’ve never spent time in China.

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No one ever said: “Let’s go to McDonald’s, they have such clean restrooms.”

Denny, I assume you’ve never spent time in China.

Clean bathrooms or not, eating at McDs in China is a shame…

I get nervious of any company that makes a strategy to focus on the core. If McDs says now that Chicken is outside of its Core which are hamburgers, I would run as they are out of ideas…

You took my example to an extreme, of course feeding people is more than hamburgers. Navigating the fine line between Core and Context is management’s job. If I’m not mistaken McDonald’s buys frozen fries so fries are somewhere between Core and Context. Management is a fine art.

Blackberry was the game changer that overtook Motorola

Motorola was the victim of disruptive innovation and like many incumbents not able to cope with it. Motorola was also the victim of management change when the founding family gave up running the company. After the Watsons professional management almost ruined IBM as well. Home Depot almost suffered the same fate but they got rid of the guy from GE before total disaster set in.

Ideas like “Core and Context” are guidelines, not rules set in stone.

Denny Schlesinger

Denny, I assume you’ve never spent time in China.

The closest I ever got to China was San Francisco. You can always find the exception that proves the rule. I was assuming that I was talking to an affluent society.

Denny Schlesinger

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I have a Samsung s5 and they give me 50 gb of free storage. I do not use it though because I want to keep all my cloud together. Or mostly together.

Andy;

It seems to me that as mobile devices get more and more popular, one person may have multiple devices and it is natural for the person to keep all his content together and keep content of the family members together. I think tier 1 venders know it and it is a huge competitive advantage for them to offer free cloud service to their customers (cost included in the device price). Once you have all your data from phones, tablets and what have you together, and once you set up family sharing and etc., it is less likely that you want to switch from Apple to Samsung or other way around.

And the vendors can up sell other stuff to you and the potential is endless - music, streaming video, audio books, money transfer services, student tutoring, home security monitoring, … - all from the cloud with low operating cost. So a serious vendor will not want its customers to store data in a 3rd party cloud.

Having said that, there are tongs of users with smartphones from smaller vendors. They may need to have a 3rd party cloud service for backup. But that is more likely just a “storage” service.

-M

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Who said anything about eating at McD’s?

Who said anything about eating at McD’s?

Well… suppose if you need a side trip just for their bathroom in China, then they serve a purpose

M,
Those are really good points and this is what I think might happen. Verizon, At&T, and all of the other mobile carriers want to keep their customers happy also. So what if they start offering free cloud to all their customers also. They would use Synchronoss because they already have that set up. Synchronoss’s margins will get squeezed because now they have to deal directly with the carriers but they will get a huge amount of customers so while their margins will be lower their Revenue will be much higher. I can see this happening so that everyone that is on a carrier will have all their data with the carrier they are with. If this was to happen Synchronoss could be a very good investment at this time.

Andy

…Verizon, At&T, and all of the other mobile carriers want to keep their customers happy also…

Having just switched from AT&T to Sprint, and in process of switching from AT&T Uverse to Cox, as I am on the phone right now with Cox I can say with strong conviction, all these service providers don’t care at all about keeping customers happy.

All they care about is keeping customers. Happy or otherwise.

-FrickNFool (feeling better after ranting a bit)

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Verizon, At&T, and all of the other mobile carriers want to keep their customers happy also. So what if they start offering free cloud to all their customers also.

Andy

Consumers and arms suppliers are the winners of price wars and freebie wars too. But Synchronoss is offering more than free storage with their IoT device interconnect: home, car, mobile and wearable devices all talking to each other.

Denny Schlesinger

But Synchronoss is offering more than free storage with their IoT device interconnect: home, car, mobile and wearable devices all talking to each other.

Wow. That is impressive. So if I have a Samsung tablet, an iPhone, a Model S and a Google glass, Synchronoss can make them talk to each other?

If that is true, that would have a huge market, at least for a while until others jump into the field. Is there any write up on this aspect of the business? I’d like to do some homework this weekend.

Regards.
-M

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I don’t know if they offer it yet but…

Synchronoss Integrated Life - Mobile Innovation for an Integrated Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmI_6JeoQlA

Impressive

Denny Schlesinger

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I don’t think carriers are going to get any big headway with free cloud based storage. I think a vast majority of the users who widely use cloud storage already do so with third party providers, and it would seem that these third party providers like Google already have a lock on that ecosystem. Switching users is hard, especially when the offer has no additional value proposition … I mean people so many services from Google, they are familiar with Google, and they can leverage that crowd effect to get people into their ecosystem, they can integrate storage with other services etc. It’s also an issue of implicit trust. I would think companies like Google (Facebook, Twitter …) that thrive on your data have also implicitly acquired the trust of the users. Users feel that data with these big services is much safer than with someone else, and that includes anything offered by a carrier.

Carriers have been trying to do various things to keep customers and move up the value chain. Ultimately, though, a carrier is a utility and its utility is only in providing a good network connection nothing more.

Anirban

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Carriers have been trying to do various things to keep customers and move up the value chain. Ultimately, though, a carrier is a utility and its utility is only in providing a good network connection nothing more.

That is to simplistic a view of the situation now Anirban. Cell phone companies have changed that and the proof is in how much people will pay for their phones now. A simple connection of a land line cost you 12.00 a month, now cell companies are not restricted by the PUC and they can charge exactly what they want.

Andy

Andy,

I agree it is simplistic but it’s a pretty reasonable first cut. It’s my view based on some research and consulting experience in the mobile networking space.

I get that operators make more monies off mobile but the plans just about cover the capex. People paying more for phones talks to innovations of the Apples and Googles not the cell phone companies. Also the bulk of the profit of the phones go to the OEM.

Telcos face stiff competition so what they can charge is limited by market dynamics, and it’s going to get worse with entry of companies like Google.

Anirban.

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