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The contrast between proprietary and open source software is as old as the IT industry itself. Software in almost every category is available either from suppliers who develop and market their code by themselves or from developer communities who work with open code.

Up until now, online communication with insurance customers was, in terms of customer satisfaction, significantly lagging behind other industries. As a matter of fact, this is  clearly  an aspect of Insurance business with a good potential for improvement.

Maybe we should turn it into a drama. One of the obstacles faced by this industry is that hardly anyone understands it. If Joe and Josephine Public do not quite get it, how can they buy into it?

I was prepared for Mobey Forum’s third annual Mobey Day event to be a lively affair. Bringing banks together with, amongst others, GSMA, chip manufacturers and mobile payment software providers to discuss the future of near field communication (NFC) was always going to ignite debate.

Many giant electronics manufacturers, computer services companies and conglomerates have tens of billions of dollars in the bank that is instantly available for investment to counter their saturating sales in mature markets. Samsung, General Electric and Google are examples and Apple even has $133 billion available.

Greenpocket has come up with a smartphone app connecting smart metering with the social web, and plans to present the social metering app at next month’s Metering Billing/CRM Europe in Amsterdam.

LinkedIn is working to connect 1 billion professionals Facebook wants to connect everyone with an Internet connection – that’s 2 billion people and counting With more than 7 TRILLION potentially connected devices