Q&A with Francisco Jeronimo, Associate Vice President, Devices at IDC

Francisco Jeronimo, Associate Vice President, Devices at IDC, leads a bright award-winning team of 30 research analysts across 10 countries in Europe looking into the trends on Personal Computing Devices, Monitors, Mobile Devices, Wearables, AR&VR, Smart Home and disruptive technologies. He was ranked the World's Top #25 Influencer in Digital Transformation in 2018, and the world's #56 Influencer on Artificial Intelligence in 2017, by Onalytica.

Francisco is a regular commentator on trends in mobile telecommunications in leading industry and business publications, including the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNBC, Bloomberg TV, Reuters, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Guardian, BBC, CNET, along with European press.

The pandemic forced us to change the way we work, learn and play and mobile devices became the backbone of our lives.

MEDIA 7: You have a long career experience in diverse fields. How has all this experience helped you play your current role at IDC?
FRANCISCO JERONIMO:
I started my career in the mobile devices industry about 22 years ago after finishing my management degree in Finland. At that time, I was aiming for a career in international finance, but I got a unique opportunity to join Nokia’s R&D department in Japan, which I took more excited by the fact I would be moving to Japan rather than working in a team of engineers. However, a few months into the job and it became clear to me that working with mobile devices would help me build a career in an industry (mobile phones) that was just about to explode in popularity. I perfectly remember my conversations with the engineers and business analysts at Nokia at the time about how these gadgets would disrupt our lives. Seeing from the inside the “birth” of some of the technologies we use today on our phones was fascinating. After Nokia, I moved back to Europe where I launched two startups and continued my career in sales and marketing in the mobile phone industry. These experiences from R&D, marketing, sales and management in the telecom industry put me in a very good position to join IDC and lead the research on mobile devices in Europe. Today I lead a team that provides strategic insights and advisory to most of the world’s leading mobile device manufacturers.


M7: What are the top challenges you see for the industry in general and IDC this year?
FJ:
The devices industry experienced unprecedented growth in the last 18 months, but also unprecedented levels of uncertainty. The pandemic forced us to change the way we work, learn and play and mobile devices became the backbone of our lives. Our clients expect from IDC strategic advice that helps them to navigate throughout the whirlwind their businesses are in. For that, we need highly knowledgeable analysts. Recruitment today is the biggest challenge the IT industry is facing, as well as IDC. Digital transformation initiatives across all types of organizations have significantly increased the demand for highly skilled IT professionals, and recruitment will remain a top priority for most organizations in the next 24 months.


The wearables revolution triggered innovation in healthcare and wellbeing and offer features that are not even available today on the most advanced smartphones.



M7: You have been with IDC for over 13 years. Where was the company at when you started and where is it now? What changes have you seen take place for the better?
FJ:
When I look into how much IDC evolved in the last 13 years in the devices’ research, the biggest difference comes from the quality of the insights and the speed we provide them to our clients today. The data IDC collects and analyses has grown substantially over the years. However, translating that data into actionable insights at a much faster pace has never been as crucial as now to our clients. We have developed tools that can intelligently collect and analyze data, and generate reports in a matter of hours, which before would take several days, if not weeks. Several tools can improve and speed up data collection, but the real value we deliver to clients comes from making sense of the millions of data points delivered. Although we use a range of tools and intelligence, we have a much larger team around the world than 13 years ago, as no technological advancement beats the insights the analysts get from the relationships developed with the industry players and channels all over the 50 countries where we are present.


M7: What opportunities and challenges come with the rapid growth of the wearable market?
FJ:
The wearables market has been growing on average 78% per year for the last seven years. The popularity of the category started to grow among consumers when the likes of Fitbit, Jawbone and others started launching wristbands. But the launch of the Apple Watch in 2014 became a turning point for the category in general. Although smartwatches existed before, it was Apple who manage to take the category by storm by adding sports and health features to their Watches. The category continued to evolve and today we have on our wrists features such as contactless payments, heart rate notifications, sleep tracking, blood oxygen and hundreds of workouts. The wearables revolution triggered innovation in healthcare and wellbeing and offer features that are not even available today on the most advanced smartphones. The pandemic drew more attention to tracking our physical activity and focusing on our overall wellbeing. We will continue to see a lot of innovation around healthcare, and wearables will play a major role in helping us to be physically and mentally healthier. However, with the growing adoption of wearables, we will face challenges that have not yet been properly addressed by most manufacturers and app developers. Privacy is the biggest concern and challenge users face when using a wearable device. Many of these devices and apps harvest users’ information and data for purposes that are in many cases very unclear and unsafe.


Some of the technologies and devices we use today help us to become more efficient and productive. But augmented humanity technologies empower us to perform at levels that could not be achieved without the support of technology.



M7: Do you think Augmented Humanity techs will disrupt the world in near future?
FJ:
Augmented Humanity technologies are one of the most exciting areas that are emerging. According to IDC’s research, the European augmented humanity market including technologies such as AR/VR, biometrics, affective computing, exoskeletons, ingestibles, injectables, implantables, brain computing interfaces and also wearables, will reach over $100 million by 2025. Some of these technologies are already used for commercial or professional purposes and the biggest benefit is that they remove accessibility barriers that limit humans from performing their daily tasks. Some of the technologies and devices we use today help us to become more efficient and productive. But augmented humanity technologies empower us to perform at levels that could not be achieved without the support of technology.


M7: Your enthusiasm for the new technologies is remarkable. What do you read, and how do you consume information to stay at the top of your game?
FJ:
What excites me about new technologies is the way they empower us and the way they change our lives for good. If we look throughout history, we can pinpoint advancements in society as the result of the launch of specific technologies. Mobile devices (including wearables) are just one of the latest technological innovations that have disrupted and improved our lives in the last 20 years. Keeping pace with such a fast-moving industry is challenging. It requires following what most players announce, advancements in the underlying technologies and components, but more importantly, it requires establishing strong relationships with manufacturers and channels to understand how the market is moving forward. Most of the insights we gather are not publicly available. We get to know what new technologies or product developments are coming in the coming quarters or years from the private, and many times, confidential conversations with these companies. When a new device is announced, usually is the result of years of R&D and product development. Consumer electronics brands and technology providers usually give us a sneak pick of what they are working on, which helps us understand how each product category will evolve. I also attend many vendor and industry events, where I have the chance to meet the key executives of these large players or small startups working on innovative and disruptive technologies. These executive interactions give me a glimpse of the hot technologies that I should be paying attention to.

ABOUT IDC

IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 100 countries.

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Lynx’s foundational software products, open-source expertise, productivity- and security-enhancing development tools, highly technical software engineering services, delivered via both professional and managed services business models, and its highly skilled and security-cleared employee base combine to create a platform company uniquely positioned to support the full software development lifecycle for clients in aerospace, defense, and other heavily regulated end-markets. “The TSS team has built the company on a solid foundation of trusted customer relationships, innovative and cutting-edge technical capabilities, and flawless execution. With TSS’s high-value and differentiated software development and integration capabilities, we will be better equipped to enable aerospace and defense OEMs and prime integrators to accelerate the design, development, and deployment of their products and platforms,” commented Tim Reed, Chief Executive Officer of Lynx. “As we end 2023, Lynx’s portfolio of solutions spans from the operating system to the application layer, certifiable real-time, to general purpose and open-source, and from commercial-off-the-shelf (“COTS”) to government-off-the-shelf (“GOTS”) software products. I’m thrilled to work with Les and the TSS team as we continue delivering comprehensive and unique software-enabled solutions to customers whose needs extend from the development pipeline to the Mission Critical Edge.” “Throughout my twenty years leading TSS, we’ve been consistently committed to delivering robust software solutions that meet the stringent requirements of our customers while ensuring they can stay on schedule and budget,” commented Les Thompson, Chief Executive Officer of TSS. “From our first discussions with Tim and the Lynx team, it became clear that Lynx is not just a vendor looking to push products but a committed, mission-oriented partner with the same objectives we have here at TSS, which includes continuing to deliver on our shared goal of providing resilient, secure, and performant software solutions targeted at the most demanding mission-critical environments.” “The combination of Lynx and TSS creates a software solutions platform placed at the center of priority aerospace and defense investment areas, notably open standards, modularity, and security. Like TSS, Lynx has an established track record of exceeding customer expectations with its innovation, performance, and value proposition. As a combined company, Lynx and TSS are well-positioned to grow as our clients continue to execute on the software modernization, integration, and development priorities,” commented Patrick McClellen, Chief Strategy Officer of TSS. About Lynx Software Technologies Lynx Software Technologies is on a mission to improve the economics of developing, deploying, and maintaining high-assurance Mission Critical Edge platforms with modular software solutions based on open standards. Our proven technology leadership, extensive system certification expertise, and commitment to open standards have consistently saved our customers millions of dollars in development costs while delivering desired system performance, security, and reliability on schedule. Lynx is committed to enabling customers to build and manage orchestrated, cloud-connected platforms that harness a broad array of modern technologies and unique design methodologies to enable accurate, deterministic decisions at the Mission Critical Edge without compromising safety or cybersecurity requirements. For more information, visit www.lynx.com. About Thompson Software Solutions Founded in 2004 with locations in Atlanta, GA and Fort Worth, TX, the Thompson Software Solutions team understands what is required to develop, integrate, test, and deploy software with a safety-critical pedigree while meeting the challenges of modernization and digital transformation. Our team of proven and dedicated employees takes pride in our ability to react quickly and produce quality solutions to difficult technical challenges. We work with partners to find the right path to meet operational needs while future-proofing systems with portability and sustainment considerations to ensure next-generation success. For more information, visit https://www.thompsonsoftwaresolutions.com. About OceanSound Partners OceanSound Partners is a New York-based private equity firm that pursues control investments in technology and technology-enabled services companies serving government and enterprise end markets. OceanSound employs a partnership approach, working closely with founders, entrepreneurs, and executives of middle market businesses to drive transformational growth. For more information, visit www.oceansoundpartners.com.

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