orange labs mobile cloud computing workshop

Orange Labs

Mobile cloud computing workshop

Möller CentreCambridge6 January 2010

Workshop output documentDate 13 January 2010

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Mobile Cloud Computing Workshop – Cambridge 6th January 2010 2

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This workshop opened up many new directions for exploration, covering strategy, process, and context as well as the mobile cloud computing project itself

Summary

The primary purpose of the workshop was to create a range of new perspectives on the mobile cloud computing (MCC) project – assembled from the views of independent and objective experts, with little prior exposure to the details of the project but with insights and knowledge drawn from many different fields. The workshop brought together a wide range of practitioners, including experts in design practice, psychology, social anthropology, innovation, social geography, strategy and computing, as well as the Orange team. The resulting questions illustrate many critical areas that Orange will need to address in order to exploit MCC as effectively as possible – covering strategy, competition, business models and propositions as well as use cases and candidate services. For example:– As Orange moves to deliver services and experience, rather than just network access, how will it differentiate itself from its competitors?– Who will be the new competition and how should Orange prevent such competitors from setting the rules of the game, especially

as cloud computing blurs the sourcing of competitive advantage from device, data, computing power, software, service and the customer experience?

– How will Orange find and achieve the best balance between leading the consumer, supporting the developer and responding to customers’ needs and wishes, often unarticulated?

The answers to such questions set the context for the MCC project and should profoundly influence its direction and evolution. This document classifies the broad-ranging questions from the workshop as follows:– Shared understanding, definition and communication– Strategy and business model– Services and the User experience– Device / Cloud Architectures and Data implications– Project management and innovation processes


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Questions and topics from the workshop are a rich resource for Orange to explore in greater depth

Summary

The questions aim not to be a complete set, but to provide a valuable starting point and should be fleshed out and the answers resolved in order to build a shared, coherent and communicated strategy for Orange to pursue. Because of the importance of open innovation and of a deep understanding of potential user response in this new and unfolding landscape Orange must maintain a judicious balance between clarity of strategic intent and, simultaneously, openness to new opportunity and the agility to pursue it. Having intentionally set out to create as wide a range of questions as possible, the workshop then focused in on two questions. These were chosen by the participants on the basis of interest and the maximum potential to cross-fertilise ideas and insights. The first question viewed data as an organic entity, asking, “How far can data become ‘organic’ and grow (naturally) from the user’s needs?” Thinking of data as an evolving organic entity offers Orange a novel way to explore dynamic opportunities and barriers in MCC. The workshop flagged up critical issues in: The trust that users have in Orange as a holder of personally important data The interplay between the cloud and the device Myriad issues around data management and data provenance and security Resolving such issues will mean the difference between compelling user propositions and corporate embarrassment.

Finally the workshop focused in on the question of mobility; “How does cloud computing change when you are mobile?” By looking at the characteristics of the mobile device workshop participants highlighted the importance of the phone as a tool for personal identification and its shortcomings as an interface device for the rich facilities offered by the cloud. This creates a starting point to explore services and scenarios in which the ownership and identification embodied in the phone will enable new opportunities. There will also be opportunities in exploring mobility and network access for a whole range of other devices that make different functional trade-offs to those embodied in today’s phone, broadening Orange’s options for differentiated services.


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The key to success will lie in integrating considerations of the strategic and the social as well as the technical

Summary

Viewed as a starting point, the workshop illustrates several directions that Orange might explore. Some of these are strategic and concern positioning and partnering, focus and understanding the competitive landscape. Others address the ways in which Orange innovates and its choice of stance as a leader or fast follower. These are vitally important questions for management to set the context for the MCC project (and more generally) and are all areas where the external experts at the workshop would be interested to continue discussions. For the MCC project itself, the workshop highlighted new avenues for exploration, focusing on the data and its management as well as the more obvious issues of devices and networks. Developing scenarios and use cases within which the team can develop and explore propositions should consider the dimensions of the mobile experience to bound the space, then check coverage by asking how mobile apps and internet access have already transformed people’s lives. From here questions raised in the workshop allow different aspects of the user experience to be considered. Here, as elsewhere, the social element will be as important as the technical, maybe more so.

Recurring themes in the workshop showed that Orange need to consider not only their own propositions but also those of competitors – without being blinded to Orange’s assets and uniqueness. What might Google and Apple do – but how might they fail? What can Orange gain from its customer relationships to build trust and preference? Hence the creation and exploration of scenarios should cover attitudes and perceptions as well as use cases, services and devices.

It is clear that Orange have deep capability in articulating options and opportunities based on the network, the devices and their functionality. Opening consideration to the data, to identities and to community may yield the breakthroughs to truly differentiate.

The workshop demonstrated just one way that Orange can engage with interdisciplinary resources to craft its propositions, its prototypes and its exploration of the mobile cloud computing landscape.


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1 Introduction and objectives

2 Candidate questions

3 “The Organic Data Question”

4 “The Mobility Question”

5 Workshop Participants

Appendix Captured from flipcharts


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This document captures the key elements of the workshop, adding notes and structure to the flip chart material.

This document is aimed at the workshop attendees and others familiar with Orange’s Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) project. Hence notes on Raffel Uddin’s and Kashif Chaudrey’s demonstration of the device delivering ‘web runtime’ functionality and Abdellatif Benjelloun’s introductory presentation are not included here.

Workshop participants and their areas of interest are listed at the end of this document

The workshop comprised the following phases, reflected in the structure of this document– Introduction

– to participants and to the context of the work– Developing interesting questions– Choosing questions in which to focus– Addressing the two chosen questions

In his introduction, Alan Blackwell, leader of the workshop emphasised that the outcome of workshops such as these are contingent on the mix and interests of the different participants. The content is not pre-defined, so allowing potentially radical insights to emerge without the constraint of prior mindsets and prejudices. The material emerged through a dynamic interplay between participants. This document partially structures the material developed in order to make it more accessible, while the temporal order of capture on flip charts of the original material is recorded in the Appendix for those who wish to seek different structures and insights

1 Introduction and Objectives


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The workshop began with an introduction to the project, a demonstration of past device and system development and by capturing participants’ objectives for the day

“To open up the arena of interesting questions around the project”

Objectives around Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) and services

– “To identify the differences between MOBILE cloud computing and cloud computing”

– “To get clarity on the (potential) differentiating factors for Orange MCC”

– “To understand the implications of local storage versus cloud storage”

– “To develop a consensus on candidate services”

Objectives around use cases

– “To hear / explore some typical use cases”

– “To identify missing use cases”

“To identify the next step in the project”

“To understand the implication of Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) for the business ecosystem (i.e. Device, platform vendors, service creators, server farms and server providers, network providers) within which Orange operates”

“To learn about the design process in Orange Labs (and infer its impact on innovation)”

“To understand how a change from a network operator to a service provider mindset will change the role and contribution of R&D”

1 Introduction and Objectives

CLUSTERED OBJECTIVES


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The core of the workshop developed a wide range of candidate questions to open up directions of thinking about Mobile Cloud Computing and Orange’s approach to the project

As documented in this section the questions have been clustered under a hierarchy of headings – they have been replicated where the question might have bearing on more than one heading and annotated to add further richness from the discussion

The primary headings are– Shared understanding, definition and communication– Strategy and business model– Services and the User experience– Device / Cloud Architectures and Data implications– Project management and innovation processes

The questions as captured in temporal order are provided in the Appendix



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The core of the workshop developed a wide range of candidate questions to open up directions of thinking about Mobile Cloud Computing and Orange’s approach to the project


Mobile Cloud

Computing

Shared understanding, definition and communication

Services and the User Experience

Device / cloud architectures and data implications

Strategy and business model

Project management and innovation process Use cases and scenarios

Service ideas

Assets and leverage

User behaviour and reactions

Device / cloud interaction

Data issuesConnectivity and cachingDevice performance

Standards

Project design

Leveraging capability

Innovation process


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By pursuing a broad range of questions the Workshop opened up many new directions for Orange to explore

Shared understanding, definition and communication– To communicate internally and externally, Orange need to build a shared understanding of the opportunities and positioning

of MCC – while remaining open to shifts in the landscape

Strategy and business model– Strategic questions surround Orange’s positioning and differentiation and hence the definition of collaborators and

competitors as MCC develops– There may be wider opportunities in combining mobile and fixed data, while partnering will require Orange to communicate

the differentiating proposition to deliver ‘best in class’

Services and the user experience – Key prompts for development lie in differentiating mobile from fixed cloud computing and exploring the dimensions of the

mobile cloud computing experience – User response will depend upon their trust of Orange and their willingness to explore new uses of their data – Will the mobile cloud support social interaction in fundamentally new ways, and how will identity be part of the picture? Will

Orange’s data assets be valuable in this space? – In a world dominated by data, thinking of its growth and development as an “organic entity” offers new insights

2 Candidate Questions


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By pursuing a broad range of questions the Workshop opened up many new directions for Orange to explore

Device / cloud architectures and device implications – Opportunities and constraints arise from how the device and the cloud will interact and the capabilities of the device to

deliver the user experience– The evolution of the device coupled with the use of data assets may lead to a stream of opportunities – or the dominance of

the device manufacturers?– Data ownership, data provenance and user identity becomes an emerging theme – for opportunities or threats

Project Management and the Innovation Process – Can Orange find an optimum balance between leading the consumer into new spaces, co-development and listening to

consumer reactions?



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To communicate internally and externally, Orange need to build a shared understanding of the opportunities and positioning of MCC – while remaining open to shifts in the landscape

What is the definition of ‘cloud computing’?

Is ‘cloud’ just a brand buzzword? – “Is the cloud just vapour?”

Is the ‘cloud’ a euphemism for an Orange ambition to own the world?

What distinguishes Mobile cloud computing from fixed cloud computing?

What is the real value of the ‘end-to-end’ vision?

Can we critique the ‘access point’ vision?

What are the blind spots of the Orange mindset ( and are there lessons from example of 1970s Xerox blindness to business boundaries and business models)?

How should Orange educate partners to raise expectations and ambitions and to define the quality of experience as ‘best in class’?


SHARED UNDERSTANDING, DEFINITION AND COMMUNICATION


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Strategic questions surround Orange’s positioning and differentiation and hence the definition of collaborators and competitors as MCC develops

Why does Orange need this business?

What is the vision for the ‘good’ (best collective) outcome world of 2020?

Does Orange have a role in this future that extends beyond the purely commercial, for example in the delivery of philanthropy?

What is Orange’s unique position?

What business model is best?

Can Orange offer a product or service that is not network-based?

How might Orange survive in a world where access to the network is free?

What are business models around “capturing your life” (in the context of cloud computing storage)?


STRATEGY AND BUSINESS MODEL (1 of 2)

Who owns the customer (e.g. billing relationship)?

How is Orange’s infrastructure a competitive asset?

Would Orange ever build data centres?

How can one monetise the SIM card?

Is SMS a commercial asset?

How can Orange use the address book as an asset?

Is trust an asset?

– Do the public trust the operators more than other companies?

– Are the regulations under which operators work an asset for trust?

– Note that implicit trust develops slowly, but dies instantly if broken


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There may be wider opportunities in combining mobile and fixed data, while partnering will require Orange to communicate the differentiating proposition to deliver ‘best in class’

Do regulators prevent the cloud use of telco data?

– Will the regulators ‘play ball’ (collaborate or support) France Telecom?

– What is the French equivalent of Ofcom? (Answer: Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) )

Would users pay for an opt-out to protect their privacy?– What might be the business model here?

What is Google’s business model?

Is Google the real competition?

How to engage with Google?

Can we persuade people that Google is evil?


STRATEGY AND BUSINESS MODEL (2 of 2)

PARTNERING



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Key prompts for development lie in differentiating mobile from fixed cloud computing and exploring the dimensions of the MCC experience

USE CASES AND SCENARIOS

What is a good (useful) scenario?– For example, one that differentiates between mobile

and fixed cloud?– How might we escape obvious scenarios? – Can you recognise an obvious scenario?

What use cases are missing?

What use cases are not possible?

What are the different dimensions of mobile user experience?

How have mobile apps changed your life in the past decade?

What distinguishes Mobile CC from fixed CC?

Cloud computing has a very strong corporate story – does MCC?


SERVICES AND THE USER EXPERIENCE (1 of 4)

USE CASES AND SCENARIOS

How can the cloud deliver what you want ‘by magic’? [a brainstorming question to escape constraints]

Do cloud services narrow or broaden usage options?

What distinguishes ’best in class’ experience - ‘cloud’ from ‘non-cloud’?

How does the cloud change when you are mobile?

Are we conflating “seamlessness” (of experience) with “location” (of data) or “mobility of user”?

How can Orange use the customer information they already have?

How will this improve on the iPhone experience?

How to engage with Google?

Which ambitions are probably stupid?


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User response will depend upon their trust of Orange and their willingness to explore new uses of their data

USER BEHAVIOUR AND REACTIONS (1 of 3)

What are the different dimensions of mobile user experience?

How have mobile apps changed your life in the past decade?

How can the cloud deliver what you want ‘by magic’? [a brainstorming question to escape constraints]

Could cloud magic give you what you want in preference to what you ask for?

Will the product grow with you?

What is Orange’s unique position? How does the cloud change when you are mobile?

Are we conflating “seamlessness” (of experience) with “location” (of data) or “mobility of user”?




What is the ‘psychological contract between the user (today? future?) (of MCC?) and Orange?

Do the public trust the operators more than other companies?

How do expensive devices seem better than cheap ones?– What does device richness mean? More expensive?

More competent?

How will this improve on the iPhone experience?

Is iPhone a good target?

Can we persuade people that Google is evil?


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Will the mobile cloud support social interaction in fundamentally new ways, and how will identity be part of the picture? Will Orange’s data assets be valuable in this space?


Do the users know what data is collected and held?

Note that the Tesco loyalty card thrives, despite paranoia

Could users sell their personal data to corporates?

How can you own a persistent ID?

What happens to your ID / data / apps etc when you die?

How can the user revoke information?

What social transactions should be preserved? OR do social relations naturally accommodate technical change?

– How to capture value from the debate about the effort made in a social transaction and the fact that such effort adds value (e.g. the hand-made present vs. the mass-produced item)

Might the cloud (and improved precision of search) destroy serendipity? (though many felt that faster transactions enabled broader opportunities for serendipity)



ASSETS AND LEVERAGE

How is Orange’s infrastructure a competitive asset?





Do the public trust the operators more than other companies?

Are the regulations under which operators work an asset for trust?



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In a world dominated by data, thinking of its growth and development as an “organic entity” offers new insights

SERVICE IDEAS




How far can data become ‘organic’ and grow (naturally) from the user’s needs?

E.g. – your contact database is self-updating when your contacts change their phone numbers

Who controls the updating?

Should such updating have a memory that allows old data to decay or be removed as it becomes likely to be out-of-date?


SERVICE IDEAS

Might users be interested in a phone call archive?

Could the cloud support users in finding / articulating / managing and pursing their lifetime ambitions?

Could we invent a revolution (such as Google Wave)?



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Opportunities and constraints arise from how the device and the cloud will interact and the capabilities of the device to deliver the user experience

DEVICE – CLOUD INTERACTION

What are the dynamics of platform / service evolution?

Which way is causality or are they best thought of as linked? Device capability drives service and/or service requirement drives device?

How does the cloud respond to different device richness?

How does the MCC model respond to different device richness?

How best to liberate ‘content’ from ‘device’?

Is the cloud more than device agnostic – and what then?

Contemplate two profoundly different paths of evolution

i) if the experience of and services from the cloud are device agnostic

ii) if experience of and services from the cloud depends upon device characteristics


DEVICE PERFORMANCE


How do expensive devices seem better than cheap ones?– What does device richness mean? More expensive?

More competent?

How do people choose which device to buy?

Will there ever be a “smooth” spectrum of device choices? (rather than discrete trade-off decisions that are conditioned by device characteristics)

Why would you buy a new phone?

What do we mean by ‘device’? – firmware evolution?

What are the dynamics of platform / service evolution?

Which way is causality or are they best thought of as linked? Device capability drives service and/or service requirement drives device?

DEVICE / CLOUD ARCHITECTURES AND DATA IMPLICATIONS (1 of 3)


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The evolution of the device coupled with the use of data assets may lead to a stream of opportunities – or the dominance of the device manufacturers?

DEVICE PERFORMANCE

Has device evolution stopped?– How will devices evolve after the iPhone?– Will it be by the dynamic of the experience?– In which case is this a function of the device only?– Or of the services and how they’re delivered (cloud,

firmware, user interface)?

Is iPhone a good target?

What is the impact on battery life of constant connection?

Can devices become more tactile (haptic feedback)?

CONNECTIVITY AND CACHING

Is the mobile device (as useful as) ‘a brick’ when offline?

What data should be cached on the device?


DATA ISSUES

How best to liberate ‘content’ from ‘device’?


How does the cloud respond to different device richness?

Could users sell their personal data to corporates?




Is SMS a commercial asset?


Would Orange ever build data centres?



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Data ownership, data provenance and user identity becomes an emerging theme – for opportunities or threats

DATA ISSUES

Do regulators prevent the cloud use of telco data?

Will the regulators ‘play ball’ (collaborate or support) France Telecom?

What is the French equivalent of Ofcom? (Answer: Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA)

Can data be shared across cloud service providers – ‘cloud roaming’?

How might you federate ‘clouds’?

Should each user have their own ‘cloud’?

How can you own a persistent ID?

What happens to your ID / data / apps etc when you die?

How can the user revoke information?

Is data on the cloud in fact our society’s history?


DATA ISSUES

How far can data become ‘organic’ and grow (naturally) from the user’s needs?

– E.g. – your contact database is self-updating when your contacts change their phone numbers

– Who controls the updating?

– Should such updating have a memory that allows old data to decay or be removed as it becomes likely to be out-of-date?

STANDARDS

What are the risks of reliance on W3C standards?



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Can Orange find an optimum balance between leading the consumer into new spaces, co-development and listening to consumer reactions?

PROJECT DESIGN

Are all the allied work programmes shown in the Orange plan essential?

What is the correct order of work packages for the project?

INNOVATION PROCESS

Should Orange lead the consumer, follow the consumer, co-develop with the consumer – or all of these? How?– Is it really necessary (or desirable) to draw a boundary between consumer and producer?– Can Orange draw users more closely into the design process?– Can Orange explore how consumer trust issues might change the product / service proposition?

LEVERAGING CAPABILITY

Does middleware expertise (need to) include solution delivery skills



PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND INNOVATION PROCESS


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The first of two questions chosen by participants’ votes: “How far can data become ‘organic’ and grow (naturally) from the user’s needs?” Privacy, provenance and paranoia

Addressing this question is consistent with a focus on the data rather than the device – and hence favourable to Orange

Does the cloud collect data for you?

Can data transform itself?– This puts data at the core of the proposition– Data and services become interlinked / exchanged –

and so become “organic”, growing with the data (and capability)

– Improving the use and interaction with data– Raising questions of the provenance and ownership /

control of data– Is the data backed up? If so where and how does

one track location of data?– What is the usability model of the data itself?– Do you need metadata to manage the data? What

about the changing cultural conventions and attitudes towards data and privacy?

3 The ‘organic data’ question

Is this a conversation or a robot butler?– Conversation – reflecting social norms (cultural

context) about how much information is made available and for what uses

– “Robot butler” – algorithmic and subject to clumsiness

Is this about privacy?– Service push?– Recommender systems?

– What do my friends like? (said to be be more influential than recommendations derived from populations showing similar usage patterns)

– Nosy by nature– Avoid “My Tivo thinks I’m gay” phenomenon

(intelligence in the system that the user doesn’t understand)

– Should the use of personally revealing data be transparent to the user or should it all be anonymised?

– Are (the user’s) intentions clear?– Partial information fuels paranoia


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The first of two questions chosen by participants’ votes: “How far can data become ‘organic’ and grow (naturally) from the user’s needs?” Communities and corporates

How can we avoid the burden of having to explain ourselves?– Like the dynamic of your Facebook pictures attracting

comments

What are the implications of different communities of cloud?– a ‘family cloud’ – a ‘friends cloud’ – a ‘colleagues cloud’

A corporate opportunity? – Configuration management, especially during roll-out

of new services?

What data does Orange have? (and how does this compare to the data that Google has and how it might be used?)– Address book - Cell location– Call record - Status – on voice call– Billing data - Demographics– App purchase - Market survey data?

3 The ‘organic data’ question

Micropayments? (Using the Orange account as a source of payments)

SERVICE IDEAS

An app to tell me “where are the rich people?”

Location-based service with crime data warning

Location-based service for parking availability

For families and children – a surveillance or awareness function– “whereabouts clock” on the phone

– time limited to expire old data– With opt in/out

“Live address book”– tells of on-line availability / status

Can my friends change their entries in my address book?

Can my device show my location to my friends?


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The second of two questions chosen by participants’ votes: “How does cloud computing change when you are mobile?” Beware device constraints, but exploit authentication

1. A mobile (device) is located

2. A mobile is a bad window

3. A mobile may be offline

4. An authentification device (via SIM)– A SIM can be the key to a session client

5. A mobile is a personal data device

6. A mobile is in your pocket

7. A mobile (and its data) can be lost

8. You hold it in your hand

9. Touch screens and accelerometers – enabling gestures?

10. Bad keyboards

11. Cameras

Is Orange’s value in the cloud, in the device or in the network?

Is cloud = network? (Orange wins) = servers? ( Google wins)

4 The ‘Mobility’ question

Is a laptop a device for mobile cloud?– It doesn’t have a SIM card – but could have a ‘dongle’– May not be located– But it is portable– It doesn’t have a small screen, a bad keyboard,

accelerometers or a touchscreen– It’s turn on/log in/use/ log off/turn off/move, whereas a

mobile is on all the time – what implications from this?

SIM card offers billing and micropayments

Can exploit “Orange Money” in developing markets (now in Ivory Coast)

Functional extensions to device

– Micro projectors

– Touch / haptic on the back of the device

Service idea: Co-located group photos “when two or more of you are gathered in the name of Orange” – providing conditional access to data on the basis of location, or of shared location


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Participants were invited from the Orange project team and from across Cambridge University and collaborators

Tansir Ahmed (Orange) - Research engineer specialising in network aspects of mobile cloud project

Mufajjul Ali (Orange) - software engineer leading architectural design for the project

Abdellatif Benjelloun (Orange) - research manager at Orange Labs in London

Alan Blackwell (Computer Laboratory) - workshop convenor, research in interdisciplinary design

Steven Blyth (Orange) - project manager for the mobile cloud project

Charles Boulton (Independent innovation consultant) - engineering and business

Kashif Chaudhry (Orange) - leading development of mobile cloud service framework

Mark de Rond (Judge Business School) - innovation in teams, business strategy

Mia Gray (Geography) - labour markets, social and organisational dynamics of work

David Good (Social psychology) – human communications and interaction, social network technologies

Anil Madhavapeddy (Computer Laboratory) - mobile and cloud computing

Tim Regan (Microsoft Research Cambridge) - Microsoft Computer-Mediated Living group, with expertise in social media.

Raffel Uddin (Orange): head of the project device team

Lee Wilson (Social Anthropology) researches technology interventions in communities and collaborative cultures

5 Workshop participants


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The workshop began with an introduction to the project, a demonstration of past device and system development and by capturing participants’ objectives for the day

A1 Introduction and Objectives


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The second phase of the workshop derived candidate questions of interest in developing MCC – as captured (1 of 5)

A2 Candidate Questions


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The workshop addressed the first of two questions chosen by participants’ votes: How far can data become ‘organic’ and grow (naturally) from the user’s needs?

A3 The ‘organic data’ question


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The workshop addressed the second of two questions chosen by participants’ votes: How does cloud computing change when you are mobile?

A4 The ‘Mobility’ question

orange labs mobile cloud computing workshop

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