Analysis of the multi-channel software, digital content and related services converged business space

What is the: multi-channel software, digital content and  related services converged  business space?

I vaguely think I might  be there - but somehow my senses tell me I am in the Barley Mow Business centre in Chiswick.  But my mind - maybe it inhabits this strange other space. 

It must be important because the Government has commissioned (and as taxpayers we presumably paid for) a report on this subject from Ovum.   

It seems they are very keen on open standards which 'should be adopted'.  Which makes the distribution in a proprietary format like a pdf a little odd, but maybe its open standards unless there is a better proprietary standard.  Which is pretty much what I do so I can't complain.

Here are some quotes

• Delivering value is vital for success.  You mean people won't pay for cr!%p?  You could have fooled me.
•  Innovation and creativity are key in our digital content future – and may in turn be facilitated by convergence. I thought necessity was the mother of invention apparently its convergence.
• Customer is king Can't argue with that
• Service provision is about taking on a number of roles. Uh...  I would have thought it was about sticking to your knitting.
• Broadband drives convergence. You mean in the same way that radio frequency transmission has driven convergence of Radio, TV, Mobile phone, and Wireless LAN?
• Partnership models are difficult to construct.  Partnership models are easy to construct. Partnerships that are difficult.  But if you have lost touch with reality maybe you can't see the difference.
• Convergence and multi-channel services require standards, interoperability and roaming.  No-one is going to argue about the need for standards.
• It won’t all be plain sailing market inhibitors must be carefully watched and addressed. Addressed by whom exactly.  Who is addressing the risk factror "customers just don’t want it – they are unaware of the benefits to their own particular lifestyles or businesses, and prefer to carry on as they always have"?  If people don't want something it was a bad idea. The risk is that the government is spending millions on unreadable consultants reports and who knows what else to promote a bad idea. 

The last point was the nearest thing I could find to a risk analysis in the report.  Have these gone out of style?  The recommendations cover:

• Promoting standards (I hope they are already)
• Stakeholder education
• Value realisation

The last one is a killer:

Encourage government procurement of innovative solutions break from the tried-and tested; lowest cost selection criteria that is prevalent.

Whoah there!  Run that by me again.  These guys really lost the plot at this point.  I want my government to spend as little as possible and not to take risks.  They are bad at taking risks with our money. 

Consider tax breaks for SMEs looking to enter the multi-channel market with robust, innovative business propositions. Hey I will have some of that.  But as far as I am concerned there is whole venture capital market out there that knows all about taking risks and doesn't do it with my money.

Monitor abuse of premium content prices to counter user backlash. Why! If premium content is overpriced people will go elsewhere.  Its called capitalism and works quite well.  If they want to monitor prices I am not convinced about the price of eggs at my local Sainsbury's. 

I pretty much stopped reading at this point.  I put the first few chapters through Bullfighter and couldn't agree more

Diagnosis: You like to hear yourself write. Despairing of the thought of bringing a sentence to a close with something as demeaningly ordinary as a simple period, you shower readers with gratuitous, interminable and often weighty if not impossibly labyrinthine prose. Meaning lingers, albeit awash in a thick tide of metaphor and exposition that threatens to drown the writer's message. Seek help.

I am ashamed to say I used to write this stuff.  Thank goodness I got a proper job.