Do consumers need virus insurance?

22

October

2017

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With the digital age, comes an increasing need for safety and security. As we all know, companies actively protect themselves against cyber crime. One of the options to do this would be through an insurance. But did you know that we can now, as a consumer,  insure ourselves against ransomware and virusses? One of the Dutch insurance companies, Univé, provides its insured with a router with extra protection, a virusscanner and compensation should they be unable to protect them. Univé assures their insured of their privacy, stating that data cannot be accessed through this router.

This is the first time an insurance company protects against virusses, other insurance companies such as VKG do already provide insurance for cyberbullying and identity theft.  Other insurance companies are not yet convinced of the market potential, after doing their research about a year and a half ago.

The ‘virus-insurance’ will cost 12 euros a month, but compensation to restore devices has a maximum of 5000 euros. A customer can only claim a maximum of three cyberincidents a month.  Personally, I don’t see any added value. Simply because the cyber issues that I can think of that pose threaths to consumers, are not covered by this virusinsurance. For instance if consumers click on a link, because the email they’ve received looks just like the ones they normally receive from their own bank. It is also still a grey area which issues will be covered. Moreover, the router and virusscanner that are being used by Univé, can be purchased directly through the supplier F-Secure. Most importantly, the reason that consumers experience virus issues is because their lack of awareness leaves them vulnerable (Webroot, 2010). In my opinion, education on these topics should always be a priority.

Also, offering this cyberinsurance might be an even bigger threat for the insurance company itself. Imagine a huge virus spreading to hundreds of thousands of people, that are all insured by the same company?

 

What do you think, is there a market for virus insurance?

 

NOS, (2017). Avaiable at: https://nos.nl/artikel/2198715-virusverzekering-moet-mensen-beschermen-tegen-digitale-schade.html [Retrieved on 21 Oct. 2017]

Webroot (2010) Available at: https://www.webroot.com/us/en/about/press-room/releases/internet-users-fall-for-cybercriminals-tactics [Retrieved on 21 Oct. 2017]

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BYOD: Bring Your Own Device

17

October

2017

5/5 (2)

Most, if not all, students are familiar with the acronym BYOB (Bring Your Own Booze). When attending a social gathering, guests are invited to bring a beverage of their choice for their own consumption. BYOD is a similar concept, which stands for ‘Bring your own device’. In simple terms, this means allowing employees to bring and use their own devices to work.

 

What are the benefits?

With flex working becoming more and more popular, providing (new) portable devices to employees requires a large investment from companies. This is especially difficult for small to medium enterprises. Allowing employees to use their own devices, saves companies both purchasing and maintenance costs. Research from Cisco (2013) suggests that BYOD can save up to thousands of euros per employee each year. Another benefit would be that since employees are comfortable using their own device, employee satisfaction and productivity will likely increase. It also saves them the effort to carry around multiple devices.

 

Bring Your Own Disaster?

This concept also brings its fair amount of challenges. As you can imagine, BYOD stretches the capabilities of the IT department of companies, that will now have to manage many different devices. This is especially difficult when it comes to security, as IT would have to put different security systems in order depending on the type of operating system they are dealing with.  Next to that, systems must be put in place for situations such as employees leaving the company or personal devices being stolen. This brings legal complications, such as who would be responsible in the case of loss of company data or to what extent the IT department can remotely access the personal device.

 

What holds the future?

The BYOD market will show significant growth according to recent research by Globenewswire (2016), of which most of the growth will happen between now and 2020. The industry was valued at $30 billion in 2014 and the expected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between now and 2022 is 15 percent (Globenewswire, 2016).  In my opinion, these numbers should not be disregarded. Security risks that companies are so afraid of when implementing this concept, can be managed with a proper security plan. There is always a need to be protective of company data regardless of the device being personal or company owned, and it would be unwise to ignore the cost benefits that come with this concept.

 

What are your thoughts? Please share them with me in the comments!

 

References

 

Cisco Blog (2013), Retrieved on October 16th 2017, http://blogs.cisco.com/news/new-analysis-comprehensive-byod-implementation-increases-productivity-decreases-costs

Betanews (2017), Retrieved on October 16th 2017, https://betanews.com/2017/05/12/growth-of-byod-proves-its-no-longer-an-optional-strategy/

Globenewswire (2016) Retrieved on October 16th 2017, https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/03/22/822021/0/en/Bring-Your-Own-Device-BYOD-Market-size-worth-USD-366-95-Billion-by-2022-Global-Market-Insights-Inc.html

 

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Technology of the Week – the Disruption of the Gaming industry (Group 31)

29

September

2017

5/5 (1)

The Rise of Mobile Gaming
The last 2 decades marked the beginning of a new era of gaming with the introduction of mass-scale PC gaming as well as popular consoles such as the Playstation and Xbox, all of which have had significant impact on the worldwide annual revenue of this industry. But the arrival of the smartphone was a game changer. Improvements to smartphones such as larger screens and incredible computing power set the stage for a new type of video game to emerge: mobile gaming (Techcrunch, 2015).

The enhanced customer experience that these devices offer combined with the fact that almost everyone owns a smartphone today means that there is a more diverse and broader consumer base. Moreover, consumers can now play their favorite games on-the-go.

This has a significant effect on the gaming industry. Mobile gaming is expected to represent more than half of the revenues in the total gaming industry by 2020 (Newzoo, 2017). Countless software development tools make it easier for low-budget developers to create games and removes the high-capital investments required before. New players enter the market more easily, as technical complexity decreases, but since most games are created with the same software tools, there is a convergence of games. It becomes harder for developers to distinguish themselves and easier for gamers to switch to alternatives in case of dissatisfaction. Using Porter’s five forces to analyse these factors, industry rivalry is deemed high. To survive the disruption of gaming, companies are therefore forced to adjust their revenue models accordingly.

Pricing Strategies
Mobile game developers pioneer the free-to-play (F2P) model, in which revenue is created through in-app purchases and advertisements (Shalaan et al., 2016). Gamers could try the game for free as opposed to being convinced by great marketing efforts, which proved critical in the F2P’s success as consumers generally refused to pay up-front for unknown games. On top of that, pricing strategies were subtle and catered to the demands of individuals. Now, it is almost impossible to imagine games without updates, expansion packs or additional features that can be purchased in-game.

What’s next?
In the future, the expectations of these gamers will begin to change. Connectedness in games becomes increasingly important, when we move towards immersive digital entertainment (IGN, 2010). As technologies such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality improve, they will be ideally positioned to cater to the future needs of gamers such as real world interaction and physically collaborative games. These changes come with challenges, such as impact on the skills required in the labor market. Also, we can expect that the required computing power from hardware to handle these new type of games will place a significant financial burden on smartphone producers. And finally, with the line between the real world and the digital world becoming increasingly blurred, new regulations concerning things such as privacy will need to be created.

Want know more?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H8d2gdPui0&feature=youtu.be

Bibliography
Alomari K.M., Soomro T.R., Shaalan K. (2016) Mobile Gaming Trends and Revenue Models. In: Fujita H., Ali M., Selamat A., Sasaki J., Kurematsu M. (eds) Trends in Applied Knowledge-Based Systems and Data Science. IEA/AIE 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 9799.

IGN, (2010) viewed 27 September 2017, retrieved from <http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/02/16/2020-vision-the-future-of-gaming

Newzoo, (2017) viewed 27 September 2017, retrieved from <https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/the-global-games-market-will-reach-108-9-billion-in-2017-with-mobile-taking-42/.>

TechCrunch, (2015) viewed 27 September 2017, retrieved from <https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/31/the-history-of-gaming-an-evolving-community/>

 

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