[Entretien] Apple, Netflix, gaming and platform … Guillaume Bonneton deciphers the techno trends of 2020

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 L'Usine Digitale: For the 13th consecutive year you have published your tech forecasts for the year 2020. What has impressed you most personally?

 Guillaume Bonneton: What strikes me most is what is happening on the telecommunications networks. It’s a real underlying trend. In 2019, we carried out three deals in France on software companies. Two of the three concerned software related to networks. This is a trend that we saw last year and that will continue in 2020. Another important trend is that around the data. Data and network are at the heart of the current developments.

 In the ten trends that you identify, there is the omnipotence of Apple, while we often read that Apple, "this is not what it used to be". Why such a position?

What strikes us is the re-internalization of chip production. The new generation – the A13 Bionic – looks breathtaking. Apple’s R&D boss has said that its metric is performance per watt, which will change a lot. Today we are all looking for a charging point for our smartphones and that may change. The engineers minimized the distance between the transistors to minimize energy loss.

From a strategic point of view what is interesting with this announcement is that Apple has continued to work to maintain its technological lead. They know very well that they will not keep their status as a luxury product forever. For this, they have invested in research and internalized production, that is to say the importance of this issue. If the results are there, it will mean that tomorrow the applications on iPhone will be able to make artificial intelligence, machine learning, whereas today, they must go through the network. Apple remains a real game changer.

 You identify another issue, the streaming of ehealth content.

This is the start in France with Salto which brings together TF1, M6 and France Télévisions. However, it has already started in the United States with platforms like Spotify, Amazon or even Netflix. Across the Atlantic, HBO and Disney are announced soon. The big maneuvers begin. In fact, they started when the NBC (National Broadcasting Company) recovered "The Office" which still represented 5% of views on Netflix.

The usage revolution has to do with what I said in the preamble about networks and data. Today, content consumption has completely changed: we are watching a series on a smartphone or tablet. All of this has several impacts on the consumer. First, it brings more supply. In 2019, $ 26 billion will have been invested in production by Apple, Netflix and Amazon. In addition to what Hollywood invests. This is a new golden age for fiction production that benefits viewers, especially as so-called "feedback loops" are much faster. In other words, we know what works and what doesn't and we react accordingly.

This change is explained by the fact that Netflix has shown that today the Internet is the preferred distribution channel, whereas before we had multiple choices: cinema, DVD, television, VOD … Thus, the consumer will now choose a premium subscription perhaps supplemented with two or three "small" cheaper subscriptions. That said, this presents a risk that is not technological. By dint of using the data, we could go towards a hyper-segmentation of productions. We would then lose the popular successes that bring everyone together.

 Another revolution to come in 2020 in the world of ehealth games, with a platform phenomenon as well ?

We really find the two main trends of this year: data and the network. Now we can play streaming, that is to say without a console. Subscriptions to bundles of games are appearing on specialized platforms, like Netflix in the ehealth. Finally, the last major change, platforms have been created for developers working in the ehealth game industry. This gives them access to highly sophisticated manufacturing engines that save small studios time.

So it's no coincidence that we see Google, Microsoft or Amazon developing in this universe. The same could happen as for fiction with an unprecedented development of the offer, especially thanks to the platforms for developers. We can thus create a game with less money than we will then sell in a bouquet. Monetization will be easier.

 You have also identified trends for 2020 that are less 100% tech like for example the fact that in your opinion everything related to CSR will become really critical?

The requirement for transparency will become more and more important. Millennials want to know the ecological, social note of the services they use. Until now, it was the regulations that imposed it. Now it is consumers, shareholders but also employees who demand it and who will increasingly impose it. This is due to networking and the accumulation of data.

Before, to know the behavior of a company, it was necessary to send an inspector on the spot. Today it’s much easier. In China, there is a site / application that lists all the pollution of streams, rivers and rivers, photos to support it. The need for transparency of consumers in particular is facilitated by digital. This is an even more interesting trend as it is part of the Tech For Good movement.

Christophe Bys

 @christophebys 

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