Wednesday, 5 March 2014

The black holes of technology market




The Black holes of Technology market


Our universe comprises of black holes which can consume anything and everything, even light and sound cannot escape from them. All other celestial bodies cannot stand the enormous power of these dark spaces. 

Similarly, the world of technology has its own black holes, which from time to time grab control of other smaller tech firms. Some of these tech giants which are buying up new firms are, Facebook-the largest social network, Google-the search engine and the driving force of smartphone operating systems, Apple, the innovator of new mobile phone computing, etc.

Facebook, till now has acquired 45 companies, and the latest in its addition is the famous mobile messaging application Whatsapp, which it grabbed with a whopping price tag of $19 billion dollars. Some other famous firms in its basket are; Instagram- the remarkable photo sharing application which was bought by the social network in 2010 by paying $1 billion. Onavo, Spool, Snaptu, Hot potato are some other well-known tech firms which belongs to Facebook.

Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg acknowledges that it is not possible nowadays to limit the users to a single app for a longer duration. In an interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, he said, “we just think that there are all these different ways people want to share, and that compressing them all into a single blue app is not the right format.

The other two companies which are in the race of buying new tech firms are Google and Apple. Apple has acquired over 53 companies, and its largest acquisition was the purchase of NeXT for a price tag of $400 million in 2012. Google with 100 purchases is the master in the race of grabbing small firms and its largest acquisition was the purchase of $12 billion Motorola Mobility in the same year, 2012.

No matter how overpriced these acquisitions sounds to the users of the applications made by these tech firms, the purchases of smaller firms have become a necessity for the tech giants to stay in the world of technology.



Wednesday, 19 February 2014

The battle of Mobile Operating systems-2014


                   


The battle of Mobile Operating systems-2014


The year 2014 will witness the new breed of mobile Operating Systems which will bring a change in the current scenario of smartphone market which is currently dominated by Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. 

 These new contenders include Samsung’s ‘TIZEN’ co-developed with Intel, Nokia’s open source OS ‘Jolla’, Firefox OS and ‘Ubuntu’. All these operating systems are testing phase and will launch in the third quarter of 2014.

But the question that is to be answered is, Do the smartphone market really needs new operating systems? Why a smartphone user of android or iOS or windows would shift from an already established ecosystem of lakhs of applications, integrated media, web/cloud services, and more to a whole new platform which does not provide any guarantee of all above requirements of smartphone usage? Whom are these tech giants targeting by their new inventions? Answers to these questions will define the success rate of these new products.

 Samsung has announced  that they are bringing a new range of  smartphones powered with their new OS ‘Tizen’ and have plans to integrate Tizen in automobiles, smart appliances and their smart tvs. 

Nokia On the one hand is about to launch their android powered smartphone ‘Nokia X’ and on the other working on ‘Jolla’ an open source operating system like android with an investment of $20. 

Firefox, the famous browser is bringing their own OS enabled smartphones with a rich application base. One another interesting contender is ‘Ubuntu’ which is a refreshing new mobile operating system with a huge fan following of their layered themes on Platforms like Android and iOS.

So a competition among these platforms is evident in the next few months. Google will apply every possible strategy to make its android win among all, Apple iOS 7 with all new interface is wholly accepted by users and as always it is the favourite among smartphone users and Windows is finding  ways to make its OS survive in the cutting edge competition. 

So the next few months are likely to see the battle between these already developed platforms and the new innovations on floor, which will make 2014 an interesting year in the world of smartphone technology.