Current Trends in Technology: The Mobile Market

Technology is growing at an exponential rate, and what was considered to be current and popular five years ago has either grown along with it, or hasnt been able to keep uprapid technological advances are constantly re-shaping the technology landscape. King, Grinter, and Pickering describe the social and technical contradictions that have come as a result of the developmental direction of the internet changing from engineers, researchers, and academics, to commercial entities (King, Grinter, & Pickering, 1997). In In the Beginning was the Command Line, Neil Stephenson describes the culture surrounding operating systems and ways in which operating systems have influenced user behavior, as well as explains how different subcultures from around different technologies (Stephenson, 2004). In As We May Think, Vannevar Bush explains how the growing excess of information that we have created and continue to create has left us being unable to transmit, review, and organize it in an efficient manner, calling for a new relationship between thinking man and the sum of our knowledge (Bush, 1945). Tainter, Little,

and Hoekstra argue that a system behaves in different ways depending on the relationship of a community of use to its primary resource, and in the case of social media communities, relationships have been established to such a point that they are creating diminishing returns. The research literature on technology by King et al., Bush, Stephenson, and Tainter et als suggests that technological trends are constantly changing, and changing at a rate that is leaving us with the challenge to not only keep them within our realm of understanding, but to maintain an effective channel for them to be used.. The rate in which technological advances and breakthroughs are currently being made is troublesome for both consumers and investors because (a) it is difficult for consumers to keep up with trends in technology making it a challenge to know what products to buy, and (b) the market is volatile as one big breakthrough could mean the downfall of an investment. This report provides a partial solution in the form of an exposition of the trending topics about technology and the direction in which these trends are going. This report was prepared by using the tagging community delicious.com to select the 30 top ranked blogs and syndicated sources on technology to identify the categories and topics that circulate among those who are invested in and care about it. Those categories were further tested against the Google Trends service to identify a median level of performance in the form of audience interest in the categories to use as a criterion of selection. The following categories were identified in the sample that you can find attached to this report as an OPML file. RIM, 1.00 Mobile App, 0.20 Apple iPhone, 1.00 Social Media, 0.20 Android, 5.60

These figures were developed using Google Trends on January 28, 2012. The median value is 1.00. What follows is an exposition of the top three performing categories, those at or above the medianRIM, Apple iPhone, and Androidand concluding remarks.

RIM, Research In Motion, is a multinational telecommunications company that is currently trending but for adverse reasons than advances in technology and successreasons, in fact, such as its market share and share value seeing a dramatic decrease over the past year due to their lack of technological advances and inability to compete with Apple iPhone and Android. In a recent article on thestreet.com, Scott Moritz says RIMs shortcomings in earnings and sales are largely due to their sinking credibility as a formidable telecommunications company, placing blame on co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. (Mortiz, 2011).In a May, 2011 post on asymco.com, Horace Dediu also says that RIMs management is to blame for its recent failure, stating the continued tenure of the founders is considered a grave threat to the success of the company (Dediu, 2011). Selina Harrison of Financier Worldwide, however, says that the dramatic decrease in RIMs market share is due to its failure to innovate and produce competitive products, which is allowing Apples iPhone and handsets operating on Googles Android platform to gain ever-increasing market share (Harrison, 2011). RIM is a trending topic in technology, but it appears as though it soon will not even have the chance to be due to its downfall as a telecommunications company. Whether this downfall is because of management issues or engineering issues, a restructure needs to be conducted if RIM is to compete with the Apple iPhone and Android. The Apple iPhone continues to make leaps in technology on a yearly basis, providing consumers with a unique, high quality product, and remaining to be a leader in the smartphone market. In a September 2011 blog on dailytech.com, Jason Mick says that the Apple iPhone is growing unit sales at the same rate as the overall growth of the smartphone market. In the blog, Don Kellog, Nielsen Director of Telecom Research & Insights is quoted saying every time Apple launches a new iPhone or makes it available on a new wireless carrier, there is an increase in their sales (Mick, 2011). In an October 2011 blog on zdnet.com, however, Sam Diaz says that Apple is more concerned with giving consumers what they want them to want rather than what the consumer wants, making reference to the letdown that was widely felt after the release of the iPhone 4s when it was highly anticipated that the next model would be the iPhone 5. Diaz notes that because Apple is gradual with their software and hardware upgrades, they are failing to compete with Android (Diaz, 2011). In a press release from the Gartner Newsroom in Egham, UK, Gartner infers that Apple will make a strong comeback and see a large increase in sales due to the expansion to new markets. He states that because past iPhone models are receiving price

cuts, markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Russia and China are becoming more important to Apple, representing 16 percent of overall sales and showing that the iPhone has a place in emerging markets (Gartner, 2011). It is obvious that the rate of release of new iPhone models and the advances in technology those new devices withhold are two factors that if sped up and made more aggressive, could be the key for the Apple iPhones resurrection as the indisputable number one smartphone on the market. Android, a linux-based operating system (OS) for smartphones and Apple iPhones number one competitor, is a young company that is in constant innovation and is threatening to overtake the smartphone market. In the press release given by the Gartner Newsroom, it is stated that in the third quarter of 2011, Android accounted for 52.5 percent of smartphone sales to end usersmore than doubling its market share from third quarter of 2010, and its cause for success is due to a weaker competitive environment (Gartner, 2011). In a 2011 blog, Sujata Neidig says Android is not only threatening to take over the smartphone market, but various other technological markets as well, such as technological equipment in the medical industry. Neidig states the reason for Androids success is due to its reliable development platform, vast ecosystem, open platform, applications, quicker time to market and more compelling end products (Neidig, 2011). In a 2011 blog titled Is Android Taking Over The World, Luanne Teoh states that it is not only Andoid benefiting from its success. Because Android is an OS, the smartphones on which it is operatingsmartphones that were once small fishare now huge. In the first quarter of 2011, HTC reported 9.7 million units shippeda 192% year-over-year increase, and revenues of $3.63 billion, a 174% year-over-year increase (Teoh, 2011). Android has clearly established itself as the number one leader and fastest growing company in the smartphone market. Its strong revenue and seemingly unstoppable technological innovation rate make it the front runner candidate to lead the smartphone market for years to come. The conversation surrounding the trends in this sample suggests that the smartphone market is in the midst of significant change: RIM has gone from being a major player in the smartphone market to being on its way out as a result of poor management and lack of innovation, the Apple iPhone, despite once blowing away its rivals and being atop the smartphone providers, seems to be in stagnation, and Android now holds the majority of the market share due to its rapid rate of technological advances that competitors are not able to keep up with. What evidence would

contradict these claims?How about the fact that in the third quarter of 2011, RIM sold 12,701 units, Apple iPhone sold 17,295, while Android sold 60,490 (Gartner, 2011). The question at the moment, based on these findings, is whether the three smartphone providers will be able to coexist, or if Android assumes sole proprietorship of the smartphone market leaving the others in the dust.

References
Bush, V. (1945). As We May Think. The Atlantic, 101-108. Retrieved from,http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/as-we-may-think/3881/ Dediu, Horace (May 30, 2011). Is RIMs management the cause of its failure?. Retrieved January 28, 2012, from http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/30/is-rims-management-the-cause-of-its-failure/ Diaz, Sam (October 4, 2011). As iPhone mojo fades, Android continues to grow, satisfy. Retrieved January 30, 2012, from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/as-iphone-mojo-fades-androidcontinues-to-grow-satisfy/3380 Gartner Newsroom. (2011). Gartner Says Sales of Mobile Devices Grew 5.6 Percent in Third Quarter of 2011; Smartphone Sales Increased 42 Percent [Press Release]. Retrieved from http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1848514 Harrison, Selina (December 2011). Research In Motion Under Pressure. Financier Worldwide. Retrieved January 30, 2012, from http://www.financierworldwide.com/article.php?id=8800 King, J. Grinter, R. & Pickering, J. (1997) The Rise and Fall of Netville: The Saga of a Cyberspace Construction Boomtown in the Great Divide. Retrieved from,http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~perry/education/382v-s08/papers/netville.pdf Mick, Jason (September 28, 2011). Android Market Share Reaches 56 Percent; RIMs, Microsofts Cut in Half. Retrieved January 30, 2012, from http://www.dailytech.com/Android+Market+Share+Reaches+56+Percent+RIMs+Microsofts+Cut +in+Half/article22852.htm Moritz, Scott (September 16, 2011). RIM Failing on All Cylinders. Retrieved January 30, 2012, from http://www.thestreet.com/story/11251023/1/rim-runs-lower-on-credibility-cash.html Neidig, Sujata (July 26, 2011). With Android taking over smartphones, which market will be next? Medical, perhaps. Retrieved Jan 30, 2012, from http://blogs.freescale.com/2011/07/26/withandroid-taking-over-smartphones-which-market-will-be-next-medical-perhaps/ Stephenson, N. (1999). In the Beginning was the Command Line. Retrieved fromhttp://artlung.com/smorgasborg/C_R_Y_P_T_O_N_O_M_I_C_O_N.shtml Tainter, J. Allen, T. Little, A. & Hoekstra, T.(2003). Resource Transitions and Energy Gain: Contexts of Organization. Ecology & Society, 7(3). . Retrieved from, http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol7/iss3/art4/main.html Teoh, Luanne (June 10, 2011). Mobile: Is Android Taking Over The World?. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from http://www.biztechday.com/mobile-is-android-taking-over-the-world/