I am going over a report from CNET of what are the top global technology brands now for 2007. This report is good because it allows you to understand trends, especially on consumer and corporate buying preferences. Needless to say, the brands that are strong are normally the most preferred and strongest in terms of marketability.
A complete report can be gleaned from http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9813940-7.html?
part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5 ).
The first study was made by Interbrand, and according to them, the following were the top 10:
1.) Microsoft 2.) IBM 3.) Nokia 4.) Intel 5.) HP 6.) Cisco 7.) Google 8.) Samsung 9.) Sony 10.) Oracle
It is interesting that Apple did not show up in the first study but was cited on the second ( SAP and Apple was in the second study not in the first, while Samsung and Sony was in the first study but not on the second – the other eight brands were the same). Both studies however, agreed that Apple was one of the firms that was gaining fast, and the other was Samsung. In fact, it is really noteworthy that Samsung is now more popular than any Japanese brand , including Sony. There was a time when Samsung was known mainly as a copycat consumer electronics company, but now has diverse offerings even in information technology starting from monitors, hard disks, optical drives, printers and memory components. In cell phones, Samsung is now world no. 2 next to Nokia, having overtaken already Motorola.
In fact, according to strategy Analytics, global mobile phone shipments grow 12% in the 3rd quarter of 2007 compared to one year ago, and hit 285 million. Nokia shipped 111.7 million cell phones, Samsung 42.6 million, Motorola 37.2 million. Fourth place was Sony Ericsson with 25.9 milllion units while LG shipped 21.9 million. The rest of other brands totaled 45.7 million.
In contrast, hard disk prices are also fueling into more capacity, as well as lower prices. According to iSuppli, a California based market research firm, 134 million hard ddrives shipped in the third quarter of 2007, compared to 114 million for the same quarter last year, which is a 21% increase, and which would indicate that the growth of personal computers is as strong as the growth of cell phones, and is by no means becoming obsolete.
Six hard drive vendors also lord it over, it being Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Toshiba and Samsung. Although in many countries, hard disk sizes are fast normalizing on 300 to 500 gigabyte disks, in Asia, the best sellers are still in the 80 to 160 gigabyte range.
Do we really need such a big storage? For some yes, but for some no. In fact, the last few months, we see in our local market companies that are starting to consider thin client computers that are powered by 1 gigabyte to 4 gigabyte solid state drives ( these are disk drives that have no moving parts akin to the memory that are used in thumb drives which retains the data even without power – unlike the RAM chips of the computer which loses data the moment it is powered down).
After all, if it is for personal use, yes, we need to have a big hard disk – to store digital songs, pictures, and even video and yes, games. But for a pure corporate setting where the important files are stored in the server anyway, and the company dictates only a handful ( or maybe even just one application) to run, then a 1 to 4 gigabyte hard disk is normally enough.
In fact, it is preferred so that employees will not store personal pictures, or downloads, or games inside their machines. So in some cases, they actually prefer smaller capacity drives ( only 10 to 20 gigabyte hard disk cannot be found nowadays) to make it more manageable.
Finally, one final trend that is worth of note is the increase in internet web advertising. In the United States, advertising has started to shift towards web, and it rose 25 percent to $5.2 billion in the third quarter of 2007. For the first nine months of 2007, the web advertising totaled $15.2 billion already, which was 25% more than the first nine months of 2006.
Wilson Ng keeps a blog of his articles in www.ngkhai.net/bizdrivenlife