Enter Name of Student Here
Enter Name of University Here
Introduction
Evernote is an app which allows the user to organize literally anything, such as their emails, school notes, daily task lists, clipping articles or images from the internet, collaborating with other users to share ideas and among other features (Evernote, 2016). There are three different levels of memberships, in which the active user who could not help but to upgrade to since it offers more features and overall workspace. Although it is a very impressive app that could be utilized on platforms like the iPhone and Android, the company has to take appropriate legal measures and have a secure process in place to avoid other start-up companies, or hackers in general from stealing its trademarks and features to make it seem like it is their own creative ideas.
In this discussion, we will focus on the following aspects of Evernote, which include the a) methods that Evernote uses to protect its own intellectual property, b) its competitors and whether if their offering the same sort of products, c) whether if Evernote could utilize legal force to prevent competitors from taking market share, d) its platform strategies, e) secrecy versus patenting and f) the number of patents which Evernote currently has.
Intellectual Property
The intellectual property (IP) is an extremely valuable currency for companies such as Evernote. It could be “leveraged by the consistent drive of capital formation, reduction of risk and tremendously increasing its revenues” (McDonald, 2014).
An IP is an asset that provides economic benefits, while protected, it still generates funding for companies and boosts the shareholder’s value. One method in particular that Evernote utilizes to protect its intellectual property is by its IP compliance program. When individuals or companies believe that their companies material is being used or uploaded into Evernote platform without permission or proper use, then the alleged claimant must submit a report that is called a Notice of Infringement that specifies the exact material which is being violated. Likewise, Evernote have a guideline process that informs individuals what can be used and what cannot be used.
For instance, if a start-up company business goal was to create a website, then the language of the website could say, “working on the Evernote platform” while a violation of the Evernote intellectual property could be by using the green Evernote image as a part of their own website’s products or services. The downside of not protecting the company IP addresses may result in a significant loss of not being a part of the more developed markets, reducing market shares and undermining research efforts which could triumph over the competition.
Competition
Evernote has five competitors. These competitors consist of Spring Pad, Google Keep, Simple Note, Microsoft OneNote, and The Note Sync Application. The Spring Pad and Simple Note applications has every feature of Evernote, but the other three has major differences. While the Google Keep has more availability of workspace, Microsoft OneNote platform is simpler and Note Sync Application automatically syncs every sixty seconds or less with Google Docs. Not to mention, this particular alternative has a strict and protected HTTPS protocol which secures all of their user’s data to prevent identity theft and other cyber hackers from stealing important information.
Preventing Competitors from Taking Market Share
Since Evernote is an organizational app which appeals to millions of users, therefore, the company has to be certain that it is available on as many platforms as possible like Microsoft Windows, Android, OS X, iOS, Chrome OS, Blackberry 10 and webOS. Evernote could never entirely stop a competitor from taking its market share, but they could utilize other methods to persuade the customer to become more interested in what Evernote has to offer as a productive application. For instance, Google may have launched the application, “Keep” but despite that launch, Evernote continues to have their business boom and millions of sign-ups per day throughout countries all around the globe.
The company, Evernote has clearly recognized that they must offer just enough features of the application for free, just so that the user could gain a sustainable feel of the app to make the appropriate decision of whether if they may want to make a financial purchase.
Competitive Platform Strategy
As previously mentioned that Evernote offers some of its features for free, “their competitive platform strategy consists of a conversion funnel known as the freemium strategy” (Dans, 2013). The strategy components are about allowing the application to be downloaded for free onto any platform, and having access to a great amount of megabytes a month for workroom access. The reduction of service costs is proposed to achieve the goal of up to “seven cents per customer” (Dans, 2013). Understanding these costs in depth is how Evernote maintains their competitive advantage, regardless of the number of start-ups or huge corporations such as Google launching similar applications.
Patents
Evernote has approximately thirty-four patents. One example of their patent which was created on June 2015 by their inventor, Needleman points out the importance of the concept of utilizing a user of Evernote contact information in their phone directory and that if a specific contact is close to the user, let’s say, a sister is in proximity of her brother, then the app would use facial recognition to decipher or distinguish one individual from the next.
Secrecy vs. Patenting Strategy
Evernote utilizes the patenting strategy, instead of the trade secret since all of its thirty-four patents are public information, yet it is still protected information, in which a consumer or start-up company were to violate, then they would be subjected to immediate legal action. Before these thirty-four patents became what they were legally; at some point, they were an actual trade secret. Evernote could not possibly tell the world about their creativeness or innovations without first protecting themselves to allow these ideas to become a patent.
Conclusion
In summary, Evernote is a growing application with millions of sign-ups per day that utilizes a IP compliance program to protect its intellectual property. Although there are five competitors that offers many of the same features, Evernote continues to rise above the competiton within the organizational sectors because the company offers the freemium strategy.
References
Dans, E. (2013). The conversion funnel as a competitive advantage — Enrique Dans. Medium. Retrieved 15 February 2016, from https://medium.com/enrique-dans/the-conversion-funnel-as-a-competitive-advantage-deca6a053d02#.ph5ivcjif
Evernote,. (2016). Evernote. Retrieved 15 February 2016, from https://evernote.com/upgrade/?var=c&tier=basic&offer=www_home_tier&origin=marketingsite
McDonald, D. (2014). Intellectual Property and Technology Newsflash: The New Currency (pp. 1-6). CarltonFields. Retrieved from https://www.carltonfields.com/files/Publication/b295cc94-f0af-4c73-b749-9dde6aa537ac/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/a625fee3-9ae8-4512-9b9c-a31145f4d690/INTELLECTUAL_PROPERTY_&_TECHNOLOGY_NEWSFLASH__The_New_Currency__.pdf
Udemy, (2016). 5 Evernote Alternatives: Is Evernote Better than Its Competitors? Retrieved 15 February 2016, from https://blog.udemy.com/evernote-alternative/
