A Summary of Various IT Topics:
A Summary of Various IT Topics:
Apple defined the Tablet market when they released the iPad. It is considered the premium in the market place and its market share does not appear to be threatened in the foreseeable future. According to Canaccord Genuity, iPads are expected to maintain their overwhelming dominance in the market through 2012. Indeed for 2011 Apple sales are expected to account for two-thirds of the Tablet market (as cited by Haselton, 2011, para. 1).
Released this year, the Amazon Kindle Fire has managed to create a fire storm in the media. The Fire is Amazon's entry into the tablet market. It is primarily a platform to deliver content sold on Amazon. Where the standard Kindle models offer delivery of Amazon's ebook format, the Fire will also deliver music and videos purchased on the Amazon website. With a new web browser called Amazon silk (Grabham 2011), other web content will also be delivered efficiently to the Fire. The Kindle Fire has a smaller screen than the Apple iPad and does not have a microphone or camera. Although light on features, the Fire is light on price. It is an excellent platform for Amazon to deliver their content to existing and new customers. However, it does not compete with the higher end and more feature rich iPad.
Amazon continues to offer other models of their Kindle line. These models focus on delivering a platform to read Amazon's eBooks. The overwhelming advantage they have over the Fire is that they use eInk technology. This technology offers a far better reading experience in black-and-white than current tablet technology. Of added benefit over tablets is the long battery life; measured in days, not hours. For a variety of reasons including readability and battery life, Elgan (2011) argues for iPad owners to use a Kindle to read their eBooks. He is not referring to the Kindle Fire, but to the eInk technology Kindles. It follows that consumers attracted to the Kindle Fire may also see the advantages of using both the Fire and an eInk Kindle.
Far from a fad, the Kindle Fire will appeal to consumers who use Amazon products. However, the iPad with its superior range of features and hence usability is not significantly threatened in the Tablet market place.
The Android operating system has been penetrating the market lead by--based on revenue--Apple. Although used in other products competing with Apple's iOS, the biggest threat to Apple's dominance is in the mobile phone market.
According to Comscore (2011), Google dominates the Smartphone market. In August 2011, 43.7% of mobile subscribers in the United States were using Android phones compared with 27.3% using iPhones. However, Apple gets the vast majority of profit on all their sales as they provide the hardware along with the software. Google receives only a fraction of profits on phones sold with the Android operating system. The profit primarily goes to Samsung, LG and Motorola which are the top three manufacturers of Smartphones sporting the Android platform.
Apple's iPhone like their other products provide an integrated hardware and software solution. Not only does this have an advantage for revenue, this control improves stability of the product. In the case of Android based products, Google provides the operating system to several hardware manufacturers. This limits the control they have over quality and reduces their access to profits from hardware.
Beyond the advantage of integrated hardware and software, Apple continues to have an advantage over Google in marketing. The company benefits by providing a consistent and clear message to the consumer, by leveraging brand loyalty and by the advantage of brand recognition. Several different companies by contrast manufacture Android phones. This leads to a more cloudy and confusing marketing message to the consumer. To help alleviate this problem, advertising and marketing is dominated by the mobile service providers and the phone stores.
In addition to their limited control over hardware, another challenge faced by Google has been in disputes around patents controlled by Apple and by Smartphone manufacturers. As an attempt to conquer these issues, Google acquired Motorola Mobility (Acohido, Martin and Swartz. 2011). This aquistion gives Google access to over 17,000 patents, significantly improving their competitive position (Tracer and Womack, 2011).
In the short-term it is likely that Apple will continue to suffer revenue loss to the choice of consumers to purchase Android phones. However, Apple will continue to maintain their dominance due to better reliability and to the power of their marketing. If Google is able to improve stability and improve marketing through their recent acquisition of Motorola Mobility the market may well see Apple's dominance challenged.
It may sound like a device from Star Trek, but hand held scanners are now available and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As reported by Kharif (2011), a startup firm called Mobisante Inc., released to market a Smartphone based ultrasound scanner.
Concern with the increasing number of applications designed for the mobile medical market, the FDA released a policy document governing their development and use. The policy provides an extension to already existing regulations on software developed for use in medical practice (Pavel, 2011). Although beneficial for practitioners and patients alike, the new guidelines and regulations will likely increase the barriers to developers and increase the cost of mobile medical applications. To date, for a mobile phone application to be available for purchase and download it would have to meet the standards required by Apple for release to iPhones or required by Google Market for availability on an Android device. Although this will continue to be the case, FDA approval requirements would make it more expensive for developers as it would not be likely that their application would be widely used in the medical profession if it did not meet guidelines. However, this should only be a significant challenge for smaller developers. Existing companies who are used to working with the FDA, such as Philips Healthcare, would likely benefit from increased regulation, as they are already equipped with a regulatory affairs department. Smaller companies would find it hard to compete on cost, time-to-market and price.
Another challenge to acceptance of mobile medical applications is the concern for privacy. According to Tirado (2011), there are four areas to be concerned with when addressing patient privacy. These are data collection, screening, patient feedback and confidentiality. In addition to regulations governing these concerns, mobile data service providers and developers must pay close attention to issues such as protection of data acquisition by hackers and data compromise due to bugs and flaws in the operating system.
FDA regulatory guidelines governing mobile medical applications will significantly improve the acceptance by medical establishments and practitioners of these solutions. However, they will also put a dampener on the number and variety of applications developed by smaller companies. Regulatory requirements including privacy issues will not only reduce the number of options, but also will increase the cost and price of these applications.
It is widely accepted that the media company O'Reilly coined the term Web 2.0 in 2004. As a clarification and extension of the definition their CEO, Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Radar, 2006) wrote: "Web 2.0 is the business revolution … caused by … an attempt to understand the rules for success … Build applications … to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called 'harnessing collective intelligence.')" (para. 4)
Essentially, the Internet is about content and access to that content. Before the concept known as Web 2.0, this content was primarily static. Static, in that content was found on a specific domain or server and was written and posted with only the author(s) able to modify. With Web 2.0 the Internet is provided with content that is not only distributed, but is dynamic. Dynamic, in that content is constantly updated not only by the author, but by the community at large. The applications and tools that have been built for the design of the Web 2.0 enabled Internet focus on delivering content and experiences beyond individual sites (MacManus and Porter, 2005, Remixing Content: About When and What, not Who or Why section, para. 3).
As Lytras, Maier, Naeve and Russ (2008) discuss, with well designed tools for Web 2.0 development it is possible to not only provide services to the end user, but to make those services better, the more people who use them (p. 174). This is where collective intelligence not only provides a wealth of dynamic content, but provides constant improvement to the experience afforded by Web 2.0 tools and applications.
The tools available for Web 2.0 include RSS for distributing content, Web Services, markup languages and metadata (MacManus and Porter, 2005). Perhaps the most important of these tools are Web Services. They can be defined as a collection of tools in a system that allows devices to communicate across the Internet. As software continues to develop and add to the suite of tools available to Web Services, they will continue to be the building blocks of Web 2.0 as they will allow users regardless of devices they use, to have ubiquitous access to create and consume content and services on the World Wide Web.
References
Acohido, Byron, Martin, Scott & Swartz, Jon. (2011). Google buys Motorola Mobility to 'supercharge' Android OS. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-08-15-google-motorola-mobility-impact_n.htm
Comscore. (2011). comScore Reports August 2011 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share. Retrieved from http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/10/comScore_Reports_August_2011_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share
Elgan, Mike. (2011). Why iPad owners need a Kindle, too. Macworld. Retrieved from http://www.macworld.com/article/151311/2010/05/ipad_kindle.html
Grabham, Dan. (2011). Amazon Kindle Fire: what you need to know. Techradar.com. Retrieved from http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/tablets/amazon-kindle-fire-what-you-need-to-know-1030069
Haselton, Todd. (2011). Apple iPad continues to dominate tablet market despite sliding share in 2011. Retrieved from http://www.bgr.com/2011/11/08/apple-ipad-continues-to-dominate-tablet-market-despite-sliding-share-in-2011/
Kharif, Olga. (2011). GE-Philips Health Equipment Market Opens as Smartphones Win FDA Nod: Tech. Bloomberg. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-29/ge-philips-health-equipment-market-opens-as-smartphones-win-fda-nod-tech.html
Lytras, Miltiadis D., Maier, Ronald, & Naeve, Ambjörn (2008). Knowledge Management Strategies: A Handbook of Applied Technologies. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
MacManus, Richard & Porter, Joshua (2005). Web 2.0 for Designers. Digital Web Magazine. Retrieved from www.digital-web.com/articles/web_2_for_designers
O'Reilly Radar. (2006). Web 2.0 Compact Definition: Trying Again. Retrieved from http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/web-20-compact.html
Pavel, Anthony T.. (2011). FDA Issues Draft Guidance For Health Mobile Apps. TMT Law Watch.Retrieved from http://www.tmtlawwatch.com/2011/08/articles/fda-issues-draft-guidance-for-health-mobile-apps/
Tirado, Miguel, PhD. (2011). Role of Mobile Health in the Care of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse US Population. Perspectives in Health Information Management. Retrieved from http://perspectives.ahima.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=205:role-of-mobile-health-in-the-care-of-culturally-and-linguistically-diverse-us-populations&catid=63:telehealth
Tracer, Zachary & Womack, Brian. (2011). Google to Buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 Billion to Gain Wireless Patents. Bloomberg.Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-15/google-agrees-to-acquisition-of-motorola-mobility-for-about-12-5-billion.html
