Pulse the state of technology development and its impact on social and digital landscape
1. Pulse: The state of technology development
and its impact on social and digital
landscape: It’s all MOBILE in 2012
Hessie Jones
SMWTO
February 13, 2012
2. The case against the Splinternet: HTML5
combats Flash to favour “Open”
• Compatibility: HTML5 800M
vs Flash 2B
• Browser Support: 40%
HTML5 vs Flash 99%
• FB Adoption: 8 in 10 apps
support Flash
4. The fight for mass market dominance… does not favour
Apple
Notas del editor
2011 is indicative of strong technology shifts, responding to consumer increased content creation, sharing and mobility. While the rest of the world had gone mobile, NA is now starting to catch up. Some amazing advancements in tech are happening this year but I really wanted to concentrate on the mobile impact because Mobile devices are officially mainstream. Here’s some stats. Research shows that in NA, Western Europe and SE Asia mobile phone usage is higher than computer usage. More significantly was the clear consumer shift to smartphones --- UK showing the largest increase of smartphone usage from 30 – 45% of the total population. But get this --- this has significantly increased internet access through smartphone: 2/3 in US and over 50% in Europe. AT CES, they haves estimated216 MM Units worldwide. 174 MM shipments of smartphones last year
Let’s talk about some of these catalysts. Last year I wrote about the impact of this thing called the splinternet: a digital divide, that’s dictated by large players in an effort to establish monopoly on the entire customer experience. What does this result in? Incompatible standards that make it difficult NOT only for search engines to find the date --- but also continually challenges the developer learning curve I remember when HTML 5 was first introduced a few years Ago. Apple positioned HTML5 as a replacement for flash. A few months later that decision was reversed because of internet outRAGE, and In fact Adobe came out afterwards stating that Apple’s reluctance to include it in ipad technology will mean buyers will essentially see a crippled web.But consider some of these stats: I pulled from venturebeat recently. Game Development Over 100,000 games are built in Flash vs. a few hundred in HTML5Compatibility: 800 million users of HTML5 vs. 2 billion users of FlashBrowser Support: Flash clearly a winner with 99% browser compatibilityFB adoption: The vast majority of FB apps are Flash 8/10. However, more games for social networks are being developed or rewritten to use HTML 5 instead. It will be interesting to see how apples’s influence will hasten HTML5 adoption in an attempt to close this gap. HTML5 is a language for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web, and is a core technology of the Internet originally proposed by Opera Software.[1] It is the fifth revision of the HTML standard (created in 1990 and standardized as HTML4 as of 1997)[2] and as of February 2012 is still under development. Its core aims have been to improve the language with support for the latest multimedia while keeping it easily readable by humans and consistently understood by computers and devices(While Flash enables customers to browse the entire web, it is essentially a “closed” system, totally controlled by Adobe – pricing and future enhancements. But they were earlier to the game.)
While Android’s rise to the top of the smartphone world has been nothing short of meteoric, it looks like the gravy train slowed somewhat at the tail end of 2011. While 62% of first-time smartphone buyers chose Android in October, by December only 47% did.Without a doubt, it was Apple’s release of the iPhone 4S on October 14th.The Nielsen numbers don’t reflect total sales or marketshare, where Android soundly beats iOS in every market. IIn places like the UK and most of Asia, Android still outsells all iPhone models nearly two to one. That said, with Android and iOS’ combined smartphone share reaching towards 85%, we start to wonder where the saturation point will be.
The chasm between younger and older generations in terms of computer usage will become apparent in 2012 with the rise of tablet PCs. Younger users increasingly are turning to tablets and smartphones as their primary means of computing and accessing the Internet.This year will reveal to a large degree whether the PC can remain relevant to younger users.“Shipments of tablets are expected to approach 250 million units in 2017And while Apple Samsung and larger players own the premium Market, initiatives to make this available to the masses is growing. E.gthe launch of Kindle Fire at $1.99.Also companies in India like Lava and Micromaxare in the process of of launching tablets in this mass market segmentRememberAakash? The cheapest tablet technology being sold at $35. The government of India is buying the first 100,000 units to be given to students for free in a pilot run. By making this available to the mass market, this will continue to put pressure on premium offerings. Is a price war inevitable? Probably.How will this change the digital landscape for tech jobs? Even in an economic downturn tech companies are hiring and hiring bigIn 2012, there will be increased demand for mobile app developers, data warehouse analysts and user experiencedesigners to support infrastructure for this growing mobile economy.How will this change the digital landscape for tech jobs? --- even in this economic downturn, Even in an economic downturn tech companies are hiring and hiring big: NetSuite plans to add 500new hires this year. LinkedIn kicked off the year with about 1000 employees worldwide --- twice what it had in early 2010In 2012, there will be increased demand for mobile app developers, data warehouse analysts and user experiencedesigners to support infrastructure for this growing mobile economy.From a development standpoint: However, the rise of tablets and ultrabooks—and the continued strength in the smartphone segment—means that the focus of the display market will shift to the small- and medium-sized screens used on these platforms.