Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MMI) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion.
The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing. Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.
Android’s demand
Techaisle’s research show that SMB future intentions to procure Android based smart devices is rapidly increasing across the board. It is only savvy business practice for Google to vertically integrate and “supercharge” the OS with a premium platform brand under control – and reassurance that the presentation of Google services is “as intended.”
Notwithstanding such view, our research shows that OS type is a way less of a concern to SMBs than “overall cost” when seeking to deploy mobility oriented infrastructure. More importantly, a device to apps deployment integration [Apple iPhone App. style if you like] is only sought after by 31% of thr market – the vast majority preferring open browser access [like your sales rep traveling to a client and checking out her/his profile in your (salesforce.com) CRM through a smart phone loading a mobile browser].
The Battle for Patents
In the interest of protecting Android’s ecosystem, perhaps this acquisition makes sense. It has been a while since Android’s licensees have been sued by Apple on patent pending infringements [Samsung, HTC, etc.] and only a few days ago, a German court held a case in favor of Apple blocking sales of Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab 10.1 on patent infringements across Europe.
Through the acquisition of Motorola Mobility Inc., Google will boost its patents portfolio by around 25,000 [filed and in progress] inclusive of some key patents relative to the current litigation on Android OS infringements. This new delivery of patents by MMI will surely help balance the argument with Apple, most probably leading to a settlement, and now that is some way of protecting the ecosystem.
Techaisle Blog
Today the nature of work has evolved to an extent that we are seeing the rise of a “new worker”. This new worker has nothing to do with an oft quoted concept of millenials but more to do with the way they work. Let us take an example of two countries: US, a mature market and Brazil, an emerging market. The data below shows that the SMEs in each of these countries have workers that either work from home or travel for work.
And this level of working from home has more than doubled in the last 10 years. In
fact, it took 10 years for telecommuting to double but only half the time period to double again.
What is more important is the chart below showing different applications and
technologies that are being used by employees to collaborate amongst themselves while traveling or working from home.
The above data not only gives us a glimpse of the evolving nature of work but also
points to the rising persona of the “new worker”. This new worker is expected
to work irrespective of location and time, is also more adept at using
technologies such as video communication, smart phones and social networks to
his or her advantage in getting work done. However, business decision makes
should not expect any correlations between the use of such technologies and the
amount of time spent working remotely. This is to say that employees who work
remotely most of the time are necessarily not the heaviest users of these
technologies. The amount of time spent working remotely actually varies by job role and business decision makers should pay special attention to recognize and enable these new workers.
As new workers slowly become accustomed to easy-to-use, consumer-oriented web
technologies it necessitates changes in the workplace. The IT department, more
than any other department has to increasingly adjust itself, moving from a
command-and-control environment to a more flexible and approachable process
that not only allows adoption and usage of new technologies but also manages
rogue implementations.
Technology will continue to impact the new workers and reduce their dependency on time and place of work. There will also be greater use of video communications, smart
phones and social networks. However, there is still a long way to go for many of the new technologies to be integrated and provide better, more efficient and seamless collaboration within businesses. We also see many smaller companies starting up by entrepreneurs to develop solutions that provide such integrations and IT decision makers should not be
afraid to try them out.
With the rise of the new worker, businesses should no longer be seen as a
“collection of individuals” but increasingly as a “collections of geographically dispersed individuals”. Notice the plurality in the word collections. IT departments have to seriously alter their processes to account for new work styles, changing attitudes and behavior of these powerful and demanding new workers.
Anurag Agrawal
Techaisle
To be fair the two situations while similar are not exactly the same. When the PC market took off, Apple did not have a dominant share like they do with the tablet market today. In other words, it wasn’t Apple’s market to lose like it is now. That said, the growth rate of the tablet market is far greater than the growth rate of the PC market so the risk of not
being able to satisfy that demand is very real. As market demand expands companies such as Samsung, LG, HTC and traditional PC makers will attempt to satisfy that demand with a flurry of products. As market demand expands, the one size fit all strategy currently followed by Apple will not be effective. While nobody expects Apple to sit still, Apple will need to accelerate product development and manufacturing but it is unlikely that any one company will be able to satisfy that demand. This opens the door for alternatives and especially for Microsoft who is well poised to take advantage of this growth starting with
the release of Windows 8 in 2012. This begs the question – will Apple be relegated to a minority status as the market grows around it?
Another difference between the PC market and the tablet market is the dominance Apple has in the apps space. But is that dominance overstated as the world moves to Cloud/web based applications? Sure there will be a lock-in effects for some types of applications – those that use specific hardware features but we expect the vast majority of applications to be platform neutral at least in terms of their consumption. The popular game Angry birds is a good case in point which started out as an iPad application but is now available to
users of the Chrome browser as a web app. If the vast majority of applications are in fact web apps then how will Apple (or for that matter Microsoft and Google) continue to gain leverage so that new consumers for tablets will choose the iPad over other alternatives. That leverage could come from new, better hardware and from expanding the product portfolio. Both of those things are happening outside the Apple universe right now.
Abhijeet Rane
Techaisle
Shifting Workplace
Information Technology has been impacting the way businesses operate, but the essential nature of an employees’ work has largely remained unchanged. Within a business environment conducting work has typically involved bringing people together in a single physical location for a specified period of time to execute tasks. And historically this has been the only choice.
As new technologies take hold, SMB CEOs attitudes toward requiring people to be physically present are also changing. The basic connotations of “showing up for work” and “normal working hours” are changing. Today most businesses in established markets allow work from anywhere and anytime. With increased globalization, the physical place of work is shifting from office to homes and from conference rooms to airport lounges.
Telecommuting is becoming a norm regardless of the size of the company. If you do not have a formal telecommuting policy you should set up a task force to actively begin developing such a policy. Even if your business does not require it, your employees will demand it. And over the years it will be considered an important perk and differentiator in retaining and motivating employees.
Techaisle surveys show that SMB CEOs agree that allowing employees to work from home benefits their business and mobility solutions seem to not only have improved productivity, but also improved quality of work and redundant communication. 62 percent of businesses say that they see improved productivity as employees can work from anywhere and anytime. What is surprising that within some emerging market countries 40 percent of businesses mention that mobility is allowing employees to spend more time with family/less stress.
Shifting Communication Devices
While typical landlines were the formal mode of communication, today it is the ubiquitous smart phone that is taking over. Where VoIP was a nomenclature, today Skype and web-conferencing are becoming verbs. Emails will remain the predominant form of asynchronous communication; however, there is a massive shift of emails from PC platform to a smart phone platform.
SMBs of today should not only plan for such shifts but also find partners who are willing and have expertise to help implement new collaboration and communication solutions that are built around mobility.
What will make it difficult for the SMBs is the subtle insistence of employees to bring their own preferred device into the work environment from smart phones to tablets and other consumer-like applications. It took Apple (Mac) more than a decade to find itself accepted in a typical business setting but it will take only a few short years for today’s devices to proliferate.
Many SMBs still have not implemented a formal procedure to allow or not allow personal devices into work environment, not because they do not want to but they do not know how to. IT Vendors and partners can help in bridging that practical knowledge and experience gap by introducing real world examples and case studies. In fact SMBs should demand it of their vendor partners.
Device Management – an oft Ignored Priority
Going down the route of mobility is also fraught with unexpected surprises - most important being accidental loss of device with company data, employee walking off with device or malware creating havoc with the device. Many surveys conducted by Techaisle reveal that SMBs worry about these issues a lot but fail to protect themselves adequately. If you have embarked on the mobility journey make sure that device management is on the top of your agenda. For example, within the businesses those have begun adopting mobility, 69 percent of IT Decision makers in the mature markets and 72 percent within emerging markets are concerned about accidental loss of devices containing sensitive data. And nearly 1/3rd of these decision makers are also concerned about inability to manage device configurations so that they comply with company policies. To top it all, there is the issue of managing employee devices that businesses did not buy.
The need for device and data security for mobile devices may be an important deterrent in mobility adoption, especially as the consumer and business apps converge onto the same devices. However, this also clearly demonstrates the need for remote management, authentication, and remote erasure of data on mobile devices. Data no longer resides on tethered devices such as desktops but is spread across multiple devices that “move”. Plan for it and mobility will be an enjoyable and productive experience.
