Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Great Tech War Of 2012

Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon are battling for the future of the innovation economy.

Let it be known: these modern oligarchies will not last forever as they are today - especially in their various domains, as they keep trying to invade each others' territory and trying to outdo or undercut each other. 

Yet, no one should count BlackBerry out in the wireless arena. The giant has been wounded, but is not sleeping. So also, the terribly struggling T-Mobile can bounce back and win its well-deserved share of the market if its CEO Phillip Humm
can find none-frontal-attack ways to reset T-Mobile's faulty brand perception. 

In the social networking arena, Facebook needs to panic. Google+ is coming. Google+ is adding some class that Facebook may not have thought about. But, I'll leave the details for another day, as the data is yet being gathered.


In all cases though, 
Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon all need to be on guard. The tech world is very dynamic and no one knows the next big thing that is coming in 2 to 3 years or 5 years. Farhad Manjoo of Fast Company magazine puts it well: " ... despite this oncoming war, in which attacking one another becomes standard operating practice, their inevitable slide into irrelevancy likely won't be at the hands of one of their fellow rivals. As always, the real future of tech belongs to some smart-ass kid in a Palo Alto garage." 

Before the tech kid appears, I still insist, don't count BlackBerry out and Facebook needs to worry. Google+ has something coming.



BlackBerry can roar back like a wounded lion. Facebook can fall like MySpace. And Apple can fall like Yahoo!.


T-Mobile, too, can roar back. While one cannot completely disregard T-Mobile's current technical challenges, the company's greatest difficulties might owe more to erroneous public perception of the T-Mobile brand than its technological realities. CEO Philipp Humm must therefore find creative ways to reverse the faulty perception of the T-Mobile brand. 

Those that are writing off T-Mobile might be mistaken.


Back to the social networking war. Although it's going to be a daunting task for Google+, with the right technical and human strategies, it can dethrone Facebook.