The mobile trend
Last week Yahoo announced that it has acquired mobile and online video streaming company RayV, as it change direction quickly to move into mobile market and become a content provider. The company will compete with Google, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and others who are firmly entrenched in this market. The mobile video market is expected to double in revenue to several billion dollars as more smartphones and tablets are sold and mobile video is exploding with huge profit. A Wall Street analyst wrote: “Personal Computer is dead, the future is in mobile. Stop invests in anything to do with PCs and move quickly to mobile.” At the suggestion, stocks from PC companies drop significantly as investors dumb stocks before it is too late.
Yahoo and many tech companies recognize this huge market and move to mobile quickly by trying to acquire smaller companies that already had an established mobile system market such as Dailymotion and Hulu. Few months ago, the new CEO of Microsoft also set the new direction to the company: “Mobile first, Cloud first” and ordered the whole company to focus on mobile market. Seeing the trend, many universities are changing their training to focus on mobile programming where students learn about Androids and IOS rather than PC platforms. A technology recruiter explains: “As technology changes, the needs also change. If graduates do not have the needed skills, they will not have a job. Today we do not hire students with PC skills anymore, our interview questions are mostly based on Androids, IOS and mobile programing skills.” As the need in job market changes, students begin to protest against universities that are still teaching the old technology. A student told newspapers: “We pay a lot for our education and we do not want to learn obsolete technology that let us be unemployed.” Many newspapers took side with students by urging universities to adopt mobile training: “If they do not change quickly, our graduates cannot compete with imported workers from China and India who have mobile skills. We need jobs for our people.”
Today watching online video using smartphone or tablets is a daily habit for millions of users and it is beginning to explode all over the world. Smartphone manufactures have released larger screen smartphones and the price of tablets is dropping so it is clear that mobility is the future. That is why Yahoo is focused on growing video users and monthly streams as it competes to get a larger market share. Broadband is the major factor for businesses in the 21st century. With so many companies are moving quickly into online business, information technology is no longer the supporting factor but becoming the strategic factor. As businesses are becoming more mobile, this strategic factor must move quickly to wireless networks. However wireless networks are becoming increasingly complex and operators must manage different network protocols, network topologies and traffic patterns in order to make sure the network is operating at an optimal level. If the network is not managed carefully, it could result in poor performance and faulty coverage causing consumers to switch wireless providers. A telecommunication expert explains: “There will be more competition since 3G is not enough, more companies will have to move to 4G and improve its infrastructure quickly. Competition is happening globally as larger companies will move to new market to expand their shares, they have the capital, the expertise, the knowledge, and the skilled people. If local companies cannot compete, they will die. Soon only few winners will get this trillion dollars market.”
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
