2010 Tech round up

The year 2010 was great for the companies like  Apple, Facebook, Google, Groupon and Oracle. In general, companies had more money in banks and waiting for some “invisible”  hand to provide them confidence in the spending and future investments. This is a vicious cycle most companies followed and the money in bank did not see any transactions.

Apple

Had a phenomenal year so far in the tech world. With the release of the iPhone 4 and iPad, Apple reached a new horizon. With the iPhone’s FaceTime technology more and more people started making video phone calls and the technology that was once a fantasy became a reality. iPhone 4 made a mark in the history of smart phones. Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone 4 in the first 3 days of its launch – the biggest sale number ever in the history of Apple.

iPad is probably the innovative product of the year in my view. Simply put, its a “Bigger iPhone”. It opened up the market segment that never existed for tablets. Once again Apple showed its design and technological superiority with iPad. The pricing was perfect! Between a smartphone and a decent laptop. 90% of the time we browse the internet for updates, feeds and news. iPad made it much cooler with a 10″ screen and with most applications available in the iPhone. Apple managed to sell in around 14 million units in 2010 alone.

Google

Google has a mixed bag in the year 2010. More importantly the technologies like Google TV, Android, NetBook, ChromeOS, Google Car, Chrome Browser, Nexus S, Wave, Buzz, Google Me/Emerald City and HTML5 made huge waves in the tech world.

Google TV – Not yet like cord cutting… but very close. When i attended the Google IO in 2010, the Google TV was the most promising technology for me. With the plethora of devices out there to connect to the internet over TV, i needed a way to seamlessly integrate the TV and Internet. That’s Google TV. I have a Logitech Revue with me and i enjoy most of the features. Yes, there are some issues and bugs related to software and user friendly features, but i can live with it. Google needs to work on the product positioning. Many people ask me, where does it fit in the world of the Internet TVs, Apple TV, Roku, Wii, PS3 and XBox ? This is a genuine question but tough to answer. Another major concern is pricing. How do you justify the price of Logitech Revue ($299) and Sony Internet TV ($399). I for sure think that Google is in the right direction with this technology.

Android – Another successful mobile platform and business model so far. Apple has to deal with the challenges of making the Hardware and Software work together to optimize the user experience. Google does it differently by working directly with all the Mobile Hardware Manufacturers and Mobile Carriers. In this way they have a greater advantage on the Apple iPhone numbers. Android has become the most popular platform with in no time and end of 2010 sales show that Android phone actually crossed the iPhone devices. Android is EVERYWHERE.

Google Car – An invisible man driving a car that propels itself. This is Google and Stanford’s AI labs joint effort to make driving more safe and futuristic. It may not be available for the public to try, but this is definitely the future of the automobile and technology world.

Chrome Browser saw about 120 million users in 2010 and it has improved a lot from the initial days. Google officially killed WAVE and Buzz was a flop. Despite the initial reviews on the NetBook, i am interested in trying out one. I would like to see how does it feel just to have a browser in your device.

Android saw a nice entry into the tablets competing the iPad. Quite a number of interesting tablets came from Motorola [Xoom], HTC, RIM, Samsung [Galaxy], Acer, Asus, Palm and Microsoft. 2011 will give the verdict of who will sustain the competition and who will see demise.

Oracle

Oracle is all about offering “Complete integrated stack” of IT infrastructure to its customers. After the Sun acquisition, this is the first OOWand the company showed the synergy of its wide range of products. The corporate tag line, “Hardware and Software Engineered to work together” is most appropriate now.

With the release of  the Exadata and Exalogic machines, Oracle claims to be the fastest machines for the OLTP processing. With the Sun acquisition, Oracle has the complete stack for any corporate offering. Operating System + Database + Middleware + Applications – All In One.

Other Highlights

• Google / Groupon takeover was just a dream for Google. Groupon did not fell for $6 billion and is looking to sail it’s own on venture funding. I am not still convinced that a company like Groupon is valued at $4.75 billion. Lets see what happens in the 2011 and beyond.
• Facebook is another company that i always believed has no real business value. It’s probably one of the reason that it did not go IPO in the year 2010. If i were an investor, i would look for the revenue stream and i have no idea how would Facebook brings in the money. Yeah… ads wont give you money for long. Also, people get tired of the same social networking site for long time. Its just the matter of time that another social networking site kicks the butt off of the Facebook.
• Tesla Motors is one company that has quite a future. Tesla purchased the former NUMMI factory in Fremont, California and plan to produce the Model S. When the gasoline is becoming a rare in the future, stylish Electric cars definitely has the market and future.
• 23andme is the company that brings your genetics at your door steps. Send in the saliva and they do the complete genetic profile which you can access 24/7 online. As and when they add more genetic tests and characteristics, they make it available to you too. With the personalized medicine becoming a reality in future, your genetics plays a major role.
• This year has been huge for the geo-location based services like Foursquare, Google Latitude, Loopt, Gowalla and Scvngr. Though all these applications bags millions of users, i am not quite sure if they provide real value to the users. Perhaps i get convinced in the year 2011 to use some of them.
• User generated video content websites like Veoh, Vimeo, Hulu and others have attracted quite a number of users. For sure the video is the interesting way we consume internet content.
• HP, Oracle and SAP trio war saga is supposedly ended. Who knows…
• Windows 7 Mobile OS debuts on many mobiles and other manufacturers promises to bring out the Windows 7 based tablets.

This year has been a great year for the technology innovation and some great products have come out to rewrite the history, I wish we see the same innovation in the year 2011.

Happy New Year 2011.