Smartphones and tablets are slowly eating into the space occupied by handheld gaming devices. According to a new study conducted by ABI Research[1], both Nintendo and Sony are expected to ship over 38 million portable gaming devices in 2013. The 38 million-unit shipment in 2013 is a dramatic fall from the 47 million-unit shipments in 2008. Research firms IDC and App Annie[2] reported that in Q4 of 2012, sales figures from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store topped sales from dedicated gaming portables like the Sony PlayStation Vita and the Nintendo 3DS. continue reading
We live in a multi-dimensional world with organizations having to cope with increasingly larger volumes of data and resources. In order to generate deep insights with transformational impact, it’s critical that organizations move beyond data silos, searchable repositories and basic meta-analysis. continue reading
As we wrote in our earlier blog post, the Infrastructure-as-a–Service (IaaS) market may see some consolidation as pure-play IaaS vendors find the going tough because of increasing commoditization and competition.
Rackspace with Cloud revenues of over $300 million[1] is a key player in the IaaS space. Rackspace’s service and products include Customer Experience, Dedicated Cloud (managed hosting) and Public Cloud. The Public Cloud business is growing rapidly and did about a third as much revenue as Dedicated Cloud in 2012[2]. continue reading
The recently concluded 2013 Mobile World Congress has left behind a trail of trend-setting, innovative ideas and new technologies. From the 25-28th February, the city of Barcelona embraced the highest record of around 60,000 people from 200 different nationalities. The event was held at Fira Gran Via, a new location, providing the infrastructure and space needed for more than 1500 organizations participants. The novelties of the fair centered not only on new mobile devices and their development but also included advances in related fields like cloud-based services, M2M solutions, 3G/4G connectivity applied in sectors like business, transport, finance and urban services amongst others. We take a deeper look at what made the headlines at this year’s Congress. continue reading
As cloud computing continues to grow rapidly, and as enterprises and SMBs move more and more of their software applications to the cloud, the underlying IT infrastructure on which these applications run, also need to expand. This growth in Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is being further fuelled by increased demands for agility, flexibility and ROI. continue reading
Tablet gaming has really taken off in the past few years, and the continued growth of the underlying forces – tablet sales, mobile Internet subscribers and app downloads – all point to a bright future for the interactive entertainment industry. continue reading
Social media for business is at the other extreme of social media for personal reasons. It is important to start with a strong purpose and there is a need for proper planning before execution of a social media strategy. Most times, businesses spend millions of dollars on research and find themselves trapped in tactics while they forget the strategy element of their plans. There are many other companies that are wary of embracing uncertainty and would rather use a social media strategy with intelligence. There is no need of guess work as with customers’ voice at every level, decisions are more certain to yield better results. Whatever the case, an increasing number of companies including multinationals are using social media to reach out to customers, who are now internet savvy and use the online medium to research before making a purchase. An eMarketer report states that 40% of small businesses that sell on Facebook say it is their sole sales channel. continue reading
The Pharma industry is one of the most challenging industries globally; not just in terms of huge investment in product (drug) development but also in terms of market access and end-customer (patient) adoption. These challenges are driven by the heavy regulation of both product development and commercialization. The variance in the therapeutic effects in real world patient population only further complicates the pharmaceutical business. It takes a lot of investment ( 1Bn USD of expense over 10 year time frame in designing, developing and registering a new molecular entity before it can be commercially manufactured and distributed in the open market. The advertising & promotion for most drugs are heavily regulated and is usually influenced by an eco-system of governments, Pharma companies, physicians, insurance providers, equipment manufacturers, pharmacists and end-users. All of these put together makes this industry a complex maze especially from a marketer’s ability to communicate effectively with the target audience.
The challenge associated with assessing the unmet needs of the multiple stakeholders in the health care value chain (Patients, Physicians, Payers and Regulators) is primarily that of communication and it begs for an effective solution that satisfies the channel and content requirements of different stakeholders. continue reading
“One size does not fit all” holds good for B2B vs. B2C social media metrics. Because B2C businesses seek to sell one to many and B2B sells one to one, the key metrics are likely to differ. For instance, e-commerce site considers traffic, source and conversions as important metrics, while, a business solutions company, is likely to consider uniquevisitors, opinions and discussions, downloads, contact information and industry data as important metrics. According to an eMarketer study, B2B online marketers focus on lead generation (38%), retention (34%) and awareness. B2B social media marketing is ultimately about leads when compared to B2C social media marketing which lays emphasis on awareness and branding.
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The zeitgeist of marketing has updated with the world to the 2.0 status. The raw energy and passion of the net (new) gen marketers, belonging to the millennial group (aged 16-34), has turned around the already dynamic field of marketing. They are different, yet they seem to possess the cultural intelligence and media literacy to help tackle the slow-footed reluctance of old-age marketers.
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