The View | Plenty of tech innovations in store for 2016
It may be the ‘year of the wrist’
Shortly before Christmas, a photograph of a family entitled “Visiting Grandma” circulated via email.
It showed an old lady looking bemused, surrounded by her happy family, each hunched in a posture of prayer over their smart devices. On Boxing Day, my brother sent me a photograph of the whole family adopting the same position – including my 85-year-old mother, peering intently at her iPad mini, one finger hovering purposefully.
The outright share price winners in a straight race in 2015 were the global personal technology companies. Amazon was up an amazing 122 per cent; Google, now known as Alphabet, soared 49 per cent; Facebook rose 36 per cent; and Tencent was up 35 per cent. These price movements illustrate the grip that technology has on our lives and that of the market.
Most of these big companies have been making steady acquisitions, which are now bearing fruit. Microsoft owns Hotmail, Skype and a stake in Apple and Expedia. Facebook picked up Instagram, Lightbox, Oculus and WhatsApp. Alphabet boasts the Android operating system, Google Search, and YouTube. Analysts said this week that YouTube is now worth twice the value of Netflix and accounts for 15 per cent of Alphabet’s revenues. The key to YouTube’s growth is that it is largely free, although Amazon and others are seeking to charge for premium services that used to be free.
Part of the success of these tech monsters is because their youthful business models have themselves adapted to change
The laggard is Apple, which led its competitors in cornering its own ecosystem of hardware, software and retail ware. It is in consolidation mode with US$200 billion of cash burning a hole in its pocket but with an enormous opportunity to do something special.