Software Companies Need to Master Mobile, Cloud, Social Media, and Location
Today to continue to grow and prosper, software companies need to stay on top of four increasingly prominent trends: Mobile, Cloud, Social, and Location. Here are my observations of companies leading the way.
Look at Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. They don’t just deliver solutions on these trends, they’re obsessed with them. These trends are also top of mind at Safe Software.
Apple, at last month’s WWDC, made it clear that it’s taking a no prisoners approach with these trends. While its presence in mobile and the cloud gets much of the attention, at the WWDC it was an all out offensive on the social front as Apple aligned itself with Facebook to get a stronger social presence. Apple also made it clear that it’s not going to rely on Google for its location information; it’s targeting mapping data with the fall’s shipment of iOS 6.
Facebook is a cloud-based social network that runs on every mobile device. The announcement by Apple about the tighter integration with Facebook is also very good for Facebook. Both Apple and Facebook have a common foe in Google. Facebook continues to expand its capabilities for location services. Its failed attempt with “Find Friends Nearby” is an indication that they’re at least spending some serious time thinking about location.
Google also has a very strong hand with Android on mobile, Google Plus on social, and of course Google itself grew up in the cloud and has a myriad of offerings in the cloud like Google Docs, Apps, Maps, and Google App Engine (check out cloud.google.com). Google changed the world of location and is still a leader.
Microsoft is working hard to stay in the game. On the social side it recently purchased Yammer for $1.2 Billion which strengthens a social offering that includes Skype and Xbox Live. On the cloud side Microsoft has a cloud-based offering (Azure) that now enables organizations to even deploy Linux instances! Microsoft’s Bing Maps and associated API’s also give it a strong location presence. Last but not least Microsoft and Nokia have formed a much talked about alliance in mobile. This fall’s release of Windows 8 phones will reveal a lot about their future in that space.
All of these companies understand that to be the leader moving forward you have to be strong in these technologies. Lose in one and you’ll find that your influence and relevance will soon fade. With that in mind, we’re currently hard at work to improve our support for them in next year’s release of FME 2013 – if you’re using our software, is there anything that you especially want?
These are truly interesting times to be in the software industry. What do you think is going to happen? Is there room for two leaders? More? What about Amazon and its strong cloud offering?
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Great content! I agree with the idea that all four components should be mastered software companies. Considering how they affect one another, staying strong in all aspects means greater comparative advantage in attaining success.