A 2008 survey from Deloitte LLP and National Venture Capital Association shows that U.S. still maintains top ranking in technology innovation. Specific technology sectors include semiconductors, software, bio-pharmaceuticals, medical devices and clean technology. The 2008 Global Venture Capital Survey included opinions from almost 400 venture capitalists.
Read more from Pittsburgh Business Journal’s news item, U.S. still leads world in technology innovation
Aberdeen Group in their Annual State of the Market Report announced the top 100 technology vendors for 2008. This year business intelligence and analytics software vendors are the top growth area beating out mobility technology vendors last year. The top vendors were chosen from survey respondents that identified the top three technology companies that had the most influence on their business performance over the course of the past year. The top 100 most influential technology vendors include:
1. Microsoft—— 35. i2—– 69. Xerox
2. Oracle—– 36. EDS—– 70. Front Range
3. SAP—– 37. QAD—– 71. Internec
4. IBM—– 38. Ariba—– 72. Manugistics
5. Cisco—– 39. CA—– 73. Palm
6. Hewlett Packard—– 40. Epicor—– 74. Unisys
7. Dell—– 41. Juniper—– 75. Yahoo!
8. Salesforce.com—– 42. Sprint/Nextel—– 76. 3com
9. EMC—– 43. Tata Consulting—– 77. ABB
10. Sun Microsystems—– 44. ADP—– 78. CANON
11. Google—– 45. Fujitsu—– 79. Capgemini
12. RIM (Blackberry)—– 46. Intuit—– 80. Informatica
13. Siemens—– 47. Manhattan Associates—– 81. Interwoven
14. Adobe—– 48. Novell—– 82. McKesson
15. AT&T—– 49. Red Prairie—– 83. Mincom
16. Apple—– 50. SunGard—– 84. Mitel
17. Sage—– 51. Telstra—– 85. Netsuite
18. Infor—– 52. BMC—– 86. Omniture
19. Nortel—– 53. BT—– 87. Progress
20. Avaya—– 54. CSC—– 88. Rackspace
21. Red Hat—– 55. Skype—– 89. SPSS
22. Motorola—– 56. Infosys—– 90. Syntel
23. Verizon Wireless—– 57. NetApp—– 91. Teradata
24. Dassault—– 58. Symantec—– 92. T-Mobile
25. Accenture—– 59. Huawei—– 93. Toshiba
26. Sony Ericsson—– 60. IFS—– 94. Websense
27. Alcatel – Lucent—– 61. Microstrategy—– 95. Servigistics
28. AutoDesk—– 62. Aruba—– 96. Genesys
29. Intel—– 63. CDW—– 97. Logility
30. SAS—– 64. Concur—– 98. Kronos
31. Citrix—– 65. Exact—– 99. Rockwell Automation
32. Nokia—– 66. Hitachi—– 100. Checkpoint Systems
See CNNMoney.com posting, Aberdeen Group Announces Top 100 Most Influential Technology Vendors for 2008 for more details.
Increasingly computers, data storage, and bandwidth are becoming a marginal cost in market economics. This is why businesses like Google, and Yahoo! are able to offer so many things for free on the internet. Prices use to be based on the cost and scarcity of goods, but what do you do when there is an abundance of goods that cost practically nothing? This is where businesses are more and more giving away good stuff for free.
It is getting harder to tell the different between a scam and a legitimate offer for free goods anymore. Chris Anderson’ WIRED article, Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business, provides a great overview of how businesses are able to make a profit in this new economy of abundance. Some of these “free” economic models are not new, but they are greatly magnified in our current economy because of marginal costs of computing power, data storage, and bandwidth. Chris categorizes our new “free” economy as follows:
1. Freemium. This is where the basic product or service is free, but the premium version is sold at a price (Example: LinkedIn).
2. Advertising. Here content or services are provided for free, and a third part advertiser pays for ad placement (Example: Google, Yahoo!, and some print media).
3. Cross-subsidies. Here the business gives away something for free in order to entice the consumer to pay for something else. (Example: a band may give away music CDs in a city just prior to a concert to entice fans to go to the band’s concert).
4. Zero Marginal Cost. Here digital media or content is just given away because there is practically no costs to distribute the electronic goods (Example: Online musicians just giving away their music or bloggers just writing content for no monetary gain).
5. Labor Exchange. Users by using a site or service provide value (Example: Rating stories on Digg, or voting on Yahoo! Answers).
6. Gift Economy. Just give away stuff for free. (Examples: open source software, Wikipedia).
The marginal cost of computing, data storage, and bandwidth is changing our entire economy. Now if we could just get silicone to produce energy, we would then be in true abundance.
