With the first half of 2014 seeing in some of technlogy's biggest (and most absurd) acquisitions in recent years, we take a look inside the mobile economy boom and (fingers crossed) third and final “Year of the Mobile”.
Who’s The King Of The Castle?
All the usual suspects continue to play it fast and hard heading into the second half of 2014, with major movements in the sector from Microsoft, Facebook and the likes can mean only one thing – it’s time to go mobile!
For those playing along at home, the “Year of the Mobile” first hit headlines way back when in 2011. Three years on and we could finally be seeing some truth to the rumours, as mobile is tipped to become the mainstream marketing solution in 2014.
Most recently we’ve seen Yahoo join the prestigious (and by that we mean ridiculous) list of companies acquisitioning mobile technology, with one of its biggest purchases in mobile app analytics and advertising start-up, Flurry.
Facebook & Instagram & WhatsApp & Oculus
Starting off bids for the first of many acquisitions from the social media platform for 2014, Facebook purchased photo-sharing application, Instagram for a cool $1billion. Followed swiftly by the purchase of cross platform mobile messaging app, WhatsApp for a mere $19billion and virtual reality gaming technology, Oculus Rift for the very reasonable price of $2billion - like we said, ridiculous!
Microsoft & Nokia
Slightly more reasonable and recent was the announcement that Microsoft was releasing a new Android phone, the Nokia X2. This comes off the back of their April takeover of Nokia that left our spidey senses tingling - “If this is going to work, the Nokia X2 better be the best phone in the world…ever!” No sooner had it been released (last month), than the romance had died with official reports stating Android has been abandoned by Microsoft. Guess the four horsemen showed up early to the party!?
Apple Through To Google
Following resident blogger, Katie Merchant’s post on mobile unbundling, we foresee Apple and Google duking it out in a different arena. Although still very much mobile, it does beg the question; if Apple and Google are focusing on unbundling is 2014 the “Year of the Unbundle”? Watch this space!
Final Thoughts…
“Year of the mobile” or not, with 2.33billion internet users and 1.2billion of those mobile users, the mobile economy is tipped to overtake desktop usage in the second half of 2014. But as we’ve seen before, it all seems like a great idea at the time, but it needs to be the right technology for the job! Mobile v Desktop it's GAME ON!
