Monday, December 07, 2009

Business Topics of Note & Touch-screen Technology

As part of my recent trend of looking back on what I've written, I wanted to specifically look at some of the business topics and companies that I've posted on and linked to.

From a perspective of what companies I've most frequently posted on, the following are those that I've written on the most: Hewlett-Packard, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Cisco & IBM.

More to the point of this post, though, below are some (but, not all) of the business topics I've posted on:

- Touch-screen technology
- Cloud Computing
- Workplace Culture
- Customer Service
- Social Media


Touch-screen Technology

For the purpose of looking at the first topic above, I wanted to expand a bit the field of touch-screen to also encompass handheld e-readers along with the more well known smart phones and personal computers. Touch-screen is a fascinating area of business that really came to the forefront with the iPhone from Apple and has huge potential for growth and ubiquitous adoption through multiple product manifestations.

Touch-screen & Apple

In Dec 2008 I did this post that linked to pieces on one of the pioneers in the field, Jeff Han and I've done multiple posts on Apple, the iPhone and associated App Store. The first was back in Aug 2008 on my new iPhone and then in Jan 2009 I linked to an article about digital books via the iPhone and in Nov 2009 did a post on the BusinessWeek apps cover story... with the whole field brought about due to Apple and the App Store. Even though the Cupertino-based company brought touch as a technology into the popular lexicon, they're certainly not the only player in the market anymore.

eReaders & Amazon

Amazon for several years now has been the dominant player in the online book market (among others) and their more recent foray into e-readers is a fascinating play that may bring huge advances to the book and magazine industry just as the iPhone did for smart phones.

In terms of the general subject area, I did a Feb 2009 post on written content online. Writing this pieced (which linked to a Time cover story on the topic) really showed me how desperately innovation is needed around written content online... and how Amazon could move things forward as a result of their Kindle e-reader. Whether it's via the Kindle or a forthcoming competitor Plastic Logic or any new entry from Apple, the market is ripe for innovation. Following up on this idea where two e-reader content containing blog posts I did in June 2009. The first linked to a Fast Company article and second linked to pieces from both Time and BusinessWeek.

Touch-screen & HP

The last two sections written covered touch as a general technology area and the iPhone and e-readers as a product area within. However, blog posts I've written also cover the good old fashioned (well, not really old fashioned) personal computer as a product area which uses touch.

This Feb 2009 blog post references Hewlett-Packard's recent success in the PC business (and links to other HP blog posts done here). HP has done well with the TouchSmart desktop PC, but what really interests me is the prospect of touch becoming a standard component of notebook computer displays. In a way, this seems to me to be a melding together of attributes from smart phones, e-readers, netbooks and full-size desktop computers. You wouldn't see smart phones go away, but the convergence of the various technologies is an interesting prospect.

It's tough to know exactly where this technology (or any technology, I suppose) will wind up, but there's a lot of good stuff out there and some very big companies committed to innovation around touch. Will be interesting to see where it all goes...