Tech is king.
Technology was the recurring theme when Forbes revealed their World’s Most Valuable Brands list earlier this week. Four of the top five companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google, and IBM) are squarely responsible for making technology mainstream and I’m willing to bet you use their products every single day. And if you do, you probably can’t imagine living your life without them.
Valued into the hundreds of billions of dollars, technology companies are hands-down the most influential (and powerful) in our lives. And it’s not just device manufacturers either. Social media — which relies heavily on our use of technology – made the biggest splash on the list as Facebook increased their value by an amazing 74% and catapulted all the way to #18 on the list.
Simply put: The Technology Age is no longer the future, it’s the now.
Here are five recent articles about the world’s most powerful brands that may explain why they are so valuable:
Microsoft Corporation is set to unveil its first Lumia smartphone next week on November 11. The software maker recently posted a teaser of the upcoming smartphone with the hashtag #MoreLumia. The image showed something that looks like an orange frame around what appears to be a front-facing camera.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg might be known just as much for his simple wardrobe as he is as head of one of the world’s most popular social networks. So why does Zuckerberg opt for hoodies and t-shirts? The Facebook CEO addressed it during a Q&A hosted by the company Thursday.
As cheap cloud computing services erode IBM’s traditional hardware business with alarming speed, the company finds itself facing an uncertain future. If only there were some clever machine it could turn to for advice. Appropriately enough that’s what a large part of IBM’s research division is trying to create, by building on the research effort that led to Watson, the computer that won in the game show Jeopardy! in 2011. The hope is that this effort will lead to software and hardware that can answer complex questions by looking through vast amounts of information containing subtle and disparate clues.
Google is approaching hospitals and universities with a new pitch. Have genomes? Store them with us. The search giant’s first product for the DNA age is Google Genomics, a cloud computing service that it launched last March but went mostly unnoticed amid a barrage of high profile R&D announcements from Google, like one late last month about a far-fetched plan to battle cancer with nanoparticles.
Microsoft is offering free upgraded versions of its Office software for iPhones and iPads as the software giant further embraces the so-called “freemium” strategy favored by many newer companies seeking success online. Give away a basic version of a popular service, and the world may beat a path to your door and be willing to pay a little more for extras, or so the thinking goes.
What do you think? Why are technology brands so powerful? Can you live your life without these companies? Which brands should have made the list? Let us know in the comments below!
