IEEE – Defining Our World
The IEEE reads as eye-triple-e. The name was historically the acronym for the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Inc. but today, its scope goes beyond electrical and electronics to cover related areas and is thus, simply referred to by its name, eye-triple-e. The IEEE is a non-profit organization that was formed and incorporated in New York, USA in 1963 with the merging of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIRE) founded in 1884 and the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) founded in 1912. This effectively puts the IEEE as having its roots in 1883, making the organization celebrate its 126th anniversary this year.
Organizational Focus
The history of the IEEE is precisely the history of electricity-based technologies of the 20th century that were given due recognition by various societies like the AIRE and IRE. With the merging and the advance of electronics at that time, the IEEE's constitutional by-laws emerged to define precisely what the organization is for. It defines its purpose as “scientific and educational, directed toward the advancement of the theory and practice of electrical, electronics, communication and computer engineering, as well as computer science, the allied branches of engineering and the related arts and sciences."
In pursuing these purpose, the IEEE has evolved into a global enforcer of industrial standards over a wide range of professional disciplines like power, biomedical technologies, information technologies, telecommunications, consumer electronics, aerospace, transportation and nanotechnology, among the major ones. To this end it is the IEEE Standards Association that takes care of the promulgating the standards of the IEEE.
The IEEE also functions as a leading publisher of scientific and engineering journals as well as a conference organizer on its areas of expertise. It publishes about 30% of the world’s printed and online materials on electrical and electronics engineering as well as computer sciences and related derivative fields with well in excess of 100 peer-reviewed scientific and engineering journals.
GSM Association
The GSM Association Governs Mobile Telephony
The GSM Association (GSMA) is an organization consisting of mobile phone operators and mobile handset makers and related companies who share the same passion for promoting and further developing the mobile phone systems under the GSM (Groupe Speciale Mobile) or Global System for Mobile standards. Representing the interests of about 800 network operators and handset manufacturers and suppliers across more than 200 countries worldwide, the GSMA is considered among the most influential and powerful trade aggregations in the world with enough clout to lobby governments anywhere on just about everything related to regulating the mobile phone industry and consumer businesses.
As a group, the GSMA unifies the various sectors in the mobile phone industry to drive new software and hardware development, usher in better telecommunication technologies and well harness the media and entertainment industries for emerging multimedia mobile experience with the sole purpose of creating and sustaining business growth for its members and the advancement of mobile telephone for consumers.
A Short GSM History
The GSMA had its roots in 1982 when the Confederation of European Posts and Telecommunications (CEPT) organized the GSMA with the purpose of designing and deploying a pan-European mobile telephony standard. It was not until 1989 that the GSM standards were complete and the first GSM networks deployed culminating with the first GSM call made in Finland in 1992. Its works didn’t end there but further enhancements to its 2G network saw the introduction of GPRS and EDGE and HSPA enhancements.
By 2005, the GSM technology dominates the mobile phone industry with more than 1.5 billion customers. The first HSDPA network goes live while SMS messages have surpassed the one trillion messages mark sent throughout the year.
The GSMA also sponsors the annual premiere industry trade show and conference called the Mobile World Congress annually held in Barcelona, Spain and the Mobile Asia Congress. Another one will be held in Hongkong this November. These two yearly events spaced months apart, are attended by the captains of the mobile phone industry and the press eagerly anticipating to catch new announcements related to new Mobile phones and emerging mobile technologies.
DMI
Revealing Digital Media Index (DMI) Data
With the deepening global economic recession starting in the first quarter of 2009 and triggered by the collapse of many financial giants in the US, the DMI or Digital Media Index has been trailed by finance analysts at Strategy Analytics as growing at a mere 0.9% rate compared to the same period last year.
DMI Measures Quarterly Growth
Strategy Analytics uses data on revenue growth of some of the leading companies in the digital media industries traversing across advertising, games, music, video, social media as well as content delivery and plots the growth trends on a quarterly and annual basis compared to the previous period last year. These data make up its Digital Media Index which in the first quarter of the year saw minimal but encouraging growth expansion for both leaders and key digital media players in Asia, Europe and the US.
The first quarter of 2009 global Digital Media Index (DMI) revealed 0.9% growth which is dramatically down from the 3.4% registered in the preceding fourth quarter of 2008. While the growth is minimal, it still augurs well for digital media companies thriving in a global recession that is seeing fewer consumers purchasing activity compared with previous quarters. On a year on year basis, the DMI shows a revenue growth of 3.6% compared to last year’s high of 29%. It is clear that the prolonged economic slowdown has adversely affected the digital media industry with slower revenue growth.
Conclusion
A deeper analysis of the growth slowdown at the company level reveals that most digital media companies have averaged a lot better revenue growth than companies that are more focused in online and traditional advertising of digital services. The obvious conclusion here is that the digital media companies have thrived successfully on the online advertising model enjoying the ease of internet traffic. Further analysis show that consumer-paid models have more resiliency in a recession.
Hewlett-Packard
Evolving into HP
Hewlett-Packard or more fondly known as HP is a home and office by-word that refers to various computing and printing devices. But it’s more than that. It has evolved over the years to become the largest technology-based corporation in the world operating in just about every country on earth.
A Bit of History
HP’s name comes form the two men who founded the company in 1939. William Hewlett and David Packard were electrical engineering graduates of Stanford University who, with an initial capitalization of $538, established the HP Co. in Packard’s garage.
From its early days up until the 90s, HP has focused on high precision electronic test equipment and instrumentation. Its oscilloscopes were highly sought after for their accurate measurements and have made a name for the company. It’s interesting to note that among HP’s earliest customers was The Walt Disney Company which acquired oscillators used to certify the fantasound surround systems it installed in theaters for the Fantasia movie.
Its focus made them an industry pillar for electronic test equipments as well as medical appliances and instrumentation used for various chemical processes which were spun off under the Agilent Technologies company back in 1999.
It was in 1966 that HP decided to enter the computer making business when it made a decision to build its own rather than get a Digital Equipment minicomputer for its instrumentation requirements. The very first computers came out under the HP 2100 line which were in the market for roughly 20 years. HP’s computing focus was on business, science research and industrial markets that it failed to recognize an employee named Steve Wozniack who presented to its management the Apple designs in the late 70s.
The rest is history, as they say. HP went on to produce some of the best laser printers that have become standard company printers in time. After an acquisition binge in the 90s that included rival Compaq, HP has grown to be the largest PC maker in the world with the 1 and 2 slot alternating with Dell Computers.
Samsung
The World’s Largest Electronics Firm
Since the early 21st century, Korean Samsung has become the most popular electronics brand for the consumer markets, eclipsing its Japanese rivals in consumer electronics. It is, in fact, the world largest maker of electronic products for both industrial and consumer markets. It is part of the giant Samsung Group of Companies which is involved in major domestic industries that have made it a large conglomerate in the world in terms of revenues.
It’s an interesting side note that the Korean word Samsung means “three stars” which refer to the three major affiliates of the Group namely, Samsung Electronics, Samsung Heavy Industries, which is the world’s number two in shipbuilding, and Samsung Engineering & Construction, a major global construction company.
This hasn’t confined Samsung from venturing into other businesses like retail, entertainment, chemical and financial services. It is not surprising that with its extensive and financially successful business and industrial reach, Samsung has contributed to South Korea as one of the major developing tiger economies that can’t be ignored in world economy so much so that Korea is often referred to as the “republic of Samsung.”
A Short Historical Ride
Headquartered in the Seoul, South Korea, Samsung has a history dating back to 1938 when Lee Byung-Chull founded a nondescript trading firm he named Samsung with just 40 employees. After the Korean war, Lee established a sugar refinery, the first major industrial facility in Korea. It flourished and Lee diversified Samsung into other areas with a singular vision to make Samsung as an industry leader where it has ventured into.
The 60s and 70s were great times for Samsung as Park Chung-Hee’s regime focused on economic development that placed Samsung into every opportunity to grow and prosper especially when Park embarked on a protectionist economy with liberal financing and banning foreign companies from marketing consumer electronics in the country.
It was at this time that Samsung Electronics became a domestic force in consumer electronics. The 80s and 90s saw Samsung’s entry into world markets. With high quality consumer appliances at low prices, the world soon took notice of the great value this Korean upstart was giving them. The rest is history.
YouGov
Researching the Markets with YouGov
Launched in the United Kingdom in May of 2000, YouGov is an internet-based global marketing research firm under the British Polling Council. It was founded by Stephan Shakespeare who is now its Chief Innovation Officer and Nadhim Jahawi who is its Chief Executive Officer. Since 2007, YouGov has had Roger Parry as its Chairman, replacing Peter Kellner who now acts as its President and owns 6% of the company after floating ₤18 million in 2005. YouGov’s many research clients include such media giants as Sky News, The Sunday Times, The Economist and the Daily Telegraph, to mention some.
Conducting Market Polls
YouGov uses the internet extensively in its research work. With virtually no staffing needed in field research, YouGov enjoys a cost advantage over face-to-face or even phone call researches. Its research methodology involves inviting internet users to participate in its poll as may be commissioned by third parties. It now has a panel of nearly 250,000 respondents in the UK alone. Their responses online are collated and filtered according to demographics.
Its research panel members invited among internet users are given 50p for every online survey form they complete. These surveys are offered to them typically on a frequency of 2-4 monthly. The token gratuity goes up to ₤2 per survey depending on the complexity of the questionnaire form. A check is mailed to them when the amount accumulates to ₤50. Moreover, YouGov conducts a monthly draw among its survey participants where members can be entitled to prize. Occasional special prize surveys are also conducted.
A Profitable Business
YouGov’s profitability can be gleaned from its annual revenues that rose by more than 50% for its fiscal year August 2006 to July 2007 at 14.3 million. Its pre-tax net incomes rose to 39% in the same period at 5.7 million. Not bad at all. An average of 40% profit margin makes it among the highest when compared to the usual 10% to 30% that its competitors are making.
Compaq
The Once Mighty Compaq
The Texas-based Compaq brand has been a successful US computer brand from the last 20 years of the 20th century until it was bought and absorbed into the HP brand. It was formed by former Texas Instrument managers, Rod Canon, Jim Harris and Bill Murto with the name standing for Compatibility and Quality, thus Compaq.
A Storied Past
Compaq started out making IBM PC compatible machines and became one of the largest PC makers in the world by the end of the 20th century. Before it got merged with HP in 2002, losing much of its identity, Compaq had been on a buying binge that saw them acquiring Tandem Computers, known for its high end servers with continuous non-stop availability in 1997 which was followed the year after with Digital Equipment, a leading minicomputer maker of the 70s and 80s.
Unfortunately, the then Compaq CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer who had engineered the buyouts failed to synergize its corporate acquisitions to give the Compaq name any lasting edge in its markets. As a result, it went into financial distress that made it easy for HP to acquire the company and merge its successful product line with its own. The merging was plagued with controversy as Compaq stockholders offered resistance while alluding to some improprieties in the deal. But it eventually went through and Compaq suffered laying off thousand of employees worldwide with HP only retaining some and assuming the helm.
Compaq under HP
HP effectively assumed manufacturing and marketing control of Compaq, Tandem and DEC product lines in addition to its own, making it the largest PC maker in the world despite declining stocks, dwindling profits and finally losing out to Dell as the world’s leading PC maker at that time. But HP eventually regained its stellar prestige in the market with a slew of products that capitalized on its acquisitions and by 2005, HP is back to number one.
Some Compaq products like the ProLiant line of servers that have been quite successful, were re-branded with the HP name. The Compaq name remains on a few consumer PCs like the Presario line. HP’s business-targeted PC line was later discontinued to favour the Compaq Evo PC line that was re-branded HP Compaq. The Jornada PDA line from HP was replaced by the superior Compaq iPAQ PDAs which were eventually re-branded as HP iPAQ.
Telefonica
Spain’s Dominant Telecoms Provider
Telefonica, S.A. is a global telecommunications company based in Spain. It ranks among the largest operator of fixed-line and mobile communications services in the world in term of the number of clients. After its acquisition of O2 Plc, Movistar and Manx Telecom, it’s the world’s third largest behind China Mobile and Vodafone as of end of 2007.
A Long History
Founded as a government –owned telecoms company in 1924, Telefonica was the only telephone operator in Spain at that time. Even after the communications industry was liberalized and the company privatized in 1997, Telefonica still enjoys a dominant position in the local market.
In January 2008, Telefonica acquired the UK operator O2 Plc for ₤17.7billion. As part of the acquisition deal, O2 retains its brand, network services and to remain in the UK. O2 has global network service reach that includes Germany, Ireland and Isle of Man where it operates land-line telephone services.
The acquisition binge that included other telecom companies outside of Spain has made Telefonica a force in the global fixed line and mobile telecommunication industry. It didn’t mind being fined by the EU for breaching its anti-trust laws. In 2007, the European Commission ordered it to pay anti-trust fine of nearly 152 million for harming the Spanish broadband consumer markets and the Spanish business for its monopolistic activities. The position was that harming an EU member state’s business interests and economy and by extension was tantamount to harming Europe’s economy.
Ownership
As a publicly owned and listed company, Telefónica has the following major stockholders: JP Morgan at 10.02% holds the single largest block followed by Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentina SA, Caixa d’Estalvis I Pensionsde Barcelona, Citibank and Capital Group at varying percentages. For the balance, it is estimated that most of its stocks are owned by capital investment houses.
