Changes in Tech Business Trends Predicted for New Year
January 16, 2013
Dan Lyons at ReadWrite has high hopes for the tech industry this year, declaring, “2013: The Year When Things Get Real Again.” He means that quite literally. The article states:
“By real I mean we’re going to be focusing on real companies that make real products that cost real money and get bought and used by other real companies. Not those [cruddy], kooky, consumer-focused startups that can’t raise any more money. I’m talking about companies whose products involve real engineering, stuff that goes beyond what three kids can do in a weekend on a startup bus on their way to SXSW.”
Lyons has several purveyors of the real in mind. He devotes a paragraph each to three promising firms: Acquia builds its business around support for its own open-source Drupal software. FuzeBox makes a quality, low-cost videoconferencing system. And Leap Motion, whom he says could be the year’s biggest break-out story, develops innovative hand-gesture technology. He also pins hopes on Box, Cloudera, GoodData, MobileIron, Zendesk, Okta, and Ping Identity.
All these businesses, Lyons says, make money by selling their products, not by selling ads. He sees some positive effects of this retro approach for customers:
“[These companies] don’t have to resort to a business model based on tricking people and exploiting them. They don’t have to resort to doing sneaky things with terms of service agreements or privacy policies. Nope, this is straight-up business. You give us money, we give you our stuff.”
Lyons points out that the direct monetary exchange creates an accountability that is missing from the ad-based model. That does sound like a welcome direction; we’ll see whether it manifests as predicted.
Cynthia Murrell, January 16, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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