Chinese Smart Phones Capture Android Market
The smart phone market has historically been a huge battlefield and nothing about that is changing. In fact, if anything, it’s getting more competitive. It would be fair to say that this may be the year that the Chinese officially lead the smart phone market pack.
The market leaders have evolved rapidly. It can be argued that U.S. innovators conceived of the smart phone, while the Koreans (specifically Samsung) came up with leading Android-based devices. Now, the Chinese are making these devices even better. Of course, at the end of the day, if all goes right, the consumer is the real winner.
A look at history
There have been some shining moments in the enterprise smart phone evolution, or perhaps better called revolution. In 2005, the Blackberry on someone’s belt or in their hand was a sign of fashion forward, technology savviness. It carried an air of authority, power, and accomplishment in the organization. Later, Apple came on the scene with the iPhone and everyone wanted to use it on their enterprise. Blackberry still had an upper hand since iPhone users could install apps easily, while Blackberry owned its own proprietary network focused on security.
AirWatch, which was a critical piece of Blackberry security, created mobile device management (MDM) software aimed at supporting the huge push for enterprises to allow Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) options to iPhone users safely and security. The company, started by John Marshall and Alan Dabbiere of Manhattan Associates, has been wildly successful. In February 2013, AirWatch secured one of the largest Series A funding rounds in history at $200 million. One year later, AirWatch was acquired by VMware for $1.54 billion.
As the market evolved, Blackberry almost went out of business. Now, however, under the leadership of John Chen, the company is making a turnaround. Chen came in and figured out that Blackberry’s core competency is actually secure network. Now, the company is working with automotive manufacturers to deal with upcoming challenges including self-driving cars and connected vehicles, as well as shared car services such as Uber and Lyft. No one can argue that a secure car is critical to success in the market.
Here & now
Now, let’s turn to the current state of the smart phone market. The latest sizzle in the market is from Huawei with its Mate 20 Pro phone. Reviewers have loved it. I believe that one of the critical features the device offers is fast charging.
I, and others watching the market, thought that fast charging would be real in 2016 or 2017. Samsung’s battery exploding fiasco slowed down the technology, and it languished. Even Qualcomm failed to come up with fast charging innovation, unless you count some marginal improvements.
Now, Chinese smart phone makers, including Oppo, Huawei and One Plus, are putting this at the top of their feature list. For example, Huawei Mate 20 Pro phone charges to 70% of the battery capacity in 30 minutes.
Things have started heating up since then. In February, Qualcomm Technologies announced its Quick Charge technology for wireless power. “Characterized by fast and consistent mobile charging, the over 1,000 commercial Quick Charge technology-compatible mobile devices, accessories, and components are equipped with unique safety and intelligence features that are designed to minimize the amount of wasted energy and heat build-up on-device, and maximize the battery’s lifespan, ultimately protecting and improving consumer’s devices,” the company said.
I think that fast charging technology has a lot of promise, not just for smart phones but for handheld and wearable devices all over the enterprise, including the industrial wearables used in warehouses, distribution centers and manufacturing plants. What do you think? Will fast charging impact your supply chain? Let us know in the comments section below.
Originally published at Smartgladiator.com on March 26, 2019.
Puga Sankara
Puga Sankara is the co-founder of Smart Gladiator LLC. Smart Gladiator designs, builds, and delivers market-leading mobile technology for retailers, distributors, and 3PL service providers. SG LoadProof is a patent pending Centralized Enterprise Photo/Video Document System on Cloud for Supply Chain. SG LP is built on the fact that photos & videos are vital docs as important as POs/SOs/Legal Contracts/Fulfillment Orders that reside in ERP/WMS/TMS systems, that serve as compelling, conclusive, unequivocal proof of crucial, critical, vital operations executed in Supply Chain within/across orgs when fulfilling customer orders as well as meeting contractual obligations between orgs as merchandise is transferred between different parties that partake in Supply Chain functions & operations. And these photos/videos data should not be stored in someone’s Smartphone or Email Inbox or in their personal/work Computer, but should be stored in a Centralized Enterprise system, where such data can be pushed into super-fast, stored securely, accessible to all stake holders (CFO/Sales Reps/Customer Support/AR/AP) in an org, as well as facilitates super-fast retrieval/sharing. LP is an Enterprise System of record for Photo/Video docs & is as important as an ERP which is an enterprise system of record for POs, SOs, Legal Contracts between parties etc. that have huge legal ramifications, also as important as a WMS (Warehouse Management System) that hold indispensable shipment & fulfillment data on orders. Like how Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat etc. have evolved into social media platforms/systems that enable individuals to showcase their beauty/pretty clothes/lovely cosmetics/hep coolness etc., LoadProof is an Enterprise system that holds similar photos/videos, but for a different reason, not for show off, but to serve as compelling, conclusive, unequivocal & indisputable system of record and proof that can be presented even in the court of law, when there is a dispute between parties while they execute many facets of the Supply Chain functions & operations. Puga is a supply chain technology professional with more than 25 years of experience in deploying capabilities in the logistics and supply chain domain. His prior roles involved managing complicated mission-critical programs driving revenue numbers, rolling out a multitude of capabilities involving more than a dozen systems, and managing a team of 30 to 50 personnel across multiple disciplines and departments in large corporations such as Hewlett Packard. He has deployed WMS for more than 30 distribution centers in his role as a senior manager with Manhattan Associates. He has also performed process analysis walk-throughs for more than 50 distribution centers for WMS process design and performance analysis review, optimizing processes for better productivity and visibility through the supply chain. Size of these DCs varied from 150,000 to 1.2 million SQFT. Puga Sankara has an MBA from Georgia Tech. He can be reached at [email protected] or visit the company at www.smartgladiator.com. Also follow him at www.pugasankara.com.
