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09.18.2012
As we have seen in the Asian markets, particularly in Japan and Korea, in the last decade, software has systematically been taking over areas that traditionally have been controlled by hardware manufacturers and developers. Software, in fact, has started to take over many other markets, from finance to entertainment, it is all about new software, hard-software integration, and content. Today, more venture capitalists are looking for start-ups with innovative software opportunities, especially when the software they provide helps to eat into the profits or market of another industry that has already been established.
Even though software has started to take the place of other technologies and workers in other industries, this trend may also help Japan and regions such as the United States and Western Europe return to the top as manufacturing leaders. While manufacturing has shifted to other markets due to their lower labor costs and direct access to energy, software helps keep labor costs down, which will have an important effect on these regions’ future manufacturing efforts.
How the rise of software affects venture capitalism and new tech businesses
While, traditionally, venture capitalists focus on the people in a company or on their ideas and market share, today it is all about innovation. This is because, today, the rise of software has caused the tech sector to evolve at a very rapid pace. Breakthroughs are measured in days and hours and an innovative idea has the potential to break through into a completely untapped market. This is a good guideline for entrepreneurs in today’s tech industry, is it an innovative idea? Has it been done before? Software development today gives entrepreneurs many opportunities to use software for purposes that had never been thought of before!
Today, the tech industry is basically becoming the software industry, due to almost everything moving from hardware to software. From cloud storage to numerous devices becoming software services, and the increase use of innovative mobile apps, there is a clear trend where software is systematically taking over other tech industries. In fact, this is not limited to technology; from entertainment to finance, software is becoming an important, systemic component of almost all major human endeavors. Simply integrating online functionality into industries that are traditionally handled offline has now given entrepreneurs almost endless room for innovation, meaning also more investment opportunities for savvy venture capitalists.
The evolving state of technology and how Japan paved the way
From network virtualization to mobile apps and innovative uses for social media, there is no question that the Asian market has been paving the way in technological breakthroughs. In particular, Japan’s technological infrastructure has made it an ideal playground for entrepreneurs looking to bring new ideas and breakthroughs to the market. However, there are several difficulties that are specific of the Japanese market that may make it more difficult than normal for start-up companies:
However, entrepreneurs with the capacity to overcome these two problems will find that Japan is an ideal market for new software ideas and applications of software in other fields. It is important to note that some economists are predicting that the accelerated growth that has been a stable of several Asian markets is decreasing, which may say something about the future dynamics of this important tech market.
Fortunately for Japan, their tech market has much more in common with Europe and the United States than with the other Asian manufacturers such as China and Taiwan. The key to future technological growth in the Japanese market will be software innovation and the successful harnessing of renewable, cheaper energy sources. One possible breakthrough that may predict a rise in the Japanese tech industry is the application of 3-D printing breakthroughs to manufacturing. The application of this innovative technology, which is already beginning in certain parts of Japan, combined with the new software developments that have been the industry norm for the last few years, may result in a dramatic resurgence of the Japanese tech and manufacturing market in the next decade.
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Nida Rasheed is a freelance writer and owner of an outsourcing company, Nida often finds herself wanting to write about the subjects that are closest to her heart. She lives in Islamabad, Pakistan and can be found on Twitter @nidarasheed.
09.17.2012
Once in a while, new technology comes with a number of benefits that were not part of the original specifications when the technology was being developed. Piracy control is certainly one such unintended benefit of cloud computing.
The last few months have seen major initiatives on the protection of intellectual property. SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) was one such well known attempt. Many governments the world over are collaborating to reduce and control software piracy. The shutdown of sites such as Megaupload and the arrests of its owner and several employees from the US and New Zealand is an example.
Now anti-piracy crusaders have another reason to cheer. Software that is being distributed via the SaaS (software as a service) model is much harder to misuse. Every user is authenticated and logged in and hacked accounts are far easier to control and resolve than bootlegged CDs.
Is password sharing piracy?
A recent study showed that a large percentage of users of cloud-based software freely admitted to sharing their passwords with co-workers. People do not feel this is wrong because after all only one user is logged in at a time. Whether this counts as piracy or not will depend on how your service agreement is worded. If however you can log in with the same credentials from multiple terminals then there is little doubt that there is misuse of your license – unless such use is allowed.
Connectivity aids control
Since all cloud computing is Internet-based, detection of piracy becomes fairly easy. Previously the hacker industry used to sell cracked versions of popular programs. Modern, cloud based software can easily determine if such a thing is happening and can take corrective action well before significant revenue loss occurs.
There have also been concerns that hackers and pirates will set up dedicated “dark clouds” – a cloud platform specifically built to distribute pirated software and sell logins. However, such centers are bound to be detected and attacked by genuine distributors and it is very likely that these will be taken down and the pirates will be caught or forced to flee. Software companies are watching the emergence of dark clouds very closely. It is quite possible that by being able to access their software over the Internet, software companies will be able to control how their products are being used.
There have also been reports that small software routines are being written to monitor the health of the main application. In case of a bug, they are able to detect excessive CPU use and illegal memory operations and control these in time before the application crashes. Similar software could be written to monitor piracy of software as well.
Free software kills piracy
There are other reasons why cloud computing is reducing software piracy. One of these is the use of “freemium” software. You start by using a light version of an application. This is often a free version and is designed to make you familiar with the software and understand its advantages. When your business needs to evolve, you graduate to a premium or a paid model. Since any user can experiment with a free instance of the software, the incentive to steal is lost. Low cost of cloud applications is another reason why it is proving to be such a piracy killer. If you can get full capability and support for a few dollars, why would one settle for a pirated model?
Although the issue appears simple in theory, there are some points that need to be resolved. A person could be logged into an application on his PC, smartphone and tablet. Are these log-ins legitimate or not? Analytic software being produced to manage piracy would have to understand this kind of use and device some means of handling this.
While complex and more involved issues of piracy control will no doubt take time to develop, the fact remains that cloud computing has given software producers a new tool to control piracy. You may not have noticed it, but already we talk a lot less about software piracy. With the decline on piracy, the additional revenue that software companies will make will help them produce even better products and improve the viability of the industry.
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Sanjay Srivastava has been active in computing infrastructure and has participated in major projects on cloud computing, networking, VoIP and in creation of applications running over distributed databases. Due to a military background, his focus has always been on stability and availability of infrastructure. Sanjay was the Director of Information Technology in a major enterprise and managed the transition from legacy software to fully networked operations using private cloud infrastructure. He now writes extensively on cloud computing and networking and is about to move to his farm in Central India where he plans to use cloud computing and modern technology to improve the lives of rural folk in India.