The year 2012 has been a good year for businesses, with market shares climbing in the last quarter and the Dow Jones registering its best performance on a New Year’s eve after breaking a five-day losing streak. The year has indeed seen spectacular growth from US markets. A case in point is Apple’s 31 percent increase in global market share. It seems that the economic woes generated by the worldwide economic recession four years ago are now beginning to subside.
While there are disappointments, such as the astonishing 44 stock price dip of Hewlett-Packard, the world largest producer of computers, overall the economy this year has laid sturdy enough guarantees for a more optimistic 2013. One the most anticipated and closely monitored sector of thebusiness world is the information and communications technology industry, which are now set to release more promising gadgets that can help small and medium-sized businesses to achieve efficiency and better revenue generation.
So what is in it for us this year? We have made a list of gadgets that you might want to check out this year of the Black Snake.
iPhone 5S
Apple has been recording enviable year-over-year market shares since it launched its iPhone and iPad lines in 2007. With a 33 percent share in the world smartphone market vis-à-vis Android’s 52 percent, the year 2013 may augur well for the company. Despite many disappointed reviews from tech critics, the American company’s latest release, the iPhone 5, has registered its highest sales debut by selling over 5 million handsets within the first week of its release.
Although it has released iPhone 5 only last September, Apple is set to launch it’s a newest model, the iPhone 5s, in June 2013. It will sport iOS 7, Apple’s newest operating system, which will surely set the stage for next-generation mobile software. Word has spread around that it will have better battery life, a 128GB storage, a super HD Camera, and an assortment of colors that you can choose from.
BlackBerry 10
Everybody knows that this year is far from RIM’s, the Canadian company that makes the BlackBerry line of smartphones, best year. It has consistently dropped its market share in the smartphone industry, just barely able to survive with its 4.3 percent share in smartphone sales, a very far third contender in the industry.
RIM has announced that it will release its new operating system for BlackBerry smartphones and tablets this coming January 30. While the release has already been delayed, someanalysts have given a fairly decent forecast of its market performance, but this surely would not be enough to revive RIM, which has fallen from the top spot. But it would certainly appease its loyal customers in the business sector, which has been able to maximize business functionalities such asthe RingCentralbusiness VoIP.
Microsoft Surface Tablet Pro
Casting its bet on Microsoft Surface Tablet Pro, Microsoft is set to release this January its newest tablet that uses its latest operating system, Windows 8 Pro. Microsoft Surface Pro may well be one of the most powerful tablets so far.
Samsung Galaxy S4
After the resounding sales performance of Samsung Galaxy SIII (it became the bestselling smartphone of 2012), the Korean information and technology company will release Samsung Galaxy S4 in March 2013. It is said to have a quad-core 2Ghz Exynos 5440 chip, a 13 Mb pixel auto-focus camera, and will run using Android 5.0 (Key Lime Pie).