Mobile Operating System, Payments, and Big Data - Assignment Example

Mobile operating system, payments, and big Data Competitive nature of Mobile operating systems in the market place A mobile operating system determines the functionality of a phone in terms of features, security, performance, and the applications that it can carry (Lin, & Ye, 2009). The mobile operating system market is part of the overall business of a company and not the main operation making the main aim of the company to improve business sales as a whole, but ensure the operating system is well placed in the market. This results in the mobile operating system market lacking a face-to-face competition but rather a part of the business as a whole. However, android from Google and IOS from apple have emerged as the main operating systems in the market currently with market share for android and Apple IOS at 81 percent and 12.9 percent, respectively in Q3 of 2013. This means, in every five smart phones shipped, four of them operate on android operating system. However, the competition is in such a manner that revenue generated favors Apple that makes more revenue than all its competitors do in the operating system industry. Within the Q3 of 2013, Apple made 56 percent of profits in the market while Samsung made 53% percent and the other mobile phone markers including LG, HTC, Motorola, BlackBerry, and Nokia making losses. This shows that the competition in the operating market is between Apple IOS and android with android winning in terms of market share but in revenue generation Apple is far much better. The reason is that Apple phones are high quality and give more satisfaction to the consumer compared to the ability of the android enabled phones. The other advantage that Apple has in terms of competitive advantage in the mobile operating system market is that the IOS allows for more applications that are sold by Apple and it creates more advertising revenue than android operating system. The Apple operating system also has better share of network hits and web browser use in the OS market. Therefore, the nature of the mobile operating system market is such that the quality of the operating system is more important than market share, as evidenced by IOS and android. Google decided to go open source android as a means of promoting innovation for developers, OEMs, and carriers and bring this to reality. This is because open source of android is compatible and allows wide implementation to achieve the innovation goal for all people (Lin, & Ye, 2009). An operating system platform contains an ecosystem, which consists of preinstalled applications and programs from the operating system provider. The importance of each platform’s ecosystem is that it determines the amount of free applications and additional applications that one can be able to access through the chosen platform and determines the programs that can be run by the platform. The importance of an ecosystem platform is that it determines the satisfaction of the users through augmenting their ability to run different software compatible is allowed in the ecosystem that comes with the platform. The ecosystem also determines the functions and capabilities of the platform; hence further reason for its consideration. Examples are the IOS and Google platforms that have different applications for a person to choose from in relation to the functions of the device being purchased. Changing a OS platform is hard, especially for people who have had the device for more than two years and have developed or used applications offered in the ecosystem. Thus, a platform’s ecosystem is important as it determines the satisfaction that one will receive from the device running the operating system (Lin, & Ye, 2009). Mobile payments systems importance in the future Mobile payment systems allows for payment of goods and services at point of sales through the use of a mobile device and is also referred to as mobile wallet, mobile money transfer, and mobile money. Globally, the mobile money market has surpassed six hundred million dollars and is increasing rapidly both in the developed and developing parts of the world owing to its massive advantages. For the future, mobile payment system will play a very fundamental part as envisaged by the following reasons. Mobile payment system will be important in the future due to increased adoption of smart phones making the consumers comfortable with using their phones for the payment of purchases and other financial transactions. The other reasons for the importance of mobile payments in the future is that it is convenient and simple, as it only requires one to have just a card and not different forms of papers including cash and checks. Mobile payments also allows the user to track purchases and others offer shopping services based o the location and stores that offer best deals for the consumer creating high utility for the consumers. Mobile payments system will also allow merchants to serve many customers within a short period of time reducing queuing and congestion in stores, and increasing sales through increased efficiency and time saving in the retail process. Increased security for both merchants and customers will also be an advantage of using mobile payment systems in future through reducing the risks of robbery by robbers and theft by employees or any other person, as is the case with cash payments. Mobile payments also allow the consumers to access targeted vendor promotion and loyalty points and allows for a speedy payment of goods and services one of the main requirements of the consumers currently and in future. Mobile payments systems allows for organizations to make increased sales due to the ability of retailers in rural and urban centers to make sales without the need to have cash, as it has been the case. Mobile payment systems allow for the reduction in transaction fees for both merchants and customers through reduction of funds used for credit risk mitigation and attendants fees for merchants while reducing withdrawal fees for customers due to direct uses of finds from their bank accounts. Mobile payment systems allows for reduced purchase costs as there are cases where mobile payments rare cheaper than credit card transactions and some companies offer it for free opening an avenue for more consumer utility from purchasing using mobile payment system. However, a limited part of the population who will remain to use cash and other payment methods in their shopping and not embrace the mobile payments system. The reasons given by this part of the populations are security concerns for their money, as they remain skeptic of the ability of mobile payment systems and developers to avoid the chances of theft or impersonation, and other challenges that may befall mobile payment systems users. Anonymity concerns are also highlighted as the other reason for part of the population to fail to embrace the mobile payment system with an emphasis by some people to remain anonymous in their shopping and payment for other services. One condition exists from the consumers for the acceptance of mobile payments in the future, which is reducing the amount of information accessed by retailers and lack of tracking of their movements through mobile devices. Owing to the advantages of mobile payments surpassing the disadvantages and the forecast that a huge part of the population will be using smart phones by 2020, allowing for mobile payments; there mobile payments systems will increase in importance in future. Big data Big data is the situation in the current economic system where there is huge volume of data both in structured and unstructured forms, making it difficult for processing using traditional methods and software. Three factors characterize big data: volume, variety, and velocity. Volume in big data is that data is very large with so many data sources including data from transactions conducted through the years, data from social media, and data from other aspects of the business. The second aspect of big data is velocity with big data being envisaged when data flowing in high speeds and have to be worked on at a short time creating challenges for many organizations. Variety entails different data forms that come in different forms including numeric traditional, structured, unstructured, and application, email, financial, video formats amount other data forms received by an organization within a short time period. There are certain advantages accrued by organizations with the advent of big data including an increase in the ability of n organization to monitor and forecast changes in the external environment that impact on the organization either positively or negatively. This will allow the organization be prepared for the change and make necessary adjustments to get over the challenges or make use of opportunities in the external environment. Big data allows for better management of data in organizations as it allows for collection, analysis, and sifting through the large volumes of data for use in different purposes for the organization to be on point in product quality and satisfaction by the consumers. The other advantage offered to an organization by big data includes allowing the organization to take advantage of cloud computing, which allows organizations to manage large data volumes, gives chance for large data storage, and allows for the reduction of complexity and allowing for bid data development in an organization. Another advantage of bid data to organizations includes allowing an organization to have a better understanding of the needs and requirements of the clients leading to the tailoring of the products to the client needs and augment loyalty. Big data allows the organization to identify information for the improvement and augmentation of quality of products for an increased sales level and revenue generation. There are risks associated with the advent of big data including the ability to get the required, qualified personnel for the analysis and use big data. This is due to the rapid expansion, evolvement, non inclusion in university and technical college education curriculum, and lack of vendor support facilities of big data. The other risk of big data is that there are not tailored to each specific industry requiring the need to get more information before making decisions based on real time data as they may end up being an isolated event that augmented sales and committing of capital to the specific facet of the organization responsible may led to high losses. The other risk of big data is the lack of skills to ensuring the security of information and data in big data, which have the potential of information being stolen or leaded to competitors leading to the loss of competitive advantage of the firm. In conclusion, big data presents competitive advantages to firms for the performance of data related objectives, product development, and creation of new market opportunities for the success of the company in the current economic environment. However, some risks face business that use big data including risk of theft and lack of skills in use of big data. References Lin, F. & Ye, W. (2009). Operating System Battle in the Ecosystem of Smartphone Industry. International Symposium on Information Engineering and Electronic Commerce. Read More