Out with the Old, In with the New

This week, there were two very exciting technology news articles which caught my eye.

  1. The first Apple computer was auctioned off

   2. Microsoft bought Nokia

The three big names mentioned here are in their rights the forces that led the world through technological advancements for the past three decades. Without any of these giants, we would not have witnessed the rapid expansion of technology and the shrinking of world borders. Communication was made highly accessible and united people from all across the globe. They started a wave and it swept the world.

But the once-great companies have stiff competition from the very technology they helped advance. Samsung is becoming the leader in the sale of smartphones while sales of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac computers have been slipping. Similarly, Microsoft has not been making very popular decisions in the market. Reviews on Windows 8 have been mixed, but the company still controls the market. Nokia on the other hand has seen the worst ride down of the three. Efforts to revive the Finnish phone company did not quite pay off, and it ultimately led to sale of their phones & services business.

All this news brings one to these questions: Did these companies change with the times? Though they led to the boom, did they ensure that they constantly innovated and improved their tech? Or did they come out of their comfort zones once they were on top?

The answers to all three questions are an unsatisfactory “No”. All three tried. Steve Jobs led Apple to great heights with the iPod and iPhone and people all across the world see him as a great inspiration. But with Jobs gone, will Apple only come out with upgraded versions of the iPhone and iPad every year, or will they create something new as well? And people will not mention Microsoft’s outgoing CEO, Steve Balmer with the same respect as Jobs, nor say anything similar about Nokia. Will customers buy Windows because they prefer the software and not because they need it? And what is Nokia’s future?

I have realized that these questions are not just relevant to companies; they are also relevant to us. Do you ask yourself: have you created something? Have you innovated on an already existing technology? Or, my favorite, how have you changed the world? The last question is often asked in childhood and as children, all of us had great answers. We could have launched a thousand ships with just the force of our ideas back then. So, what is stopping us now?

I chose to be an innovator and inspire other people to be one as well. After all, change starts with one person, does it not? So when you decide to do something great, do something. The sky is the limit and the world our oyster. Let’s bring in something new ourselves!!