How to Make Tech Stick - Tales From Apple, Samsung and Google

It's the beginning of a new year, and we have started off with a bang. January has already been littered and bombarded with tech news from the world over. Rumours of new phones, new TVs, cars with LTE and computers that think have been shown to us and the year seems to be one of the most exciting years yet.

Despite the bright opening to the year, something worries me greatly. In fact, it has worried me for quite some time now. What's disturbing is that companies invest hundreds or thousands of work hours and millions of dollars into research and development of new products, which, to be honest, don't always stick. What do I mean by stick? Well, to put it simply, no one falls head over heels in love with the devices. 

This happens time and again, and giants such as HTC and +Motorola Mobility before their Google take over, made losses quarter over quarter, year over year. All this happened while +Samsung Mobile and Apple ran away with almost 90% of the industry's profits as quoted by Appleinsider. These two companies, along with Nokia in the past and also +BlackBerry at some point in time found a way to make their tech stick. They found a way to make people want their products and I think that this is the goal of every Original Equipment Manufacturer out there.

For starters, these companies, at some point in their business lives studied the markets that they were catering to and would have spent significant resources designing the products to make them visibly appealing and kind to the touch. Operating system? No problem. Samsung and Apple make phones for the two biggest mobile OS's at the moment. Blackberry and Nokia once had these boastful titles as well.

Marketing is the name of the game. Apple regularly has ads on television and we know about Samsung's arguably successful attempts to tarnish the name of the aforementioned company and to boost their own products while they're at it.

Support and accessories are also 'part and parcel' of the success story. The iPhone has arguably the best accessory support that one can find on the market as alluded to by +The Verge. The Galaxy S3, because it now has one form factor across all carriers, has also seen it's fair share of support on the market. Likewise, software updates are essential. The only top notch phone that matches the iPhone at the moment in terms of software updates is the Nexus 4, even though it's still not readily available. Again, the Galaxy S3 has also seen a fairly good rate of software updates from Samsung barring the interference of some carriers.

Lastly, we look at price, and this is where things get dicey. On one hand, Apple charges a premium for their products, known as the Apple tax, and none can blame them because they sell like water would in a desert. On the other hand, Google employs a tactic that encourages great products at almost cost price and this creates mass hysteria among those looking to cop the latest +Nexus  hardware. Samsung, like Apple, charges a premium for its devices and it has proven to be quite successful for them, with 2012 Q4 profit estimates rumoured to be above 8 billion.

So what have we discovered thus far? Firstly, OEM's need to know what the customers want and they need to 'get with the times.' Manufacturers need to make their devices appealing to the eye and the hand. The devices need mass accessory support and huge software support as well. Advertising is the key as this will inform the mass public of your life changing gadget and lastly, you must price your device correctly. Please bear in mind that pricing may be high, or low, or even somewhere in between. As 2013 rolls along and products are introduced, I do hope that we will see some pointers from these big 3 companies adopted by others in the industry.