Column: Investment Insights | A Finance Article Information technology is in many ways transforming the operation of modern economies. Most importantly it has busted many of the limitations that had hitherto made global businesses less efficient. With cloud computing nike air huarache nm hot lava , mobile technology, custom off the shelf products, internet portals, we are in the midst of a technology revolution. The increased acceptance of cloud and mobile technologies, the rise of new market entrants, globalization and growing concerns about the economic pressure across the world are giving strong challenges and opportunities for the technology sector. Now the competition among the IT companies is with regard to gaining leadership in the application and platform eco- systems. Spate Of Acquisitions With a much improved global market condition, the trend of acquiring companies is likely to pick up further across the world including in India and Asia. While 2013 saw only a few acquisitions, 2014 is widely expected to be one of the most eventful years in term of mergers and acquisitions. The most recent buzz on the street is the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook. The "incredibly valuable" service of WhatsApp lured Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, to acquire the company. While Facebook uses user information as part of its business model, WhatsApp maintains privacy. Although ever since the announcement of the acquisition nike air huarache bleu marine , both Facebook and WhatsApp have assured that the respective privacy policies of both the services will not change, the question arises, how will the acquisition help WhatsApp commitments to its 450 million users? This deal is sure to increase the number of Facebook users and bring them to a common platform. Institutions such as banks and insurance companies are likely to use this application, but the hardest challenge for them, will be to migrate from a B2B (Business to Business) to a B2P (Business to People) model. This acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook has sparked off a lot of debate amongst technology experts as well as general users. This acquisition will enable Facebook to increase its market share in Europe in a big way as WhatsApp has a tremendous user base in the region although its presence in Asia is still very muck a work in progress. This may lead to Facebook looking at gaining ground in Asia through one or more acquisitions in this region. Moreover, this deal will not only help Facebook get more mobile users, but will help the company to obtain a lot of technology specific to mobile phones. Another fascinating aspect is, how will this acquisition help Facebook gain entry into China as readers will recall that Facebook was blocked in China following the 2009 riots at Urumqi. Considering the huge population base of China, Facebook will make every effort possible to gain a foothold in that country. Here one should note that WhatsApp is not blocked in China. However, this becomes all the more interesting as WhatsApp is completely overshadowed by WeChat in China. WeChat is a chat app developed by Tencent, which is a Chinese company. Hence nike air huarache blanche pas cher , WeChat continues to enjoy the advantage in China, being a Chinese domestically developed technology app. However, this acquisition has started a new adrenaline rush in the Asian information technology industry. Recently, in January 2014, Facebook acquired a Bangalore-based Android app development company Little Eye Labs. This deal also justifies the notion that Facebook may go for acquiring Indian startups and this may create waves in the Indian startup sector. At present, the startup sector in India is in the booming stage. India IT Business In India, with the emergence of a strong information technology sector due to concerted government efforts, particularly since the 1980s, and a host of other factors like government - disapora relationships, private initiatives, the emergence of software technology parks nike air huarache noir femme , clustering and public private partnerships, have enabled India to flourish and acquire a dominant position in the world IT scenario. As venture capital has been the main source of finance for the software industry across the world, India in order to boost the industry, also liberalized the norms for the operation of venture capital funds. Information Technology industry in India has made significant inroads into the various domains of information technology. However, the Indian industry could not make much progress in developing products, which made India's IT industry limited to BPO & KPO verticals bringing it the title of ack office of the world? Even though some of the new entrepreneurs made valiant efforts to create product companies in India, the progress has remained subdued due to lack of a sufficient ecosystem and few venture capital firms that provide early stage capital. However, the renewed aggression of Facebook to gain hold of Asian markets and the mobile technology space, can lead to a fresh wave of M&A deals and consolidation in the Asian Information Technology (IT) industry, especially in India and China. Other Asian Countries In Focus Besides highly populous China and India, Facebook may be closely watching the Information Technology space in the neighbouring Asian countries such as Indonesia acheter nike air huarache noir , Thailand, etc to gain more and more ground in the Asian market to realise Facebook's long standing mission of
