BUSINESS | Ahmad Humeid guides you through a list of the biggest names in media and technology
The US magazine BusinessWeek, in association with brand-experts Interbrand, has, for the fourth consecutive year, drawn a up a list of the 100 most valuable brands globally. (to see the full list go to www.interbrand.com ).
What’s interesting about this list is that it focuses on brands not companies (although the two mostly coincide). That’s why you’ll find brands like MTV and TIME in the list, which are not standalone companies, but part of larger conglomerates (who’s names are not in the list).
The world’s top brand, according to the list, is Coca Cola. That’s how far a brown fizzy drink can take a company!
Leaving the Coca Cola’s and KFC’s of the world aside, we decided to extract a sub-list of technology, Internet and media companies. That’s not a clear-cut matter. Is Amazon a technology company or simply a retailer? Well, it’s probably both so we kept it in. What about General Electric? Isn’t it an industrial company? We found that GE is so heavy on high technology that it had to stay in.
So here it is: your guide to our world’s tech and media giants:
1. MICROSOFT
Well you must have guessed this one. Windows rules the computer world. Microsoft recently announced that it will be distributing $75 Billion dollars of cash to it’s shareholders over the next four years, ending speculation over what the company will do with all the money it has amassed over the years. And how old is Microsoft? Less than 30 years. Wow.
2. IBM
Big Bule has not gone away! In fact it has reinvented itself as the world’s largest IT consulting firm. So when you think IBM don’t just imagine hardware and software.
3. General Electric
Did you know that Thomas Edison started GE in 1878. Yes that’s the guy who invented the light bulb. The company has revenues of $135 Billion a year (to get a sense of that, consider that Jordan’s gross domestic product for 2002 was around $ 9 Billion) and employs over 300,000 people. It’s investing in nano-technology and other cutting edge fields to back up it’s innovation-oriented slogan of ‘Imagination at work”
4. INTEL
Its processors drive a majority of the world’s computers. One of it’s founders, Andy Grove wrote a book a few years back entitled ‘Only the Paranoid Survive’. How true.
5. DISNEY
Don’t just think of Mickey Mouse here. Also think of huge TV networks like ABC, books, websites, magazines. But the company might be loosing some of it’s edge to innovative studios like Pixar (who developed such hits like Toy Story and Finding Nemo for Disney). Beware Mickey.
6. NOKIA
Did you know that this company started its life a long time ago as a manufacturer of rubber boots. Oh, by the way, this is the top non-US company on the list.
7. HEWLETT-PACKARD
It swallowed up Compaq (just if you’re wondering where the latter went) and it’s run by a woman, Carlie Fiorina. It all started with two engineers in a garage in 1939. Today HP spends $4 Billion on research and development alone, to stay true to its slogan: Invent.
8. CISCO
Their computer networking equipment is what makes things like the internet possible.
9. SONY
Although synonymous with home entertainment, Sony is being threatened by the likes of Samsung and even Apple. Remember the days when a Walkman was the coolest thing. Well, now it’s Apple’s iPod.
10. SAMSUNG
You have to admire those Koreans. Their brand today stands for quality and innovation and no longer for ‘the cheaper alternative’.
11. DELL
Michael Dell started selling assembled computers from his dorm room in 1984. Today DELL is number one in the PC market, selling most of its products over the internet and through catalogues. The company has optimized its manufacturing process to unimaginable heights. It’s not exactly the most inventive company but definitely one of the most efficient ones.
12. ORACLE
That’s the company who’s database software works quietly in the background, storing and retrieving your bank account details and a Zillion other bits of information.
13. SAP
Say hello to the leading German IT company. Unless you run a huge complex company who’s processes need full integration and computerization, you probably won’t buy their software.
14. CANON
Cool and capable digital cameras, printers and copiers are what makes this company such a dominant name in today’s digital imaging world.
15. SIEMENS
Another one of those ‘electricity-based’ giants that survived the 20th century and are still going strong into the 21st. Their mobile phones are also pretty cool!
16. APPLE
It too started in a garage. They wanted to change the world and they probably succeeded, helping spark off the personal computer revolution in the late 70s and early 80s. Apple is innovation and design crazy, always setting the trend in cool technology. Apple fans were shocked when last week it was announced that its co-founder Steve Jobs had to undergo surgery for a rare form of pancreatic cancer (thankfully a curable form).
17. NINTENDO
The video game industry is rivalling the movie industry in size and importance. This household name that brought us the Mario Brothers has a sharp focus on the kids, but it has to figure out how to address yesterday’s kids who are now grown-ups but who still are avid gamers.
18. MTV
‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. ‘I Want My MTV’.
19. ACCENTURE
This consulting company must be glad it changed its name from Andersen Consulting in 2001, after the Enron mega-fiasco killed its former ‘twin’ Arthur Andersen. This company tells other companies how IT can make them better companies!
20. XEROX
Don’t write them off just yet. Sure they invented the computer mouse and a myriad of other things, then didn’t know how to market them. But ‘The Document Company’ is proving that it is more than just a copier company.
21. KODAK
Still hanging on. The company’s fortunes are not so bright. It has managed to carve out a place in the digital camera market, but it’s a crowded one for sure!
22. EBAY
The truly pure internet company. Online auctions have enabled a totally new form of commerce and eBay is there to reap the benefits. Amazing.
23. YAHOO!
No longer the place to start your internet searches (that’s Google’s domain now). But its online services are so numerous and diverse, it’s almost unavoidable. And just think that the whole thing started less than 10 years ago as a simple web page listing other web sites!
24. PHILIPS
The last remaining big name from Europe in the field of home electronics. Will it be able to survive in the face of rivals from Korea and now China?
25. AMAZON.COM
The biggest name in e-Commerce. The mega shopping mall on the internet is not only constantly adding new categories, but it also invents unprecedented shopping experiences, such as enabling people not only to search for a book in a library of millions, but also search for words and sentences INSIDE books.
26. REUTERS
Just look at this newspaper (The Jordan Times) and count how many stories were reported by the leader in news and financial information gathering.
27. TIME
The magazine is finding it harder to get advertisers, but its book division turns out one best seller after the other.
28. PANASONIC
Look out for the growing trend of recordable DVDs at home. Panasonic is a leader in the field.
29. AOL
One of the biggest losers of value in recent years. Remember the mega-merger that Produced AOL-TimeWarner. Well now they dropped the AOL name in favour of TimeWarner again. Still AOL is the world’s biggest internet service provider.