In tech there is more beyond China and India

In the technology, telecommunications and internet sectors no doubt China and India see the emergence of numerous middle classes that no sane international business can overlook. While their huge populations understandably attract most headlines, there is a group of countries (Brazil, Indonesia, Russia & Turkey) that follow closely but more quietly as they do not appear in the news so often. They are much smaller than China and India but have large enough populations to justify large investment projects and high expectations. Saturated markets in Europe, North America and Japan already start to bring significant investment and news elsewhere.

Vodafone has reasons to be optimistic as the latest results a few days ago point to both India and Turkey as great markets with 40% growth rates that balance the low 2% of Europe. And this with a Vodafone entrance to the Turkish market that is very recent. Japan’s DoCoMo plans an international expansion to Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and New Zealand. Russian telecoms and IT sectors are set to grow next year by 20% a number unthinkable a decade earlier, and Brazil is jumping on the 3G bandwagon.

New standards that want to replace DVI/HDMI

As if the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD mix wasn’t enough, now new digital panel connection standards arrive to make consumers’ life even more difficult. In the last couple of years we have reached a nice state of equilibrium. As things stand now, we know we need DVI for our PC monitor and HDMI for our flat panel TV. The use of HDMI for computer monitors is not worrisome as DVI and HDMI are fully compatible.