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Zebra Technologies

Zebra Technologies – A Mobile Computing Company Famous For Its Innovation In IoT.

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Zebra Technologies is an American-based mobile computing company and is known for IoT innovations. The company was founded in 1969 by Ed Kaplan and Gerhard Cless. Zebra Technologies was originally incorporated as Data Specialties Incorporated and later the brand name was changed after several mergers and acquisitions. The headquarters of the company is based in Illinois, United States and there are nearly 9,000 employees in the company. It has received several awards and is recognized by famous magazines like Forbes for being one of the best American employers. The company has currently spread across 100 countries and has made more than 10,000 partners.

About Zebra Technologies

The main industry in which Zebra Technologies is based is computer hardware, retail, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, and health. The company has offices in 50 countries and the locations include China, Germany, India, the US, UK, Japan, Mexico, Russia, and many more. By the end of 2015, the company announced that the products and services of Zebra Technologies are provided across 170 countries. And by the end of 2020, the company reached 180 countries with 8,800 employees. Though the company has made several acquisitions in the past twenty years, in 2021 it acquired three companies in a row including Adaptive Vision, Fetch Robotics, and Antuit.ai.

Zebra Technologies
Image source: colite.com

Foundation

When Zebra Technologies was established back in the late 1960s, its main domain was manufacturing high-speed electromechanical products. After more than a decade, the company decided to shift its market and focus on on-demand labeling and ticketing systems. So, in 1982 it rolled out its first barcode printer and after four years introduced a thermal printer for on-demand barcode labeling. In 1986, the company’s name was changed to its current name Zebra Technologies and in 1991 it became a publicly-traded company. In the same year, Company also introduced its first laser scannable two-dimensional barcode. In 1997, it launched the first wearable computer and eventually started expanding its product base.

Expansion

In 1998, Company merged with Eltron International, a company known for manufacturing photo ID card printers. Zebra Technologies started acquiring companies from the starting of the next decade. In 2000, it acquired Comtec Information Systems, a manufacturer of wireless mobile printers followed by acquiring Atlantek Inc in 2003. Next year, the company entered into the RFID smart label manufacturing market and launched new products. In the next few years, the company acquired Swecoin, Proveo AG, WhereNetCorp, and Navis Holdings. In 2007, Zebra Technologies appointed its new CEO, Anders Gustafsson. It also acquired Enterprise Solutions Group in 2008 which was renamed Zebra Enterprise Solutions in 2009.

In the upcoming years, Zebra Technologies acquired Multispectral Solutions, LaserBand, and StepOne Systems. The last two companies were purchased for $1.5 million. In 2013, the made a big acquisition as it purchased Hart Systems from a private equity firm Topspin Partners LBO. The deal was finalized for $94 million. In 2014, the company offered $3.45 billion for acquiring Motorola Solutions’ Enterprise Division. This acquisition brought many new technologies to the company including advanced data capture communications technology. In the same year, the company also installed its real-time location system (RTLS) in NFL stadiums. In 2018, the company acquired Xplore Technologies followed by Temptime Corporation in 2019. For workforce management and communication solutions, the company acquired Reflexis Systems in 2020.

Anders Gustafsson – CEO of Zebra Technologies

Anders Gustafsson is the CEO and a director of Zebra Technologies. Before Anders joined Zebra Technologies, he served as the CEO of Spirent Communications. When he was at Spirent, his strategies helped the company grow in the non-core sector and also made several successful acquisitions. He was also associated with Tellabs Inc and Motorola. He completed electrical engineering from the Chalmers University of Technology.

Inventec Corporation

Inventec Corporation – A Taiwan-based Computer Hardware Company That is one of the Largest Exporters in China.

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China is one of the biggest exporters of electronics and computer hardware across the globe. There are several companies that have made a strong market presence over the past few decades and Inventec Corporation is one of them. Founded in 1975, Inventec is a Taiwan-based publicly traded company based in Taipei. Kou-I Yeh founded the company and currently serves as President of the Inventec Group.

About Inventec Corporation

Inventec is a leading manufacturer of computers, notebooks, telephones, and servers. With the advent of the 21st century, the company is exploring opportunities in cloud computing and wireless communication. Inventec is also investing in IoT and not to mention artificial intelligence-based devices. Evolution is very important for any company to stay in the market and deliver what is latest to the audience. Two of the primary concepts of Inventec for its business are to maintain quality and keep an open mind.

In this digital age, there are currently three main goals that Inventec is trying to achieve. First, open research centers for AI, Industry 4.0, and 5G communication technology. Second, focus on four important fields of servers, smart devices, smart homes, and IoT. Last but not least expanding business in the healthcare and automation sector such that there is room for long-term development.

Inventec Corporation
Image Source: fonearena.com

History of the Company

Born in 1975 with a capital of $1 million, Inventec made impressive growth in the first decade of its business. In 1987, the company was awarded the “PIP Optimal Growth Partner Award” by SEARS. The same year, Inventec made it to the top 20 list of companies recognized as national export excellent manufacturers. In 1988, Inventec’s IPO was approved and it started making plans to expand overseas. The company eventually started manufacturing notebook laptop computers and other hardware products. In 1989, Inventec Besta was established as an independent subsidiary for producing electronic dictionaries. Inventec also started manufacturing phone fax machines via Inventec Electronics.

In the early 1990s, the company went on a partnership with TIM Electronics and Toshiba Co to manufacture communication products. It also received the excellent manufacturer award given by Texas Instruments in 1991. Inventec has its biggest market in China but apart from that the company also invested in opening new units in Hong Kong. In China, it has more than one operating and manufacturing unit including Beijing, Tianjin, Nanking, etc. As Inventec rolled out the reading electronic dictionary, it won the Taiwan Boutique Award in 1984.

Sales and Expansion

Inventec was majorly responsible for manufacturing computer notebooks and in 2000 it manufactured four million units of the same for Compaq Computers. These notebook computers bagged the Best Buy Award from PC World. Some of the other major clients who did business with Inventec are Hewlett Packard company IEC Technologies. In 2008, the annual sales of the company summed up to more than $10 billion. As the sale and annual revenue kept increasing by several folds, the company also established plenty of R&D facilities for better quality products and more innovation.

Inventec also became famous for its social responsibility and bagged the Corporate Social Responsibility Award by Global Views Magazine in 2009. The same year, the company also became the recipient of the “Carbon Reduction Model Enterprise Award” by the government. So far, Inventec has been awarded uncountable awards for both its performance and sustainability.

Important people of Inventec Corporation

Tom Cho is the current Chairman of the Inventec Corporation and he focuses on achieving the first goal of Inventec, i.e., incorporating new AI trends, 5G technology, and Industry 4.0 for the company’s growth. Cho graduated from National Taiwan University with a degree in Electrical Engineering. In 1985, he became a part of Inventec and worked primarily in multimedia, telecom, and other subsidiaries.

Maurice Wu is the working President of Inventec Corporation and he joined the company in 1980. For the last 30 years, he has continuously led the company towards bigger success and innovation. Maurice focuses more on the sustainable goals of the company and he also has experience in manufacturing, product development, and management.

Fastly Logo

Fastly: How This Company with The Right Values is Growing at The Speed of Light

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Data is everywhere now thanks to the Internet Age. According to studies, the amount of total data collected doubles, every two years. Everything from our Internet history to our calendar schedule forms a part of digital data that is important. Research shows that by 2020, we will be producing 1.7 MB worth of data every second! So where does all this data go? Due to Hardware constraints, all computers and mobile phones come with a stipulated storage limit. Also, external hard drives we purchase also have stringent limits on how much space they have. So how do we store the massive amounts of data we create?

Why We Need Cloud Computing

We all want to retain those videos from our first college performance, and also need quick access to our work documents. How can we come up with a system that is secure and at the same time, large enough to store everything? Well, cloud computing has helped most people deal with their storage woes by providing huge amounts of space! Not only do you get to keep your precious memories, but you also get to do so without cluttering up your home.

All your information is locked away in a vault in the sky, so you can loop up baby pictures, and schedule appointments on the go. This time around, we are going to look at one of the fastest-growing cloud computing service providers in the world!

What is Fastly Inc

Fastly Inc.’s highly efficient edge cloud platform allows users access to an extremely fast content delivery network that helps them keep all their memories. Furthermore, the company also provides security services, video streaming, and load balancing. Headquartered at San Francisco, this American juggernaut has offices in New York, London, Portland, Tokyo, and Denver.

Founding Fastly

Artur Bergman founded Fastly in 2011 because he felt the need for a fast and efficient cloud computing service. Prior to founding Fastly, Bergman worked as the VTO of Wikia. Three years into its founding, Google paired up with them to offer users CDN services. This served as a huge boost to the company, which then grew at unprecedented rates.

Image Source – Twitter

So much so, that in 2017, the company launched its own edge cloud platform that supported a ton of new features. The same year, they acquired a Texas-based content delivery network named CDN Sumo. The company helps users extend and expand their existing cloud infrastructure using their network. Furthermore, the service also includes several features such as load balancing, image optimization, and video streaming.

Software Structure

The company’s software works on Varnish, which is an open-source HTTP accelerator. Since they use an open-source product, Bergman has also made it a point to give back to the open-source community. The company supports several non-profit projects such as Hackage, Drupal and DonorsChoose.org. Varnish became the platform for Fastly because it allowed them to reverse proxy and is highly customizable. The software designers always kept performance in mind and then scaled their applications using Varnish. The particular version of Varnish used by them is optimized for large applications, due to the presence of caches.

Giving Back to The Community

Bergman attributes his desire to give back to his raising in a feminist environment such as Sweden. Due to their smaller power distance culture; being inclusive was a way of life rather than a magnanimity. Bergman also believes that diverse teams improve the workspace environment leading to higher productivity. The more diverse the leadership, the easier it becomes to find and encourage diverse talents. This, in turn, makes it possible to create and design diverse products that change the world.

Company Values

Furthermore, Fastly takes both employee and customer satisfaction quite seriously. Since the company works on projects that help people, employees feel great about their work. More people are happy, meaning they genuinely want to look after their users, which makes for great customer engagement and satisfaction. Over 90 employees at Fastly, which constitutes 25% of their workforce, have been there for more than four years.

This proves without a doubt, how important the company views its internal policies and values. The company’s executive team has an almost equal number of men and women. Furthermore, more than 50 percent of their engineers fall into trans, people of color and LGBTQ communities.

Resounding Success

Fastly recently added another $75 million via Series D funding, making the total money hit $130 million! After the financing round, the company named ex-VP of Netsuite, Dan Miller, their CFO. Furthermore, the company recruited ex- Apple privacy strategist, and Mozilla’s security chief to their already impressive employee roster. The company is growing at over 300% year after years, with a team that has grown to over 450 employees now. While the company pushed 40 TB a day in 2012, the data limit per day now stands at 5 PT!

The company already has several high-profile customers such as Twitter, The Guardian, Pinterest, and Wayfair. The company also helped Stripe improve their checkout time by 80%, leading to even more popularity and goodwill within the industry. The company keeps growing from strength to strength having made $144 million in 2018, with revenue growing at 37.8%! Around the world, over 3 billion people see content that served via Fastly, and this is 75% of the world’s internet users. Sure enough, there might come a day, wherein every internet user receives content through a Fastly platform!

Barry Lam : Founder & Chairman of World’s Largest Maker of Laptop Computers

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Success is with those, who work hard towards their goals. The time, the personal computers were just introduced, the Taiwan based visionary entrepreneur, Berry Lam, saw the future scope of the notebook Pcs. He worked hard and used his more than 15 years of experience, in the manufacturing industry, to convert his vision into a successfully running business, and now, he is leading the number one laptop manufacturing company of Taiwan.

Early Life

Barry Lam was born in 1949 in Shanghai, China. His father worked as an accountant for the Hong Kong Club, so he spent his childhood in Hong Kong. He went to Taiwan, to pursue a degree in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University. He also received the master’s degree in the same field, from the same university.

barry-lam
Image Source: forbes

Career

Soon after Lam completed his master’s degree, along with his former classmates, in 1973, he founded a manufacturing business of the handheld calculators, naming the company Kinpo Electronics. Lam was appointed as the president of the company, and in his leadership, the company emerged as one of the largest contract manufacturers of calculators.

Founding Quanta Computer

In the early 80s, with the increasing popularity of personal computers, Lam founded scope in notebook computer manufacturing and became interested in the same field. In 1988, he left Kinpo to found Quanta Computer, along with one of his colleagues, C. C. Leung, with a capital of less than US$900,000.

In the beginning, it had two production lines that were handled by 60 employees at its office in Shilin Street, Hong Kong. Lam, the visionary entrepreneur wanted to become more than just a supplier. With Quanta, he offered combinations of features for its every product, which the client could choose from. Through Quanta he produced functional and powerful, yet lightweight products.

With the success of the company, Lam established its headquarter in Taiwan and also established the Quanta Research and Development Center there. The Center is focused on creating next-generation innovative products and works in collaboration with institutions such as MIT, National Taiwan University and Academia Sinica.

In 2001, Quanta Computer was recognised as the largest notebook manufacturer worldwide and had a 50% increase in the production. In 2002, the company established its plant in China. Under the One Child One Laptop project, in 2007, Quanta took orders for one million laptops and became the original design manufacturer for the OLPC XO-1.

In 2008, Quanta was named as Taiwan’s second largest private manufacturing enterprise, with an annual turnover of NT$777 billion reported in 2007. In the same year, the share of Quanta in the worldwide market was estimated to be 31%. The major clients of Quanta Computer include Apple Inc., Dell, HP, Amazon, Cisco, Lenovo, LG, BlackBerry, Sony, Sun Microsystems, Toshiba, and Verizon Wireless, etc.

Currently, there are 70,000 employees working for Quanta Computer worldwide, and it has expanded its businesses into network systems, mobile communication, automotive electronics, etc.

Personal Life

Currently, Barry Lam is serving as the chairman of the company. He was named the Entrepreneur of the Year 2005 by Ernst and Young. In 2006, he was awarded the Second Class Bright Star Medal’ by the Taiwan Government. He was listed as the 296th richest person in the world and 5th richest in Taiwan with a net worth of US$4.2 billion, in 2012. In the same year, he received an Honorary Doctorate, from the National Tsing Hua University.