Central Illinois' IT Experts

The Smartphone Market Has Gotten Smaller Through Consolidation

Or, in other words, the market is shrinking.

Not all that long ago, the smartphone market was relatively flooded with companies looking to carve out a share for themselves. As time has passed, however, many of these companies have left the space. Some, like LG, Microsoft, and Amazon, simply closed their smartphone divisions and stopped making the devices, while others have been bought and sold, like Motorola—once a leader in the space—has experienced a few times.

2022 alone saw a 12% decline in the market. Admittedly, this doesn’t seem to line up with some of the statistics we’ve referenced here. How could the market for a product category with an 86%-plus global adoption rate be in decline?

Here’s the thing, though: a lot of these people aren’t shelling out for a new phone every 18-to-24 months like they once were.

There are various reasons for this, of course, but a big one is the lack of innovation most of the smartphone space has seen.

Are Smartphone Manufacturers Actually Innovating?

If you ask the manufacturers, they certainly are. Nowadays, a budget smartphone can compete with what a flagship from just a few years before had to offer. However, this accomplishment means less each year, as flagships introduce less and less with each iteration.

Keep in mind, these flagship phones—famously, the most expensive option—once showed massive improvements across the board each year. New chipsets were incorporated into the builds, displays were brighter and increased in resolution, there were real improvements made to the camera setups, and user interfaces tried new and innovative designs. 

Lately, this has changed. Real innovations have been scarce, but costs have risen more than ever. Any actually innovative changes we’ve seen haven’t really gone anywhere, as the practical need for these changes falls short of the costs.

Little Reason to Invest Means People Aren’t Going to Make an Investment

As innovation decelerates, so does the incentive for people to buy a new device. Let me put it this way: would you jump to purchase a new device, for twice the money you paid for your last one (that still works, by the way), that really didn’t add anything significant?

No?

That’s exactly why so few companies have persevered in the space and managed to make a profit. They’ve filled their marketing with buzzwords referring to innovation, without doing very much of any substance to back up these words.

Sure, having the latest and greatest new iPhone or Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel is nice, especially when upgrading from an older phone from a few years ago, but the differences between the model from one year to the next really doesn’t justify the cost for most consumers.

However, despite all this, it can’t be denied that the smartphone is integral to today’s societal makeup. This is what has largely preserved the need for continued buy-in, despite the lack of any functional enhancements of any note.

We Can Help You Integrate Mobility into Your Business’ Operations

While adding mobile devices to your organization’s IT brings a lot of benefits, it also adds some significant managerial challenges. We’re here to assist, with our technicians helping you manage all the new endpoints you have with a robust mobile policy, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, and other aspects that will help you better take advantage of mobile productivity. Call us at 217-475-0226 to get started, or with any questions you may have.

Small businesses could do a whole lot worse than turn to Decatur Computers Inc. and the managed IT services we offer. What follows are four reasons we’re so confident in saying so.

Two Words: Cost. Savings.

Speaking candidly, managed IT helps save businesses money. Not only are internal IT workers expensive to find, interview, and onboard, they are expensive to retain with all the stress they are so often under. Burnout is very real, and the IT department is no stranger to it.

Plus, technology is notoriously expensive to maintain as well, particularly if your strategy is to exclusively replace technology when it breaks. With the help of managed services from a trusted provider like us, you’ll have more affordable access to an entire team of IT professionals ready to assist your in-house staff with their responsibilities, working proactively to help eliminate issues before a problem starts.

Security. Need I Say More?

Network security is a complicated thing, with dozens of moving parts and considerations to keep in mind. There’s a constant race to keep everything up-to-date and patched, along with the constant threat of outside forces worming (sometimes literally) their way in. This is all before we mention the unfortunate fact that, intentionally or not, your own employees can create security issues.

This is why the expertise of an MSP can prove to be such a great asset. Our team can tackle your cybersecurity needs on two fronts, both reinforcing your network to preventatively keep as many threats as possible out and helping train your team to be more secure so that they don’t invite threats in. On top of all this, we can help keep an eye on your network via our remote monitoring and management tools.

Improved Performance

As technology gets older, things tend to slow down a bit and work less well than they once did. We can step in to help avoid these effects, proactively maintaining your technology and nipping budding issues…well, in the bud. We’ll make sure that your infrastructure is appropriately patched and up-to-date, and all without having to leave our offices and interrupt your team by arriving in person.

Our Team Will Be Available to You

Speaking of our team, you’ll be able to leverage their capabilities the way that you best see fit. Is your internal team too busy working on big initiatives to help the rest of your team with small issues as they pop up? Or perhaps you’re dealing with the opposite? Maybe you don’t currently have any IT resources, and have been reliant on the services provided by another provider who gets there when they get there.

Outsourcing even some of your IT needs to Decatur Computers Inc. can help solve so many operational issues, making work a more straightforward and less stressful experience for everyone.

Any way you cut it, having a relationship with a managed service provider like us is likely to result in greater success. Find out more about how we can help you accomplish more by giving us a call at 217-475-0226.

There are a couple of ways you can make your keyboard Internet shortcut.

Manually

To manually make your keyboard Internet shortcut, right-click on your desktop and select New > Shortcut. When the dialog box opens, type the website URL in the box that appears, then select Next. You’ll then be prompted to give your new shortcut a name. Once you’re ready, click Finish. Your new icon will appear on your desktop.

Now, when you right-click it, you can select Properties to see information about the shortcut. From here, you can change the URL, assign a shortcut key, and change the icon. Click in the Shortcut key box, then type the key you would like to use for your new shortcut. The key combination will then appear in the box.

Click-and-Drag

To save yourself a step, you can simply click-and-drag the shortcut’s URL to your desktop to make the shortcut a bit faster and more easily. This also assigns your shortcut a name in the form of the website page’s name. From here, you can right-click the shortcut, select Properties, and see the same information that you could see in the above step.

And that’s all there is to it! Now you can make custom keyboard shortcuts for your favorite websites. Alternatively, you could just use bookmarks in your browser, but the more tools you have at your disposal, the better.

Decatur Computers Inc. can help your team best utilize its technology for the sake of productivity. To learn more, call us today at 217-475-0226.