EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES

GROUP PROJECT

Program & Batch:

Term:
Course Name:
Name of the faculty:
Topic/ Title :
Original
or Revised Write-up:
Group Number:
Contact No. and email of
Group Coordinator:
Group Members:

PGDM 2014-16
IV
Emerging Technologies and New Opportunities
Ms. Jayanthi Ranjan
Facebook-WhatsApp Deal
Original
6
Ph-7053143420
Email- ft14suneetrajgantayat@imt.ac.in
Sl. Roll No. Name
1 140103169 Suneet Raj Gantayat
2 140101139 Saiyam Arora
3 140101144 Sanchita Krishna
4 140101026 Ankush Kunzru
5 140102065 Krishna Ravi Karanam
6 140103066 Harneet Singh Bahri
7 140103166 Sudheshna Sampathkumar

Contents
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................... 4

Instagram............................................................................................................. 4

Oculus VR............................................................................................................ 4

WhatsApp............................................................................................................ 5

Highlights of Facebook-WhatsApp deal................................................................................. 5

FUTURE SCOPE ENTERPRISE INSTANT MESSAGING.....................................................6
Corporate accounts:....................................................................................................... 6
Celebrity accounts:........................................................................................................ 6
FUTURE SCOPE 2020..................................................................................................... 7
Issues related to these advancements:.................................................................................8
Privacy Settings........................................................................................................... 8
Explicit:..................................................................................................................... 9
PHILANTROPHIC OPPORTUNITIES..............................................................................10
Telemedicine............................................................................................................. 11
Education................................................................................................................. 11
TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE FUTURE.............................................................................. 12
Oculus Rift............................................................................................................... 12
Olfactory Devices....................................................................................................... 13
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................. 14

REFERENCES............................................................................................................. 15

Acknowledgement
We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks and regards to our
Professor, Ms. Jayanthi Ranjan, for her exceptional guidance throughout the project as
well during the course of the subject Emerging Technologies and New Opportunities
(ETNO). Her teachings shall remain deeply rooted within us and will help us in all our
endeavors.
We would like to thank all the department point of contacts and students who took
precious time out of their busy schedules and helped us in this project by providing
relevant information.
Last but not the least; we would like to thank friends and family of all of us who directly
or indirectly helped us to complete this project report.
It goes without saying that we do not mean lack of gratitude for those, whom we may
have omitted in this brief acknowledgement.

Sl.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Roll No.
140102065
140101026
140103066
140101139
140101144
140103166
140103169

Name
Krishna Ravi Shankar Karanam
Ankush Kunzru
Harneet Singh Bahri
Saiyam Arora
Sanchita Krishna
Sudheshna Sampathkumar
Suneet Raj Gantayat

INTRODUCTION
The social media sector grew in double digits in 2014. India led the growth in social media
space. Thousands of websites are coming up every day. The competition in the sector is growing
day by day. In order to curb competition a number of companies undertook merger and
acquisitions. The following are some of the important m&a activities within the sector

WhatsApp acquired by Facebook

Dachis Group acquired by Sprinklr

Klout acquired by Lithium Technologies

Cision and Vocus merge

TBG Digital acquired by Sprinklr

UberVU acquired by Hootsuite

Spredfast and Mass Relevance merge

Oculus acquired by Facebook

VisualGraph acquired by Pinterest

Newsle acquired by LinkedIn

Facebook acquired three businesses in the year. These were Instagram, Oculus and WhatsApp. A
brief about why these companies were acquired is given below

Instagram
It is a picture and video sharing website where people can upload videos and pictures and
share it with their friends. The company was acquired by Facebook for 1 billion dollar.
Instagram was growing really fast and posed a serious competition to Facebook. In order
to curb it Facebook acquired it.

Oculus VR
Oculus was acquired by Facebook for 2 billion dollars. The company is into development
of devices which could sense smell and is doing a lot of research and development. But
the company is yet to launch a product and still Facebook acquired it simply because of
the potential it possesses *8

WhatsApp
One of the biggest headlines for the year was Facebook acquiring WhatsApp. Facebook
acquired it for 19 billion dollars. 8Many analysts thought that valuation were not
justified. But this acquisition gave Facebook an access of 700 million user bases, access
to data and a stronghold in messaging space.

Highlights of Facebook-WhatsApp deal

WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook on 19th February 2014 by Facebook in deal worth 19
billion dollars. According to the terms of the contract CEO of WhatsApp Jan Koum would join
Facebook as board of directors and would continue to head WhatsApp. According to terms 4
billion dollars should be paid in cash, *12 billion dollars would be through Facebook shares and
3 billion dollars would be through restricted stock units.
Facebook would retain the 55 employees of and the acquisition would have no impact on
working of WhatsApp and it would continue as a separate entity. 8

FUTURE SCOPE ENTERPRISE INSTANT MESSAGING

Instant messaging is a kind of online chatting where in text in transmitted in real time over the
internet. Enterprise Instant messaging a form of Secure-Instant messaging where in private
secure networks is used for transmission of messages rather than regular public networks.
This kind of Instant messaging has gained prominence in the recent years due to high profile
business clients trying to look for messenger services with high security that help to transmit
highly sensitive data.
Following are the few EIM services currently available in the market
1. BigAnt Messenger
2. Bopup Messenger
3. DBabble
4. Openfire
5. Winpopup Messenger
In order to gain value out of the deal WhatsApp could be diversified to offer secure messaging
services to lofty profile clients at a premium. As of now millions of people around the world
share sensitive information which is not secured through WhatsApp.
Creating business accounts to provide secured way of messaging could lead to revenue
generation that would justify the amount involved in the deal. Two types of business accounts
could be created.
Corporate accounts: These can be used by top level business clientele where in huge amounts
can be charged for a particular group and extra pay for each member added in the group.
Celebrity accounts: Onetime payment for each account of celebrity added and yearly
maintenance fee to manage such accounts should be charged.

These accounts can be provided with cloud storage to store all their sensitive data and each client
should be provided a security password to access the data

FUTURE SCOPE 2020

We expect Facebook too to join the world trend of acquiring data analytic firms to understand
customer needs better and improve their service offering & delivery.
A lot of data is available with the company to analyses its consumer behavior and tailor its
service offering as per their need. However, companies now understand the need of the
underlying data and are finding ways to draw insights out of it.

We believe by 2020, WhatsApp shall serve as an advanced platform to connect to your loved and
near ones in a more connected way. It may leverage the chat histories of the people to provide
suggestions. Facebook and WhatsApp integration can help suggest birthday gifting options by
just clicking on the host of e-commerce websites connected via WhatsApp. Soon WhatsApp
shall serve as a complete integrated platform more than just a messaging service.
It is also speculated that Facebook WhatsApp may be more integrated into consumers life and
hence, may analyze the chat conversations, history and user profiles to push down options of
near-by locations in sync with the user objective. For example, a person looking for simple
grocery items may receive a pop up showing grocery shops near-by as the user crosses the area.
With these advancements, WhatsApp shall serve as a holistic platform for the user.
Issues related to these advancements:
Some of the issues that the firm may face are related to the security and safety of data.
Privacy Settings: The general doubt that persists while catering to such a suggestion which
involves working with the data of the customer is how safe the data of end user is. If the
analytical firm is able to access the information of the end user and based on that, is able to
provide suggestions using GPS, is it not equivalent to breach of security by the firm? Will it not
lead to negative word of mouth by the firm? To resolve any such issues we have come up with
different privacy settings for each user. This will enable the end user to themselves allow/not
allow their data to be shared. The 2 settings are:
1. Private: If the end user selects the privacy settings as private and location services as
off, his data will not be shared with any analytical firm and hence there will be no
suggestions unless explicitly asked for.

Of

2. Public: If the end user selects the privacy settings as public and location services as on,
his data will be shared with any analytical firm and hence there will be ample number of
suggestions even if not explicitly asked for.

Explicit: Another security setting we have come up with is that explicitly it can be mentioned
that while chatting with a particular number, the data should not be shared whereas with rest of
the numbers, the data can be shared with analytical firms so as to get suggestions while chatting.

Explicit

PHILANTROPHIC OPPORTUNITIES

With the existing Facebook user base; both mobile and web-based and the introduction of
internet.org, the mobile becomes truly mobile.
We expect strong usage of the Facebook -WhatsApp deal fuelled by the presence of limited but
free internet to bring about real human connectivity by building a bridge between those who are
willing to help and those who seek help.

Statistics show WhatsApp is the choice of messenger across the emerging countries and mobile
platforms; which is facilitated by its simple UI and easy-to-use features. This would only be
encouraged with the successful strides Facebook is taking with its ambitious Internet.org project.
The main highlights are features in the package offered, with which the subscribers of selected
telecom companies can access and browse through a set of useful health, education and other
services without any additional cost.
By capitalising on this very same feature, we look at the philanthropic causes that can be
addressed.
Telemedicine

Emerging countries are plagued by a myriad of problems and proper medical care/attention is
one of these. This is usually coupled with erratic roads and transport amenities. With WhatsApp
also being available on laptops, and with its presence across mobile platforms and income and
education levels alike, this would facilitate the spread of telemedicine with a drastic decrease in
expenditure by the lower income group and the space-crunch issues.
Education

Taking forward the philanthropic activities, is taking class-room teaching to every child in this
world. Again, in emerging countries, due to the limitations imposed by population density,
distances and mind-sets, education is a chance happening. Collaborating with Government
efforts that include providing the children with laptops/tablets or educational purposes,
WhatsApp can be used as a medium for providing education to the masses in far to reach places.
The mode of delivery is not fixed and hence flexibility can be maintained in this exercise.

TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE FUTURE

Technology is fast changing the way we perceive things in the world. IT is constantly redefining
the way we interact with professionally and personally, often giving us greater productivity and
more efficient way of doing things. Today technology is changing rapidly and things which were
deemed difficult are being achieved through technology. So as per our assessments we have
narrowed on two specific emerging technologies that we feel harness the power of Facebook and
WhatsApp to deliver better value to the customers in the coming years.
The Oculus Rift and Olfactory devices are emerging technologies that we see will redefine the
way social networking will be done in the future. Virtual Reality is where an optical device is
used to create an environment that a person can have a 360 degree field of view. An olfactory
device is any device which uses or gives out pre-programmed scents to improve a persons
personal experience.
Oculus Rift
Oculus is a company which makes
Virtual Reality (VR) headsets; it was
acquired by Facebook in 2014. They
currently have a VR headset for
commercial

purposes

called

the

Oculus Rift. They also have tie ups

with Samsung and Sony for creating

VR headsets for their products. Galaxy Gear Rift has been designed to be used by the Samsung
Galaxy Note 4 phone to provide an immersive VR experience. In Sony they have teamed up with
the play station team to provide immersive experiences with the Play Station.
With the product having access to a huge customer base with access to a VR headset, Facebook
and WhatsApp there is great potential for creating across platform VR chatting software. People
will be able to communicate with other friends while being in any environment of their choice
from the convenience of their house. Potentially they can choose to be on the moon, floating in
space, driving in car, or anything else while having a conversation. There is a tremendous
potential and promise for an immersive experience that will change the way we choose to
communicate with other people.
Olfactory Devices
Olfactory devices are today not something
which is available for mainstream use. It is an
emerging technology still under development.
There are various versions still being tested by
several product designers across the world.
The OPhone is such an example; this device
has a chip with the memory to store
information about hundreds of scents. The
smell experience can be recreated whenever the product wants to by the combination of several
compounds.
Integrating this into chats across various platforms will help create a more immersive experience
for users, they can share not only share the experiences through photos but also have the ability
to create a sense based experience. Studies have proven that sense of smell has a significant link
with the human memory. Thus using scents in conversation can lead to more pleasurable
experiences.

CONCLUSION
The Facebook WhatsApp deal is a noticeable acquisition in this technology era. It could open a
lot of doors of opportunities later on. 700 million dynamic clients base on WhatsApp gives a
more extensive customer base to Facebook through this arrangement. There could be a
considerable measure of technological headway in WhatsApp which would enhance the client
experience further. A few peculiarities like "WhatsApp Secure" could profit the business experts
from numerous points of view. It would empower them to impart sensitive data over WhatsApp
prompting secure information sharing. This could be a noteworthy offspring of income for
WhatsApp. The utilization of "Tele-medication" in WhatsApp would bring the exertion of
WhatsApp to help the public into the spotlight.
Imparting education through WhatsApp would set a benchmark for all the organizations offering
technological services. The Gifts tab emphasizes the users of WhatsApp helping them to recall
the vital dates of their friends and family. It would fortify connections. GPS framework and
Smart WhatsApp would facilitate easy shopping experience leading to more user satisfaction.
Oculus would bring the virtual reality experience into WhatsApp taking Chatting to an entire
new level. OPhones, a mechanical headway would further the range of WhatsApp in the field of
innovation. This entire arrangement has a ton to offer to Facebook as it could make life simple
for all its clients with such advancements.

REFERENCES
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/five-apps/five-enterprise-instant-messaging-systems/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/howardbaldwin/2014/02/17/instant-messaging-is-going-corporate/
http://www.edupristine.com/blog/cfa-alternative-investment-whatsapp-revenue-model-speculated
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-02-21/news/47559615_1_whatsapp-jan-koum-brianacton