Future Techworld

For the third year in a row, Apple was named number one in a new annual survey of the top 10 most innovative companies.
Almost 80 percent of the respondents in the 700-company survey by management consulting firm Booz & Company named Apple as one of the top three most innovative companies in the world.
Google, which took the second spot overall, ahead of 3M, was listed in the top three by 43 percent of respondents.
"Apple's innovation focuses on bringing together different parts of an ecosystem and tightly integrating them together with meticulous attention to detail" Reticle Research analyst Ross Rubin was quoted as saying by CNN
"They refine consumer capabilities in an approachable offering with broad appeal," Rubin told Wired magazine, a leading tech publication, via e-mail.
Samsung, number four on Booz's list, takes a different approach than Apple, making a point to incorporate the latest technologies into its products, like large OLED displays and NFC.
"Other companies, like Dell, focus on relatively unglamorous innovation in process and manufacturing," Rubin said. And then there are companies like Google, whose innovation is largely left to prototypes and concepts, things like Project Glass.
"I think Apple is a leading innovator among tech companies - but innovation comes from many companies, and it's easy to point to clear examples from many of Apple's competitors," Forrester analyst Charles Golvin told Wired.
Interestingly, innovation (at least in the surveyors' eyes) is not tied with R&D spending. Apple's absolute R&D expenditures rank it 16th within its industry, CNN noted.
Microsoft, the top R&D spender in the software and Internet area, was ranked as the sixth most innovative company.
Golvin thinks Apple will continue to be a leader in innovation in the coming years, despite doubts about the company now that Steve Jobs is out of the picture.

Apple is the world's most valuable brand followed by Microsoft, Coca-Cola, IBM and Google, according to Forbes.Apple has topped the 'World's Most Valuable List' compiled by Forbes magazine with a brand value of $104.3 billion, nearly twice other technology major Microsoft, which has a brand value of $56.7 billion.

"... the Apple name is as strong as ever. Apple is the most valuable brand in the world for a third straight time at $104.3 billion, up 20 percent over last year. It is worth nearly twice as much as any other brand on the planet by our count," Forbes said.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's brand value has remained flat over the past three years, as the company struggles to make a transition from PC to the mobile world, the magazine said.

"Growth has slowed, but it is still one of the most profitable brands in the world with operating margins of 34 percent in its latest fiscal year," it said.

With a brand value of $54.9 billion, Coca-Cola was ranked third in the list, followed by IBM ($50.7 billion), Google ($47.3 billion).

Among the top 10 brands, McDonald's, with a brand value of $39.4 billion, was ranked sixth, followed by General Electric ($34.2 billion), Intel ($30.9 billion), Samsung ($29.5 billion) and Louis Vuitton ($28.4 billion).

Brands from US-based companies make up just over half of the list of 100, with the next biggest representation from Germany (nine brands), France (eight) and Japan (seven).

No Indian company features in the list.
Samsung, which came at No.9, had the strongest one-year gain of any brand in the top 100, up 53 percent to $29.5 billion. The company's value soared 136 percent over the past three years.

"Sales for Samsung's Galaxy S4 smartphone have been on fire and the company also benefits from its market leading position with memory chips," Forbes said.

Forbes, however, said the value of a brand can collapse in the complex, fast moving technology world.

Forbes had valued the Blackberry brand at $6.1 billion last year, but this year it stood at just $2.2 billion and has come out of the top 100 brands list.
Forbes valued the brands on three years of earnings and allocated a percentage of those earnings based on the role brands play in each industry. The 100 most valuable brands span 15 countries across 20 broad industry categories.