The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies of 2015 in Consumer Electronics
FROM CAMERAS IN THE SKY TO STORAGE UNITS IN THE CLOUD, THE BUSTLING EXPANSION OF CONSUMER ELECTRONICS INTO OUR LIVES CONTINUES.
[Photos: courtesy of Samsung, GoPro]
1. GOOGLE
For making the hit laptop nobody saw coming. "A chintzy laptop with a browser for an operating system? What a stupid idea." That was pretty much the reaction from the tech community in June 2011 when Google announced the Chromebook. They were underspecced and utterly useless without an Internet connection. Dead on arrival. But flash-forward three years and suddenly Chromebook sales cracked 5.2 million units in 2014 alone, a number that, according to Gartner, may nearly triple by 2017. How did it happen? Well, the OS got a lot better, and quickly. Core applications like Gmail, Drive (formerly Google Docs), and Calendar now work offline, making the Chromebook, essentially, a fully functioning—if basic—laptop. Then manufacturers started selling those fully functioning laptops for $300. Nowhere has the resulting explosion been more evident than in the U.S. education system. Schools are perpetually in need of computers, and if they can get one that does everything students need for a fraction of the cost, it’s a no-brainer. More than 1 million Chromebooks were shipped to the K–12 education market in the third quarter of 2014 alone. In fact, IDC and Futuresource bothrecently announced that Chromebooks have become the best-selling device for K–12 schools in the country.
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2. TESLA
For revving its electric engine despite the bumpy road. In a year full of challenges—a drooping stock price, rock-bottom gasoline prices—Tesla remains the country’s dominant and most exciting electric-car manufacturer. CEO Elon Musk responded to the company’s growing pains with characteristic brio. First, he announced that Tesla would give away its patents in an effort to accelerate the growth of the electric car industry. ("If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles," Musk has said, "but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal.") Next came word that Tesla would build a $5 billion battery factory—the so-called Tesla Gigafactory—in Nevada. The Musk logic? Scale up battery production dramatically to reduce his cars’ sticker price. Tesla plans to debut the Model X SUV in 2015, but if the budget-friendlier Model III (due out in 2017) can prove more economical, that will further spur the company’s steady growth.
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