Equinix Asia Pacific

You can learn a lot from Pokémon Go. It was a fantastic success, as well as a fun social phenomenon. People were collecting “Pocket Monsters” wherever they went. In fact, Pokémon Go dramatically eclipsed the last famous global fad of the Hula Hoop, which took the world by storm in the late 1950s. Starting in July 1958, twentyfive million of the plastic hoops were sold in less than four months, and in two years’ sales reached more than 100 million units.

While the Hula Hoop was a massive hit, Pokémon Go has probably made more money, and did it much faster. Some sources estimate that Pokémon Go took between US$4 and US$5 million on its first day. At last count, the game had been downloaded over 100 million times and is generating an estimated US$10 million a day for its owners.

The big difference with this is that Pokémon Go has done it all without having to build any factories or buy raw materials. It has exploited the availability of a variety of other components – such as mobile phones, GPS and cloud computing – to transform a simple augmented reality (AR) game into a global social phenomenon.

“Once a sufficiently powerful technology infrastructure and ecosystem exists, then the possibilities are endless”

The most important lesson that Pokémon Go can teach businesses today is simple. Once a sufficiently powerful technology infrastructure and ecosystem exists, then the possibilities are endless. The real limit is no longer technology – it’s inspiration and the ability to dream up new ways of putting what is already in place to work. And this is only possible with the adoption of flexible and scalable computing approaches like Interconnection Oriented Architecture (IOA).

Methodologies like IOA eliminate the technology barrier, enabling companies with the right ideas and applications to achieve tremendous success and reach a global audience extremely quickly and cost-effectively. Even better, the pay-as-you-go nature of IOA reduces the price of failure to a level where firms can afford to take chances. They can try out the most radical new business models without risking bankruptcy. If it works, scale it up. If it doesn’t, shut it down.

Take taxis for example. They’ve been shaken up by Uber and Uberlook-alikes, whilst AirBnB has done the same to the hospitality industry. The basic product – transport and accommodation – hasn’t changed Virtual = Reality By Daniel Ho, Senior Manager, Content & Digital Marketing, Equinix and Eric Hui, Director- Cloud & Service Provider Markets, Equinix Asia Pacific Eric Hui at all. Physical components such as vehicles and bedrooms are still vital. It is the way the service is delivered that is completely different.

The same transformation is happening in every industry, from shipping to travel, and even in how people pay for things. We have reached a “tipping point” where the business model has been completely de-coupled from the infrastructure.

That’s a very different picture from when the industrial revolution took off over 200 years ago. In those days, infrastructure was everything. Today, it is access to infrastructure that counts, not ownership.

Throw in a partner, interconnection, and an innovative idea and you have the potential to be the next Hula Hoop or Pokémon Go. That’s the new reality.

Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX) connects the world’s leading businesses to their customers, employees and partners inside the most interconnected data centers. The organisation is available in 40 markets worldwide, including APAC locations like Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.