iSuppli study compares the iPod Shuffle vs. Rio Forge Sport -- "In the trendy market for MP3 players, the cool factor counts for a lot. But what makes one MP3 player cooler than another? A dissection of two hot products shows the design tradeoffs and marketing choices made by MP3 manufacturers as they strive to attain coolness, while attempting to balance off other considerations, such as cost and power consumption. The teardown also illustrates how a small, simple and elegantly designed product can be more appealing to consumers -- and cheaper to manufacture -- than a larger, more complex device with a less sophisticated design. The MP3 player represents one of the fastest-growing electronic products today. Shipments of flash-memory based MP3 players will rise to 75.8 million units in 2009, expanding at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 22.9 percent from 27 million in 2004."
The BaaS model has been adopted across a wide range of industries due to its ability to streamline financial processes for non-banks and foster innovation. BaaS has several industry-specific use cases, where it creates new revenue streams. Banking as a Service (BaaS) is rapidly emerging as a growth market, allowing non-bank businesses to integrate banking services into their core products and online platforms. As defined by Juniper Research, BaaS is "the delivery and integration of digital banking services by licensed banks, directly into the products of non-banking businesses, commonly through the use of APIs." BaaS Market Development The core idea is that licensed banks can rent out their regulated financial infrastructure through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to third-party Fintechs and other interested companies. This enables those organizations to offer banking capabilities like payment processing, account management, and debit or credit card issuance without