Slashdot Mirror
Tech's Big 5 -- Here to Stay? (nytimes.com)
schwit1 tips a piece at the NY Times about the most entrenched companies in consumer technology: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. The article makes the case that these five have a such a strong grip on the modern tech industry that they're destined to stick around for the foreseeable future. From the article:
Tech people like to picture their industry as a roiling sea of disruption, in which every winner is vulnerable to surprise attack from some novel, as-yet-unimagined foe. ... But for much of the last half-decade, most of these five giants have enjoyed a remarkable reprieve from the boogeymen in the garage. And you can bet on them continuing to win. So I’m coining them the Frightful Five. .... Though competition between the five remains fierce — and each year, a few of them seem up and a few down — it’s becoming harder to picture how any one of them, let alone two or three, may cede their growing clout in every aspect of American business and society. ... In various small and large ways, the Frightful Five are pushing into the news and entertainment industries; they’re making waves in health care and finance; they’re building cars, drones, robots and immersive virtual-reality worlds. Why do all this? Because their platforms — the users, the data, and all the money they generate — make these far-flung realms seem within their grasp."
On them
This is the age old pattern used by established monopolies or oligopolies. See the purchase of Lyft, investment in Uber, the purchase of Foxpro, how the oil and gas industry purchases wildcat operators as just a few examples. If you have a large amount of cash and are too large to innovate, buy the innovation before someone else does and threatens your business.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
20 years ago, only two of those five companies even existed. And if you had asked the prognosticators back then who would still be on top 20 years later, you would have gotten a very different list.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
I'm sure they will stay relevant just like sun and ibm, oh wait
Since when has Amazon actually been making a profit, then?
Ceci n'est pas une
So far Facebook, which has only been going for 12 years (yes, I know that for all the NOOBS, that seems like forever - and considering their age, it probably is) and has no history of changing itself to adapt to radically different challenges. It might be able to, but until it has gone through a couple of metamorphoses, I wouldn't put any money on it's ability to change and survive.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Not sure what conspiracy site you're getting your info from, but Facebook is still growing leaps and bounds.
Microsoft is turning it around under Satya Nadella.
Apple, you might be right on that one, but not for the reasons you think.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Yahoo will be king of search engines forevah!
AOL is indestructible!
Prodigy? Silicon Graphics? Sun?
Naaah, naah... These "frightful five" companies will be with us "forevah!"
The big 5 can move markets at speeds a smaller shop can only dream of. When your new product is software, not overly complex, and does one specific thing very well, the big shops can replace that product with there own offering very quickly. See Dropbox vs online storage lockers (and Amazon S3).
The big firms are also looking for those small emerging products to copy, acquire, or watch, as they have the money.
Slashdot is boycotting astronomy stories until the blatant sexual harassment and oppression of women in the astronomy field has been properly addressed.
A social media site can vanish as fast as it arrived if the Next New Thing comes along - look at MySpace - so as you say, Facebook could well be gone in 10 years. Not sure about MS, their intrenchment in the business IT world is so vast that it'll take a lot longer than 10 years for them to die even if they made a bigger stuff up than Windows 8 once more. Apple? No chance, not while it keeps selling the New Shiny and with cash reserves larger than some 2nd world countries.
Are some of America's best car companies-Studebacker, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Packard-here to stay?
You can never predict what will be around a year or 2 from now, much less over the next 10, 20, 30 years.
Also, Car Analogy!
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I have friends who work and who have worked there.... the job climate is basically ridiculous. Lots of hours, the pay not as great as their neighbor in Seattle (Microsoft), the advancement not very good either. Not to mention, Amazon is basically falling down in the enterprise space. They have made a lot of gains with CIOs/CTOs who are infrastructure focused and have a mission to "cut costs," so they have companies like GE and the like moving over to use their IaaS, but their platform services are a joke.
Everything at AWS is rehashed open source that is made to fit into a 'cloud' world... nothing wrong with this of course, but most of the basis of their products never really was meant for humungously distributed systems. Microsoft on the other hand (love them or hate them), made a totally new stack for cloud and the development community is embracing it on the enterprise side. This is Amazon's game to lose, but given the way their storage is segregated, their platform is one-way (come to us, no migration path anywhere else!), and their costs are nothing to write home about (because everybody price matches the IaaS pricing now).... I dunno, it's not going to be great for them going into the future. Of course I could be wrong, but right now I think given their human resource problems, their platform issues, and their inability to focus on developers (since they cater more to the ITPro crowd with IaaS solutions), it doesn't look good long term for them.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Nothing will ever change; the world is static; progress is over. So says the New York Times.
IBM
.
If Microsoft were as entrenched as the article implies, then they would not need to employ such despicably deceitful tactics in order to get Windows 7 customers to upgrade to Windows 10.
Microsoft is showing their desperation as they try to remain relevant.
Really? Amazon. Sure, Jeff likes to play and had a lot of money, but it isn't even in the same league as the other four.
No. Slashdot is waiting for Ethan to plagiarize the news and release a new blogspam post of his own.
That shit stain Ethan has to put together a Forbes 'article' before it can appear here.
No doubt whatsoever this will be the next startswithabang post.
Facebook is circling the drain of irrelevance, Apple is failing at online services, Google is in a rut, Amazon has yet to be profitable, only Microsoft continues to dominate and will remain #1 for the foreseeable future.
Modern corporations are really just clubs now. It used to be that an industrial mega-corp owned a huge quantity of capital equipment or physical resources, and this was what allowed them to keep out other competitors. If technology or tastes shifted, this capital equipment could quickly become a liability which would lead to their downfall.
However a tech company is really just a logo that attracts smart people and money from capital markets. Apple's products are not produced because they own the iPhone plantation. They are produced by talented people working continuously to design them. Most of these people are free to go work making phones for other people (or themselves) but while Apple has access to more money than other companies, they can retain the best workers, make the best products, and hence continue to be Apple.
If you want to take down one of the 'big five' the key now is to create a cult of personality that smart people will gravitate towards - like Elon Musk is doing. Then you can get talent from companies with deeper pockets, and eventually build a self-perpetuating club of your own.
Facebook can fade just as fast as Myspace did. Hardly been around to make an impact like the other companies listed. I think HP or Cisco should have made the list.
Facebook appears to have gone a lot further than MySpace did in integrating itself into basic web services. As such it will be harder to dislodge even if its core end-user business ceases growing or even shrinks, as they'll be able to be come a metrics and ratings and data company.
That said, there's still no reason to assume that any given tech or Internet services company will always be around. Go back a few years and AOL and Yahoo were juggernauts. Go back before that and IBM was hot.
Companies live and die by the research and development or the design they do that turns into products. Cut off the R&D, eventually the company withers on the vine. Apple has experienced it when Jobs wasn't at the helm, and other tech companies have folded because they myopically assumed that whatever thing they'd done to make their name would continue to bring in revenue. Look at how long Palm hung-on to PalmOS. Palm could have been what the iPhone and the Android platform have become if they'd not stunted themselves. Granted, their various corporate masters over the years didn't help, but the end result is that they're gone despite having been quite innovative when their products debuted.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Seems everyone has forgotten about the legal defense we call "Too Big To Fail".
Cash reserves or popularity no longer matter as long as someone is still around to convince the government that the corporation qualifies for a taxpayer bailout.
A new and rather disgusting concept to continue perpetuating, but that's the problem with establishing precedent, and every one of the "Top 5" would attempt to use that defense if it ever came to that. And likely succeed.
Failure is no longer an option for monopolies as long as taxpayers exist.
Facebook: not a chance, but it will be a sight to behold when they inevitably start selling chunks of the database
Amazon: spin off AWS, Chinese buys "book" business
Apple: needed, if only so google can claim they have a competitor
Microsoft: already peaked. server market gone. desktop moving to cloud
Google: in our cars, in our homes, in our phones, and on almost every fucking website
Google and Facebook make almost all of their money from advertising/consumer tracking related activities. Both would be very different companies of they had to rely on direct revenue sources.
Facebook could shift to a subscription model and probably do fine - I'm guessing at least 100M or so people will pay $5-10 a month to keep sharing photos with friends and family - FB works well to keep people connected. If they can't run their infrastructure and development on $500M-$1B a month, they already have bigger issues that will bring them down.
Google will have a harder time. They have nothing of value that could fund their operations beyond the ad/tracking services. A crash in the ad market would probably be the end for Google.
Amazon is probably fine for a long time. The web needs a storefront, Amazon provides it.
Apple can crash by ignoring user's needs. As a hardware company with a ton of money in the bank, it will take a while. But, Apple could lose market share quickly if another consumer computing trend emerges that cuts into their hardware business. See Blackberry for a recent example.
MS is too entrenched in the business/consumer world to go anywhere. Just like Oracle won't go anywhere for a long time.
Just my quick thoughts on the topic...
-Chris
Amazon spends all it takes in on being the most vertically integrated business of all time. Google's already in the middle of turning into a conglomerate of unrelated companies. Microsoft is rather famous for splashing out into new industries -- right now it makes tablets and video game consoles. Apple has resisted the impulse, but if it starts actually building cars it will be well on its way. Facebook is the lone holdout -- when will they make a play beyond social networking?
I won't debate the general premise but how the fuck does Facebook get on this list? Where are Facebook's R&D facilities for robots, drones, operating systems for IoT devices, massive Cloud services operations, their business operations in 'health care & finance' etc.? O right, I think I read an article on here that Facebook had purchased a company or otherwise invested in virtual reality...wow, really? Don't get me wrong, the idea seems cool but hardly a 'game changer' to the extent that Facebook is 'entrenched & helping to control their industry'.
Does that mean I think FB will go away any time soon? No, not really I just don't think FB has much of an influence on direction of technology or industry in general as opposed to helping people stay in touch...and in the latter case its a tenuous hold based only on the premise that there doesn't seem to be a major need or drive for a competitive offering in this area though in fact there are many different technologies that all can or do work together to provide what FB does. Seriously, what exactly would the world lose if FB didn't exist or had never existed? A 'better MySpace'...woopdie-do...
The tech world is littered with companies that dominated then died.
Nokia, Motorola, Blackberry.
Facebook shouldn't be in the list and Amazon/AWS should be in its place.
At one time a list would have included IBM and DEC . IBM totally dominated the computer market, and DEC had a solid share of the minicomputer and technical market. The fact that they are not in the list now illustrates that any of the above 5 could become an "also ran", or even be bought out.
MySpace was never anywhere as big as Facebook is today, so Facebook's decline will be quite a longer process. (Still possible within 10 years though.)
Microsoft isn't likely to make the same "stuff up" as Windows 8 in the next 10 years, because Windows 8 was the first step in a move toward faster and lighter upgrades, modern designs, and modern application models and APIs. Windows 10 2026 may look different from Windows 10 2016 but the journey there will be 20 small hills instead of 4 large mountains. I think they will start to once again build on their strengths instead of putting so much focus on the unknown.
Apple's ability to create shiny has diminished. It used to be easier to convince me that an upgrade was warranted sooner, now I don't see the point. Software is still an area they can improve but they refuse to in so many ways. (It's 2016, let me put a damn icon on the bottom-right corner!) But some people have accounts set aside for every September, regardless of what is brought up on the stage, so Apple isn't going away either.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Learn to psyops n00b: That is such a stupid fearmongering nickname!
If you want people to dislike these organizations nickname them the "Five Eyes" to conflate/associate them in the public's mind with mass warrant-less surveillance thereby making the necessary connection that they are an extension of the surveillance state's technology apparatus/public-private partnership/fascist plutocracy.
Last stats I saw showed that Oracle is the 2nd leading software vendor by volume behind MS. They're over $100B in AUM, but they don't make this list? Maybe the "frightful 5" should be the "sinful six".
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
You can't be sure about turning it around - there's no "too big to fail" in the industry. The risk Microsoft runs right now is to swing from one ditch to another. If changes goes too fast then customers won't keep up and if you alienate the IT professionals then you can end up losing corporate support. Especially if there's a breach in their "Office 365" online service solution which is now popular among a large volume of mid-size corporations.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Lousy time to run out of mod points... this was damned good.
I would add though that it's never one factor that makes a company grow, die, or stay steady-state. R&D is one of the most important, but believe it or not, so is marketing, product design, and the state of competition.
We can continue using Palm as an example... the combination of stuff that killed it? Well...
1) As you said, R&D was stifled and stymied, even by its own management.
2) The larger market moved, and gained speed as it did. PDAs were being eclipsed for the same reason pagers were; phones began gaining features that obviated both of them (SMS killed the pager, while Blackberry slowly killed off the PDA. the iPhone was simply the coup d' gras.) To Palm's credit, PalmOS was one of the most-licensed OSes in the North American smartphone market pre-iPhone, but they failed to capitalize on it early/fast enough.
3) competition kept multiplying with no reprieve, with new competitors arriving that were backed by much larger corporations: BlackBerryOS, WinCE/WinMobile, Symbian, iOS, Android, etc etc etc. PalmOS
4) management dithered way too much, and leadership became rather dysfunctional and inward-looking (according to folks who worked there, anyway)
5) investments were grossly misspent, leaving Palm cash-poor at critical junctures.
6) Marketing was AWOL... the Palm brand was incredibly stale by the time smartphones became a thing outside of CxOs and salesmen. While PalmOS did very, very well in North America, its market share was barely above statistical noise in Europe and Asia.
There are a lot of other, smaller factors, but the idea stands - it's more than one thing that determines the fate of a company and its technology, eh? :)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Finally. It's posted now: http://science.slashdot.org/st...
All it really says is they will remain major players in the industry for the foreseeable future
So a month then?
I might agree but even a month is pretty hazy in tech.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Go back a few years and AOL and Yahoo were juggernauts. Go back before that and IBM was hot.
Sure, but... nobody wanted any of those. They were just tolerated until the real thing came along.
The migration was swift when the real thing appeared.
People seem to want Facebook. It will be very difficult to overturn that (Microsoft and Google have both failed and I'm sure Facebook can copy/buy anything that looks like a threat).
No sig today...
You were in too much of a hurry, the article is up now. Just half an hour after you posted.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
AOL
Prodigy
CompuServe
GEnie
Delphi
***
Which of these five is still alive? Okay, AOL as some weird f'd up zombie exoskeleton.
Facebook is growing to the point where it is no longer cool anymore. It's quickly becoming a platform for middle-aged house wives to post pictures of their grandkids, and for men who are interested in sleeping with middle-aged housewives.
PS - your comment about Apple reminds me of one weird trick.
But what if I come up with a very efficient algorithm for prime factorization, would that be a major game changer ? I am working on it......
Bullshit. The more technology changes, the more the requirements of the user base change. Facebook is nothing more then entertainment, and it got a boost by it's correct calculation that people wouldn't mind being scanned and manipulated. There are many more services coming that will be real services changing the way we live and work, they just need the general public to come around to using technology first. I would even dare say that Facebook is an early gimmick that worked.
The thought that this is it.. that this is all that technology will ever do for us is such a bleak view. That would mean our very societies will not change which is totally incorrect.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I'm 45 and never used an Apple product ; Amazon is zero competitive in Canada, never bought anything here ; Facebook is only to see relative pictures, I do not post there ; I use Linux for years. The only thing I use from google is search engine, chrome, gmail.
I must say if Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft were all to dissapear, it will change nothing. But Google as a search engine is still top notch and have no real competition so for the moment, they stay.
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft
Of these 5, I see Amazon as most likely to remain on top. They're the Sears of the Internet. People interact with it the way people used to interact with the Sears catalog. Nothing lasts forever, and the actual Sears is a shadow of past glory; but we're talking several generations here. Web services and retail might suffer in future recessions; but it won't kill them.
Choosing from the rest is harder. I'd put Microsoft and Apple neck-and neck for 2nd place. They've been around for about the same time and even partnered at one point. They both made bank on the PC era (where PC means Personal Computer, not just Wintel) and branched out from there. Apple was way better at branching out from its original core businesses; but MS has some wins too and doesn't live off style like Apple does. Fashion is fickle. Enterprise lock-in less so.
By itself in 3rd place, Google. They're lucky search isn't their only business, and all those PhDs are probably going to surprise us with something. They'd better get a move-on though. A lot of what they do seems replaceable.
Finally FaceBook is most likely to hit the skids. When young people find something new, it'll be like AOL, which is still around but just not terribly relevant or that valuable a property.
If I was to name some of the best managed companies around today, all 5 of those would be on the list, with Amazon ranked highest and Microsoft lowest. Microsoft makes a lot of mistakes, but they have an amazing ability to turn themselves around overnight. Amazon is constantly starting business "experiments", then quickly discarding the ones that don't work. Regardless of how you personally feel about these companies, if they continue to be run as they currently are, they'll be around for a while. All of them have embarrassing amounts of cash in the bank!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Facebook and Amazon have no profits in the past.
Amazon may survive for a while longer, but profitability has to come eventually or investment will start to wane.
Facebook will never make a profit and will die eventually as it should.
When did people get so retarded that they think internet sites and apps represent solid companies with a good business plan?
That has never played out well in the past.
Why is not Intel on this list? It was around longer than the 2 companies you mention, and is even more likely to be around than either MS or Apple in the future.
Despite the fact that thousands of Apple fanbois would probably commit suicide if they went away, they certainly aren't a hardware leader anymore; they are falling farther being Samsung and the Chinese companies. We may be underestimating the impact of their integration of software and web services, however; I believe iTunes is a major player in music sales these days.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I'm fairly sure YOU could disappear overnight and I wouldn't even notice...
And get off my lawn.
For those of you that missed the reference, this refers to a statement made by Bill Gates in The Road Ahead: "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." By definition, all prime numbers have 2 factors: 1 and the prime itself. This gaff was fixed in later editions of the book.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Facebook is 'pivoting'. They've taken over as the defacto 'forum' software for a large demographic. There are a lot of private invite only groups that people are on. It was just last year that they rolled out half assed threaded discussion. You can reply up to 1 level deep.
My wife was invited to one for her profession that's ~5000 MDs and she loves it. She's buried into it like I used to be to Slashdot. They have pretty good discussion and discourse despite Facebook's shitty "discussion" system.
Every time I try to move one of my groups to a forum or even Reddit it's a constant "But I'm already signed in with Facebook". If there was any way to describe how Facebook has embedded itself the online space it's like a cancer. It'll take years to cut out all the 'share on facebook' links and tracking hooks.
I would kill for a Facebook 2004 to come out. As a social network Facebook is absolutely terrible. As a "place where people are on the internet" it's not bad.
The answer is no, of course. In the next 30 years, two or three of those will be gone or mostly forgotten (especially in the consumer space, who are so fickle). That is just obvious. The more interesting question, which of those are most likely to die?
Which of these companies are the most likely to disappear:
Amazon
Apple
Facebook
Google
Microsoft
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Facebook seems to me to be the "one of these things is not like the others." It is a relative newcomer, and the future utility and embrace of social media is very much in question as to whether it is a fad or a lasting institution.
The key words from the summary "stick around for the foreseeable future". Yes, these companies will stick around for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, the foreseeable future is only 1-2 years.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Lotus
AOL
MySpace
Yahoo!
These are just some of the companies that were once considered "dominant" in their various spaces, and then got utterly decimated by the passage of time.
While there may eventually be companies with the endurance and dominance of IBM or General Electric in the Internet space, it is hubris to say it is any of today's current companies. Their future is unwritten, and the mighty have fallen over and over again throughout history.
Nothing will ever change in the world of journalism, at any rate: predict the status quo to keep the advertisers happy, when anything changes report it in bold face as an amazing surprise ("no one could ever have forseen...").
In other words, Facebook's become boring... but that's precisely because it's become ubiquitous and mainstream. Sure, we can only hope for its demise... but what're the odds?
Microsoft isn't going anywhere. AD, Exchange, and SQL server are must haves (where pretty much the world runs on those platforms, with very few exceptions.) Just because MS is as critical to the data center as the CRAC and PDU, they will be around.
Apple? They have a ton of cash, and if pressed, can expand into any market. Already, CarPlay is so important, that it is taking the auto market by storm where car makers either apply to Apple for a license, or apply to the local government for a bailout if they don't have it. Apple always can throw a few billions, enter the enterprise with a bang, either directly, or with a subsidiary. If they make a directory service as scalable as AD, companies will be tripping over each other to adopt it.
IBM? They are betting a lot on OpenStack. OpenStack advancing by leaps and bounds, but is not ready for primetime. Basic stuff like fault tolerance that has been baked into VMWare for ages, but still isn't present in a usable form for production critical use. Plus, with HP running away from the public cloud foray, it may or may not be a profitable endeavor, especially when fighting against Amazon's tried-and-true services.
Facebook? They replaced E-mail, scheduling, messaging, websites, forums, and many other items. Some sites even rely on them for authentication. They are not going anywhere, as there is nothing out there that can do what they do.
VMWare? They will still be around. Even now, nothing even comes close to their offering for polish and usability in the enterprise. Hyper-V is nipping at their heels, but definitely still behind.
Microsoft is turning it around under Satya Nadella.
Yup, turning it toward the grave.
Between Windoze 8, Winblows 10, and Windows Phone, M$ is really doing great things. NOT!
I think it will be a close race betwen M$ and Facebook as to which one dies first.
We have on Slashdot for many many years proclaimed with certainty that Microsoft is dying. I guess many businesses would hope to be dying this way..
I LOVED my Palm Pre Plus. It took YEARS for Google and Apple to catch up to the card system WebOS used. It felt great in your hand and had a unique shape that you didnt hate. I used it proudly for a long time. Its a damn shame it all fizzled out. (yes i know WebOS lives on)
Good-bye
only that yahoo and aol are not really the best examples as neither of them had a strong global presence, both cases had a majority of american user
That seems oversimplified. The only real measure is traffic (and acceleration thereof), and Yahoo had plenty. I'm not sure I particularly wanted Google but some time in my teens made the switch for reasons that had nothing to do with algorithms. People don't really want most new tech until they're marketed heavily, and free to use.
As a "place where people are on the internet" it's not bad
I think this is where you hit it on the head, at least from a business perspective. Now I know there's a lot of Facebook haters ("You'll never catch ME on there!"). And hey, good for you. Seriously. But the bald truth right now is that facebook has like a billion users, so if you're in any sort of consumer-facing sector, if you're not leveraging Facebook in some way you're really missing the boat.
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
I am absolutely certain that Chinese companies will not be able to pierce the top-end design area for probably at least two decades. The Chinese are famous for imitation and cheap knock offs, but are obviously capable of top end anything- the problem seems to be that almost no Chinese products has NEW DESIGN. It's like their engineers can't their pointy haired bosses to invest in design as a concept. They copy an existing design, or they have some flat brutalist approach.
Samsung? Yea, Samsung could compete over overcome Apple. I don't think that they necessarily will, but it's definitely conceivable.
Poopers know that pooping poops is the future, not luddite shitters.
Poops poops poops!!!eleven
It is interesting to consider the components of the Dow Jones Industrial Index over time.
Some have stayed around forever (General Electric, since DJIA started in 1896). Some you may have never heard of (International Nickel, 1927-1959).
The majority of current DJIA components have only been in the index since 1991.
#unfortunatetruths
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Facebook is going to die just like MySpace did. http://motherboard.vice.com/re... As the article states, teens don't use facebook all that much. I have 4 teenagers in my house, and they've all quit using it for Instagram, Tumbler, and Twitter. I think 2017 might be a bit premature, but I could certainly see it in steady decline by 2020. Their growth rate is getting close to zero, so I'd say they're about to hit their peak this year.
Yeah, have to agree, to a point. The only consumer penetration they have appears to be windows, zune failed, their tablets aren't exactly on fire, their phones are on life support. But their business facing products are probably more or less indispensable. I mean, I know their market share is being eaten away a little, but I can't count the number of times I've heard managers say that they aren't looking to gut their digital infrastructure any time soon for any OSS options, and they usually laugh when you mention Apple, so, I dunno. Maybe they'll be able to get Surface or some variation of it to catch consumer fire.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
I loved my Palm V. I found graffiti very usable. I would love to have had the opportunity to try out the Palm smart phone OS they started shipping a few years ago with those two models, but by the time they started shipping, they cancelled the effort, or whatever. Wasn't able to get my hands on one.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
I rather like google+, but of course I'm the minority. As usual.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
iTunes is falling behind in the music industry because the idea of buying music is being replaced by a Netflix-style subscription model, which iTunes was late to.
X-box has consumer penetration as well. Solid and relatively close 2nd-place, and currently turning a profit (yes, you can bicker over lifetime profits, but they aren't going to get those profits back by cancelling a now-profitable xbox today).
People may not have loved AOL, but they loved Yahoo. They really did. There were Alta-Vista holdouts, dogpile holdouts, etc..
Then Google came along and just got better results at the time (remember, not only has Google and its competitors improved, but the actual content of the web has also changed drastically).
You can't really ignore MS's dominance in the business world. MS's disappearance would certainly be felt there.
Facebook do what they do pretty well, and the network effect is huge. Look at Google's miserable failure in trying to compete in their space.
Apple though? Is there any area in which they don't have strong competitors, or even any area they're dominant in? If Apple disappeared, people could switch to alternatives easily.
Sears used to be a retail giant. They still exist, but they aren't top 5 anymore.
Gateway used to sell more PCs than Apple, back when desktops mattered
AT+T connected the world to the world, you to your friends
Yellow Pages were the one true way to find something
IBM was unstoppable force, once upon a time. All of the "Evil Empire" FUD that now is attributed to Microsoft, was once attributed to IBM.
Change may be slower than the article wants to deal with. But change is eternal; Heraclitus knew it long before any of us were born ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus )
Any time the headline ends in a question mark, the obvious answer is no.
This is why "journalism" is dead. It's been reduced to shameless flattery of the worthless robber baron horde. Both the false prophet and their anti-Christ can burn in Hell.
...for now. Why do people keep on forgetting history and not remember that nothing is permanent? Every tower falls eventually.
if you're not leveraging Facebook in some way you're really missing the boat.
I gave up using Facebook as a social network and am starting to use it like 'normal people'. I moved to Snapchat for my 'social network' to keep up with family and friends. But when I need to call out a company I'll do it on Facebook and Twitter. Nothing gets PR reps moving faster than a bad experience waiting to go viral.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car bent over backwards on and after Facebook after ignoring e-mails and phone calls.
Facebook worth $266B with a P/E of 95? Amazon worth $268B with a P/E over 800? Alphabet and Microsoft each worth more than $400B? Apple worth $536B? They'll probably stick around for at least the next 5 years, but some of these valuations are insane.
Facebook
Apple
Netflix
Tesla
Alphabet
s
y
It's been said before:
"With so much of the PDA market, Palm is here to stay."
"With so much of the dial-up market, AOL is here to stay."
"With so much of the phone market, Blackberry is here to stay."
All it takes is one slip-up or one unexpected shift in technology to turn a "here to stay" company into a has-been company. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. might be big and smart enough to survive longer than others, but they don't have a guarantee of sticking around merely because of their size.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Leveraging core business?
#downwitholdspeak
I guess the NYT hasn't heard of them
The longevity of any business is, at it's core, a function of human nature over time. As such, eventually a set of circumstances will occur that put each and every company out of business. Given that, as to how long the so called big five will last, it's more of a "when" than an "if". google.com will, someday, return a 404. You can count on it.
You'll have to explain the bit about men interested in sleeping with middle-aged housewives. Facebook isn't a dating site, so the only way I can see that working out is if the man is already "friends" with these housewives and talks them into an affair. That's not much different than people sleeping around with their neighbors or people they work with or go to church with: people they already know. Maybe I'm missing something, but if you're looking for someone to have an affair with, FB seems like the last place to go.
The other thing I see FB being popular for (besides people posting pics of their grandkids) is for right-wingers to repost their crazy shit they found on right-wing websites about FEMA concentration camps and the like.
As for its survival, unfortunately I don't see how even the complete loss of under-25 people would hurt them much. All those middle-age right-wing nuts (who comprise 25-50% of the US population) aren't going to give up on it for at least a few decades, and are also prime fodder for advertisers.
Amazon is already on the list.
I'd hate to be Alexandre Julliard if Microsoft failed. He'd drown in the money people would throw at him.
And this sort of silly and poorly thought out opinion piece is why I'm not a big NYT fan.
Don't step on the baby.
Facebook isn't a dating site, so the only way I can see that working out is if the man is already "friends" with these housewives and talks them into an affair.
Ah, you've never joined a group on Facebook have you? I'm going to guess your use and experience with FB is still quite limited.
and other tech companies have folded because they myopically assumed that whatever thing they'd done to make their name would continue to bring in revenue
*cough cough* GoPro :-)
Try it! Library of Babel
No, I actively avoid it. What groups are you talking about?
The problem with the idea that these five are "here to stay" is that it takes intelligent effort, a lot of intelligent effort, to stay on top. All of these companies are putting in the effort now, but if their effort flags, or they end up doing something stupid, others (perhaps the other four, perhaps someone new) will eat their lunch. Yes, size makes a difference, and can make it easier in many ways for a big tech company to stay on top, but size alone won't do it: if one of these companies decides to relax and sit on its laurels, it will lose its top spot.
Most of the big five are run by jews. Coincidence?
I'm old enough to remember a pundit writing that Sorcim (WordStar), Ashton-Tate (dBase 2) and Lotus had the world tied up and were unassailable.
Here is advertising as a percentage of GDP for the last 90 years:
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-03-03/advertisings-century-of-flat-line-growth
"Adblocking will win the technical fight, and while users of adblock software (I recommend ublock origin, and I think we know what apk host engine guy recommends!)" - by cfalcon (779563) on Wednesday January 20, 2016 @12:29PM (#51337313)
See subject: They're advertisers & as far as UBlock variants? They're inefficient & inferior + using hosts but NOT fully as APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit http://www.start64.com/index.p... and my method using hosts is HANDS-DOWN the most technically proficient efficient "Kung-Fu" there is (judging by the inability of 100's of /. naysayers inability to prove me validly technically wrong for years now here, & yes, other sites too...)
Browser addons are not only inferior technically & massively inefficient vs. hosts files but they're ILLOGICALLY "bolting on 'MoAr'" as well increasing CPU, RAM, & other forms of I/O inefficiency (messagepassing overheads in an already SLOWER less efficient operations layer in usermode vs. hosts in kernelmode (more cpu serviced) as part of the IP stack itself with DECADES of refinement behind it...) AND THUS they're REDUNDANT stupidity!
APK
P.S.=> Between UBlock origins inefficiency shortcomings which I've outlined MANY TIMES in detail here (as is the case with ALL inefficient redundant addons of adblocking nature) it's also seen the sheer VALUE of hosts - but it's NO RESOLVER & thus you don't get the benefits of more anonymity vs. tracking @ DNS or CDN levels, or MORE SPEED via hardcoded host-domain names where you spend most time online @ the TOP of hosts cached in RAM operating in kernelmode speed, OR more reliability vs. DNS redirect poisoning (of which 99.999% of ISP DNS are NOT PATCHED against mind you) or downed dns too... apk
"Cite? I've seen no evidence of that." -
Want citation proof? You've GOT it bullshitter -> CITATIONS (50++% of users are blocking ads & growing):
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2..." ADD_DATE="1445001134
http://games.slashdot.org/stor...
(Want MORE? I've got them - "EAT YOUR WORDS" boy... rookie noob pr plant that you are obviously!)
AND
Then there's cfalcon (& tons of users here doing the same) telling you what he did + MY technical reponse to him as well http://apple.slashdot.org/comm... that YOU are MORE THAN WELCOME to *TRY* to "take me down" on... trust me:
I'LL EAT YOU ALIVE & SHIT YOU RIGHT OUT just as I have here above "Mr. Citation" bigshot (not) "Google Engineer"... bank on it AND here too also today http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
Lastly:
I strongly suspect you're INTENTIONALLY playing "ostrich with your head in the sand" BOY!
(You're full of bullshit - you're just being a "paid for" & commenting for your company trolling shill - "that doesn't happen"? Listen BOY - I worked for companies that are HUGE in the telecom industry in my time @ NOC levels - lower level folks in them are TOLD TO NOT COMMENT ON THE COMPANIES' article on news sites under penalty - they send in "special people" like YOU I suspect to do so, with PUREST BULLSHIT - I stomp on FOOLS like you constantly (even taking down the likes of Dr. Mark Russinovich in my time on memory use + bugs in his wares (for attacking ME first)) - who are YOU by comparison? NOBODY - I was doing this stuff when you were in diapers I'd strongly wager & EXCELLING @ it!)
APK
P.S.=> Fact: You're GOING DOWN boy, just like Google your "master" pulling YOUR STRINGS (due to your bs pr 'spinwork' boy) -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
Do people actually want Facebook? I can't say I know anyone who really likes Facebook. I know lots of people who just seem to bitch about it. Blah blah timeline blah blah blah. It's just something the people seem to tolerate because that's where all of their friends are at. It's true there have been some pretty high-profile attempts (and failures) to dislodge Facebook from it's throne, but I wouldn't say that's because people wanted Facebook - it's just that the other services really weren't compelling enough to get a critical mass to switch over.
Advertising online is getting the SHIT knocked out of it https://blog.pagefair.com/2015... and rightfully so for infesting us with malware due to the STUPIDITY & NEGLIGENCE of advertisers!
* Me? I decided to do something about it that's far more effective than ANY OTHER MEASURE OUT THERE -> http://apple.slashdot.org/comm... that IS NOT CLARITYRay BLOCKABLE like browser addons either & does FAR MORE for FAR LESS in resources consumed vs. threats online of most all kinds also besides adblocking to get users more speed, security, reliability & even anonymity online (vs. tracking).
APK
P.S.=> Beat THAT with a stick (while it helps beat the shit out of negligent GREEDY useless advertisers online) - ok? Good Luck - nobody here ever has... or elsewhere either! apk
See subject: Over 500 sites were infected by them delivering malware http://digiday.com/publishers/... even major sites like the Economist http://www.economist.com/help/...
APK
P.S.=> It's why I created my hosts file program... apk