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Which tech giants will still be around after 100 years?

economist.com

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Re: Which tech giants will still be around after 100 years?

#11

Post by jurjenh »

zyfo wrote: post #5
reso wrote: post #2

Facebook has huge promise, but I think it is still too young to tell if it has legs on the order of a century. On the other hand, Google has already shown its ability to hop platforms again and again (Search to E-mail, Web to Mobile, Software to Automotive), and their head-start in artificial intelligence will make them an important force for at least two decades. I would bet Google is the company of this generation…

I agree about Google, but I don't think Facebook is even remotely in the same class. For all I know it could be gone in a couple of years. Apple and Amazon seem like two much more likely candidates, along with Google.

Mind you, back in its infancy you could very much have said the same thing about Google (search? how can you even begin to make money off that?) - and Facebook has been acquiring rather a lot of talented engineers.

Assuming that the core priority is to maintain and optimise their core business to a certain point of stability, they can then look at branching out into other areas that present attractive opportunities.

Of course Google has developed a very specific method to encourage this kind of behaviour (80/20) and Amazon has yet again quite a different process, so it would be very interesting to see how Facebook will go about this in the next few years.

Re: Which tech giants will still be around after 100 years?

#12

Post by noiv »

kenjackson wrote: post #3

Horrible article. It makes an arbitrary distinction between products and ideas. I'm sure if you asked Michael Dell, even 10 years ago, what his company is about at its core -- he'd probably say something more like delivering technology to consumers and businesses, customized to fit their individual needs, and using the best processes and efficiencies to deliver at the lowest price possible. Don't bother wasting your…

Agreed. Was expecting some kind of idea why information technology actually is a mega-trend and what possible game changers are around the corner. Just imagine only one patent on a working quantum computing device and all mentioned companies are out.

Re: Which tech giants will still be around after 100 years?

#13

Post by arkitaip »

[deleted] wrote: post #9

[deleted]

IBM has always been in IT:

  The company was founded in 1911 as the Computing
  Tabulating Recording Corporation through a merger of four
  companies: the Tabulating Machine Company, the   
  International Time Recording Company, the Computing Scale 
  Corporation, and the Bundy Manufacturing Company.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM
The reason why IBM still exists to this day while most of its competitors have vanished is because they have been able to redefine what IT means for IBM. That and some of the world's best managers.

Re: Which tech giants will still be around after 100 years?

#15

Post by Sandman »

jurjenh wrote: post #11
zyfo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree about Google, but I don't think Facebook is even remotely in the same class. For all I know it could be gone in a couple of years. Apple and Amazon seem like two much more likely candidates, along with Google.

Mind you, back in its infancy you could very much have said the same thing about Google (search? how can you even begin to make money off that?) - and Facebook has been acquiring rather a lot of talented engineers. Assuming that the core priority is to maintain and optimise their core business to a certain point of stability, they can then look at branching out into other areas that present attractive opportunities.…

Facebook has been acquiring rather a lot of talented engineers.

True, but staying relevant in the field is not an engineering problem, it is a managerial problem. Microsoft had (and still has) a lot of talented engineers, yet they missed out on some great opportunities because of poor managerial decisions. That's why in 2011 they are not as relevant as they were in the 90s.

Re: Which tech giants will still be around after 100 years?

#16

Post by Unseelie »

jurjenh wrote: post #11
zyfo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree about Google, but I don't think Facebook is even remotely in the same class. For all I know it could be gone in a couple of years. Apple and Amazon seem like two much more likely candidates, along with Google.

Mind you, back in its infancy you could very much have said the same thing about Google (search? how can you even begin to make money off that?) - and Facebook has been acquiring rather a lot of talented engineers. Assuming that the core priority is to maintain and optimise their core business to a certain point of stability, they can then look at branching out into other areas that present attractive opportunities.…

I think there's a strong argument to be made for the case that anything based on social is ephemeral. Facebook may be hiring a lot of engineers, but it is also, really very young, and networks change over time. There's a reason the post office doesn't own telecoms, and there's a reason Ma Bell doesn't own facebook, and didn't own Myspace (aside from the fact that they got trust-busted).

Anyhow, it could well the world's greatest computer engineers, but I doubt even that will allow it to survive the shifting sands of both fashion and technology over the next hundred years. Its not that facebook is bad, just that I very much doubt it'll be plugged into the technology that my children use to communicate in high school, twenty to thirty years from now. It may be telepathy.

Re: Which tech giants will still be around after 100 years?

#17

Post by unclickable »

gwern wrote: post #14
[deleted] wrote: post #9

[deleted]

I suppose an IBM stockholder from 100 years ago to now might disagree about how they have nothing in common.

"A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible and exiting only in contemplation of law. It has neither mind nor body of its own."

Re: Which tech giants will still be around after 100 years?

#18

Post by groby_b »

noiv wrote: post #12
kenjackson wrote: post #3

Horrible article. It makes an arbitrary distinction between products and ideas. I'm sure if you asked Michael Dell, even 10 years ago, what his company is about at its core -- he'd probably say something more like delivering technology to consumers and businesses, customized to fit their individual needs, and using the best processes and efficiencies to deliver at the lowest price possible. Don't bother wasting your…

Agreed. Was expecting some kind of idea why information technology actually is a mega-trend and what possible game changers are around the corner. Just imagine only one patent on a working quantum computing device and all mentioned companies are out.

I'm not quite sure why e.g. Facebook would care about a working quantum computer, at least in the short run.
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