

Which tech giants will still be around after 100 years? - teralaser
http://www.economist.com/node/18805483?story_id=18805483

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kenjackson
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 time reading it. You'll have wasted two minutes,
learned nothing, and have even less respect for the Economist.

~~~
noiv
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.

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

~~~
noiv
Looks like bashing Facebook leads to down votes, interesting.

But short run is not 100 years. And yes, Facebook will care from day one about
QC, think data center and investors willing to burn money to foster old school
technology.

~~~
groby_b
As far as I know (and I haven't read too much about QC, so I might very well
be totally off), QCs are only useful for a very specific set of problems. And
none of those seem to map to FB problems right now.

Will that change? Sure. Will FB do internal research with QCs? Maybe, once
they've progressed past the vaporware state. (Sidenote - if we observe QC
less, will development work better? ;)

But a working QC will _not_ put FB out of business any time soon. The hardware
is only a tiny piece of the puzzle of quantum computing. Algorithms for QC are
rare, hard to develop, and the field is in its absolute infancy.

~~~
noiv
"The hardware is only a tiny piece of the puzzle of quantum computing.
Algorithms for QC are rare, hard to develop, and the field is in its absolute
infancy."

Is that the description of computer technology as of 1911?

~~~
groby_b
More ca. 1930 - precursors of the Church-Turing thesis showing up. And if
anybody then had predicted that "one patent on computers, and IBM is out of
business", they would've been wrong too.

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reso
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 that is still around in 2050.

~~~
zyfo
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.

~~~
jurjenh
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.

~~~
Unseelie
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.

------
falava
List of oldest companies:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies>

~~~
bergie
Hotels and alcohol seem to be clear winners - same service has been relevant
as long as there has been commerce.

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dkrich
This article is terrible. It is essentially taking the hottest tech companies
of today and making a conjecture that because they have maneuvered well to get
where they are, that 100 years from now their methodologies will still apply.

I realized this author had no clue when he/she explained that Microsoft isn't
a safe bet while Facebook is. Um, last I checked MS had a $200 billion market
cap. I don't think you can compare that to a website that has been in
existence for 7 years and hasn't even shown profitability. I'd bet a week's
pay that he/she hasn't ever used an Oracle product or could even explain how
its database technology is used.

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protomyth
I think Facebook is really in the most danger of the whole group. I can't help
but think something else will show up.

Apple has a good shot, but I think Dell is not going to be around. It just
seems like the integrated model is going to last and Microsoft is going to do
it own thing (ala XBox).

Google might have serious problems if something other than the web shows up
and advertising is harder. I am really not convinced (despite the efforts of
many) that the web is the endpoint.

~~~
maxwell
I think Google's going after data (profiting on ads), commoditizing
automotive, transport, energy, medical, computer hardware, telecommunications,
software, and social.

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seanalltogether
Nintendo has been around for over 130 years now, however they've only been a
tech company since the 70's

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lachlanj
Terrible Article, I am surprised to see the from The Economist. It seems like
they just want to name drop the most popular tech companies of late.

Facebook has just as much chance of disappearing in 5 years as it does of
being around in 100 year.

Google probably has a better chance than any of these companies of being
around in 100 years, they are in the oldest industry of all time. Advertising.
Plus they have shown they are willing to invest in new technologies to stay
current, ala self driving cars.

Amazon has massive potential, but by no means are they guaranteed.

Apple, Google and Microsoft all have ridiculous piles of cash, provided they
don't make any stupid big bets, all of these companies will easily be here for
the next 100 years just on these cash piles alone.

~~~
StavrosK
Google is actually in the AI business, which is why I think they're the most
likely to be around in the future.

~~~
lachlanj
Yes, Ai which is applied to advertising. They do advertising in a very unique
way but I still feel it boils down to ads. I think they will be a huge force
for Ai in the future, they should be more so now, but will the make money from
Ai unrelated to ads in the future? Time will tell.

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cjoh
Weird that Nokia wasn't mentioned. Depending on how you count it, Nokia is
nearly 150 years old:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia>

~~~
bergie
Even though I've seen people explain it as a story arc of _communications
technology_ , Nokia's progress through paper, cables, TVs and mobile phones
doesn't really make a compelling single service vision that the article was
aiming for.

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warfangle
I'm surprised AT&T wasn't mentioned. Yes, it was broken up as a monopoly, but
it's been slowly growing back into its former self.

~~~
metageek
Isn't AT&T dead? SBC bought the name, not the company.

~~~
troystribling
SBC bought the company and used the name.

~~~
metageek
<dig, dig>...oh, you're right.

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josephmosby
Intel? I always think of them as the bread and butter of IT. Only 45 more
years and they'll be a centennial company.

~~~
edtechre
Not if ARM processors continue to gain ground.

~~~
josephmosby
But Intel is an ARM licensee through DEC. They've been making ARM processors
through the DEC channel for years now.

~~~
edtechre
Let me clarify: competing ARM processors :)

Chances are it's not an Intel CPU you're using in your smart phone, tablet, or
game console.

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contextfree
Yeah, I'd be very surprised if Microsoft ever managed to branch out from only
making BASIC interpreters.

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Tichy
I bought Google shares simply to insure myself against the singularity. If AI
emerges from Googles data centers, maybe it will have mercy on me because I
helped fund it's creation.

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alanfalcon
Tell me more about these Japanese hotels from the 8th century.

~~~
falava
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoshi_Ryokan>

~~~
m0nastic
Over 1300 years old, and this is at the bottom of their web page:

"Please use Netscape Navigator and the Shockwave plug-in to see this site in
its full majesty."

I'm curious what it will say in another 1300 years.

~~~
powertower
"Teleport to galactic planetary body coordinates: 09248x35624x456643x55633"

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RockyMcNuts
A little surprised Cisco comes in for no love ... if your mission is to
provide the best platform for routable network equipment, one would hope as
long as there are routable networks they should do OK.

Of course, if you don't execute on your mission, dilute your franchise by
buying tangentially related companies, gouge your customers, might turn out
differently.

Are routers and network equipment going to be a commodity, or is a good
platform going to keep providing a moat and competitive advantage?

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flocial
We're still defining IT. The building blocks are the same from card-punching
days but what we've built on top of that foundation is light years ahead and
evolving faster. Information technology has the most potential to displace or
swallow other industries and even redefine the human race. The survival of
Google or Apple as a going concern seems pretty immaterial in that context.

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waterlesscloud
There seems to be a lot of focus on a company disappearing by dying, but it's
far more likely that any of these companies will disappear via merger or
acquisition.

When you look at it from that perspective, any of them could go through a
downturn in the next 80+ years that leads to some hot new company just buying
them outright.

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holri
The free software movement giant will definitely be around in 100 years.

~~~
gaius
COBOL will be around in a thousand, so long as there is payroll there will be
COBOL.

------
cageface
Anybody willing to make _any_ predictions about the world 100 years from now
is much braver than I am.

~~~
bergie
The article was aiming to explain the characteristics of a company likely to
make it, not exactly to say which companies will.

What is nearly certain is that there will be major technological shifts in the
next hundred years. What they are is impossible to say. But the less married a
core business idea of a company is to the current technologies, the more
likely they can make the jump to whatever comes first.

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kylemaxwell
Great premise but disappointed with the article's incredibly superficial
approach and examination.

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mikle
I think we are not the target audience for this article...

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Apocryphon
COBOL Engineering.

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edtechre
Facebook lasting a hundred years? WHAT?! I hardly see Facebook as being in the
same league as technology companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon. In fact, I
don't really see Facebook as much of a technology company at all, at least in
comparison to those I mentioned.

I wonder if the author would have said the same thing about Myspace 5 years
ago. I bet he would have.

~~~
edtechre
And by technology company I mean:

Hardware (Apple, Amazon) OS (Apple, Google) Cloud services (Google, Amazon,
Apple) Web services like email, maps, search (Google)

Facebook has a very large user base. Whoopee. But does that mean staying
power? Nope. Just ask Myspace, Yahoo, and countless dot bomb companies. You
need to invest in R&D, become a technology provider, and succeed in more than
one market. Beyond social networking, what does Facebook have?

This is a horrible article, especially by the Economist's standards.

