Which tech giants will still be around after 100 years?

http://www.economist.com/node/18805483?story_id=18805483

by teralaser • 15 years ago

75 62 15 years ago

reso• 15 years ago

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.

Newky• 15 years ago

I would have thought that facebook single area of expertise (at this time anyway) makes it a company thats longevity is not guaranteed. When you consider the fact that we are seeing the monopoly that was (and still is to a large extent) Microsoft challenged very seriously on many fronts, and you look at the amount of area's they are involved in, similarily, the longevity of these companies depend on their ability to change their dynamic like IBM.

zyfo• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

kenjackson• 15 years ago

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.

noiv3• 15 years ago

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_b3• 15 years ago

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

veyron• 15 years ago

"have even less respect for the Economist." <-- is that even possible?

rospaya• 15 years ago

What is your problem with the Economist?

jollojou• 15 years ago

The article illustrates the well-known mantra "to survive, you must adapt to your environment".

In the IT industry, incrementally developing your existing businesses will quickly lead to oblivion. IBM succeeded in the transition away from the mainframe business, and thus IBM can be seen as an example what all the companies in the industry need to do to stay afloat.

I did not find this article a waste of time. It reminds me of Thomas Kuhn's view on scientific revolutions. Most of the time people try to solve problems by using already known patterns. Every now and then somebody comes up with a completely new idea; the new idea allows its possessors to solve the problems orders of magnitude better (i.e. faster, cheaper, ...).

protomyth• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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

alanfalcon• 15 years ago

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

falava2• 15 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoshi_Ryokan

m0nastic• 15 years ago

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.

cschmidt• 15 years ago

Three Japanese hotels top this list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies

falava2• 15 years ago

List of oldest companies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies

bergie3• 15 years ago

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

warfangle2• 15 years ago

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.

metageek2• 15 years ago

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

troystribling• 15 years ago

SBC bought the company and used the name.

throwaway32• 15 years ago

dont forget that SBC was a baby bell, and thus originated from AT&T.

mikle• 15 years ago

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

seanalltogether• 15 years ago

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

RockyMcNuts• 15 years ago

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?

kylemaxwell• 15 years ago

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

contextfree• 15 years ago

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

josephmosby2• 15 years ago

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

edtechre4• 15 years ago

Not if ARM processors continue to gain ground.

josephmosby2• 15 years ago

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

cjoh• 15 years ago

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

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

bergie3• 15 years ago

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.

dkrich• 15 years ago

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.

edtechre4• 15 years ago

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.

edtechre4• 15 years ago

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.

Apocryphon• 15 years ago

COBOL Engineering.

lachlanj2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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

lachlanj2• 15 years ago

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.

cageface• 15 years ago

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

bergie3• 15 years ago

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.

flocial• 15 years ago

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.

waterlesscloud• 15 years ago

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.

Tichy• 15 years ago

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.

john61• 15 years ago

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

gaius• 15 years ago

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

Which tech giants will still be around after 100 years?

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