If you are person reading technology news much, you will find a large part of the tech news are about a few companies : Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, in which the first four are today's "Big Four (platform)" as said by Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.
These giants have both competition and cooperation in many areas, and each has its own place in the world, with Schmidt's words, Google dominates search, Apple designs device, Amazon occupies e-commerce and Facebook leads social. Although he did not talk about Microsoft (because he has kicked Microsoft out of the four major platforms), we defer to define it as Microsoft defines PC.
However, over time, these giants are no longer satisfied with just sticking to their own piece of territory, they have begun to expand in all directions in order to enrich their own territories. This evolution trend towards the direction of integration of software and hardware is more and more obvious There are 9 fields which these giants will fight for in the future :
- Smartphone
- Tablet PC
- Social network
- Search
- Map
- Video(TV+Movie)
- Music
- Publishing
- Cloud service
Google involves in almost all these 9 fields. Search, maps, video and cloud services are its core competitiveness, it also has a very big advantage in smart phones and tablet PCs because of Android. Apple touches all other fields except search and social network. All other fields are the current focus of Apple, among them, tablet PC, smart phones, music and publishing are its core, the map is likely to become Apple's most important product in the future although the current Apple map has many problems.
Amazon was considered as just an e-commerce company, it now appeares as not just an e-commerce company but a technology giant. Cloud services, publishing and music have become its core, It also involves in tablet PC with its Kindle reader, Also it is likely to touch the map field through cooperation with Nokia, and now there are news that Amazon will soon launch its own smart phone. In search, even though there is no mass search service targeted to public, Amazon's e-commerce is a search engine in its own.
Microsoft involves in all other areas except publishing, Despite it's a bit late for them to get in tablet and social, but it has begun to invest heavily in these areas, especially tablet.
Now the weakest among them may be Facebook, now its main area is still social, but there was news that Facebook wouldl launch its own mobile phone, although it was later denied by Zuckerberg, he still stressed the importance of mobile experience. 1 billion monthly active users allowes Facebook to have more room for expansion. The honeymoon cooperation with Apple makes up for its lack of mobile and hardware experience.
Overall, the integration of software and hardware has become a very clear trend, and this can be seen from the success of Apple and the intervention of Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Today, the software industry's prosperity is likely to some extent contribute to the revival of the hardware industry. Now electronic products are not only simple hardware any more, but the integrated product of the software and special hardware.
The most successful companies in the future will have excellent software embedded in the unique hardware to achieve a seamless effect. This mode will appear in more and more fields, the pure hardware or software company will be difficult to compete in the future market.The above 9 fields are necessities for success of this model
Source : http://www.36kr.com/p/160852.html
