It often is asserted that the leaders in one era of computing technology are not the leaders in the next. Whether one looks at the market share leaders, the lead devices, network architectures or applications, computing eras lead to distinct business opportunities.
source: Dr. James Coakley, Oregon State University
So to the extent that Amazon Web Services, Google, Azure, Facebook or Apple have been seen as leaders of the present era of computing, we should at least hold open the thought that this will not always be the case, as hard as that might be to fathom.
Facebook--now Meta--might be the best example of how leadership is lost. It can be argued that Facebook’s pivot to metaverse is evidence that the traditional growth drivers of advertising are not expected to fuel the company’s continued growth.
Perhaps even more oddly, Facebook’s traditional reliance on app layer advertising might arguably be said to be at risk as a new era with more reliance on appliances, devices and hardware could be dawning.
Consider the oddity of that argument. Apple, over much of the last two decades, has had to shift to services and apps to diversify its revenue away from a reliance on devices and hardware.
Now it might be applications-driven Meta that has to figure out a way to get into the hardware business. Consider that both Google and Amazon have developed important hardware and device businesses to support their application, advertising and commerce business models.
Perhaps Meta’s big strategy shift is the first sign that the next wave of computing will feature different leaders.
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