A NEW TECH CYCLE - CHANGING OUR WORLD
I suppose what I am really excited about - ( notwithstanding the doom-mongers of Global Warming, un-payable National debt, Euro-zone contagion, GM food and England’s prospects in the World Cup amongst other paranoia permeating and eating away at the soul of our society !! ) - is the fact that we have entered the next Tech Cycle. Amidst the threat of a double dip recession, oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and Greek unrest who cares about the next Tech Cycle – the next Dot Bomb ? You may well ask !
The fact is that there have been four Tech cycles in the last 50 years and each one has been bigger and better than the preceding one. Let's remind ourselves of what they were :
1. The mainframe computing cycle started in the 60’s with the main players being IBM, NCR, Sperry ; then followed
2. The mini-computing cycle in the 70’s with the major companies being Digital Equipment, HP and Wang and then;
3. The PC era of the 80’s/90’s where we saw the rise of Microsoft, Intel, Apple and Cisco – finally leading up to;
4. The Desktop Internet Computing cycle which began in the 90’s and has lasted well into the Noughties with a few bumps along the way like the Crash of 2000. The winners here have been Google, AOL, Yahoo and Baidu.
We are now well into the next Tech Cycle. The mobile Internet computing cycle. It did have a false start in the early 2000’s with the extravagant and outlandish promises of 3G – but the technology was just not ready nor were the devices.
That has all changed. With the launch of the Apple iPhone and with it the first truly mobile browsing experience - we have witnessed in the last two years the beginning of the mobile internet cycle.
Driven by newer and smarter smart phones, netbooks, laptops and now iPads / tablets and of course with true high speed networks that have reached critical mass the Mobile Internet Cycle is taking off.
What does this all mean.? Well based on the experience of the previous Tech cycles, the prospective winners of this cycle stand to win and win big. Each subsequent cycle has produced bigger and stronger companies than those of the prior cycles. Key drivers in this phase will be new and clever mobile devices (smartphones), new Web services increasingly hosted in the Cloud and social networking particularly the likes of Facebook and their communities around which new services and games will be created.
So far the winners in this cycle are Facebook, Apple and Google. More will follow.
These are exciting times for anyone involved in the world of wireless, Internet and payments. These are all coming together to create a whole new eco-system that will transform the way we live our lives.
The fact is that there have been four Tech cycles in the last 50 years and each one has been bigger and better than the preceding one. Let's remind ourselves of what they were :
1. The mainframe computing cycle started in the 60’s with the main players being IBM, NCR, Sperry ; then followed
2. The mini-computing cycle in the 70’s with the major companies being Digital Equipment, HP and Wang and then;
3. The PC era of the 80’s/90’s where we saw the rise of Microsoft, Intel, Apple and Cisco – finally leading up to;
4. The Desktop Internet Computing cycle which began in the 90’s and has lasted well into the Noughties with a few bumps along the way like the Crash of 2000. The winners here have been Google, AOL, Yahoo and Baidu.
We are now well into the next Tech Cycle. The mobile Internet computing cycle. It did have a false start in the early 2000’s with the extravagant and outlandish promises of 3G – but the technology was just not ready nor were the devices.
That has all changed. With the launch of the Apple iPhone and with it the first truly mobile browsing experience - we have witnessed in the last two years the beginning of the mobile internet cycle.
Driven by newer and smarter smart phones, netbooks, laptops and now iPads / tablets and of course with true high speed networks that have reached critical mass the Mobile Internet Cycle is taking off.
What does this all mean.? Well based on the experience of the previous Tech cycles, the prospective winners of this cycle stand to win and win big. Each subsequent cycle has produced bigger and stronger companies than those of the prior cycles. Key drivers in this phase will be new and clever mobile devices (smartphones), new Web services increasingly hosted in the Cloud and social networking particularly the likes of Facebook and their communities around which new services and games will be created.
So far the winners in this cycle are Facebook, Apple and Google. More will follow.
These are exciting times for anyone involved in the world of wireless, Internet and payments. These are all coming together to create a whole new eco-system that will transform the way we live our lives.
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