A war has begun. I’m not talking about a war between countries in terms of bullets, bombs and ammunition. I’m talking about a war between technological giants fought in terms of silicon, ones and zeros.
The war of the ecosystems.
Top technological companies are fighting it out to be on your desk, on your lap, in your hand and in your address bar. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Canonical and a bunch of other dark horses and supporting actors.
The fight is on.
Before we move on, let’s have a small history lesson.
Technology for the consumer and the enterprise began roughly in about the late 1970s and early 1980s. Those days, it was a fragmented mess. Every company made its own computer with its own operating system. Technology was very expensive too and out of reach of the common man. IBM was a very big company those days with its renowned processors and computers.
And then came Apple. No, then came this genius called Steve Jobs.
The concept of a personal computer was born. A personal computer you can actually love. Though they were still expensive, Apple was a success. The seeds for a battle of epic proportions was sown.
Then, we had another genius. Bill Gates. And Microsoft happened. Windows was born.
Bill Gates started his company with the vision of a Windows PC on every desk. Windows had lukewarm beginnings. But, Windows 3.1 and then Windows 95 along with Microsoft’s legendary OEM partnerships made Windows rapidly rise the ranks to its present 90% market share in personal computers. Even a failure like Windows Vista didn’t stop its juggernaut. People just switched back to Windows XP. That’s how powerful the brand was.
Now, even that is in danger.
Moreover, along the way, 2 other important players emerged. One was Intel. Just like Windows, the Intel Inside sticker quickly became ubiquitous. There was a brief resistance from AMD. But, that’s about it. And now, even Intel is on shaky ground.
The other important player was Linux. Started by Linus Torvalds because UNIX was too closed that time, it was always the written-off player in the 1990s just like Apple was after the emergence of Windows. And now, it has the potential of eclipsing every player in the industry.
And the reason behind the war we’re seeing today? The iPhone. Love it or hate it, but this 3.5 inch device kicked off the biggest war in history between the largest technology behemoths. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be exploring each of this companies – Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Canonical, Twitter, BlackBerry, Intel, ARM, NVidia – some in gory detail and some in less gory detail starting with Apple in the next article.
Stay tuned. You don’t want to miss this. It is the fight for your desk, lap, hand, address bar and ultimately your wallet.
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
*Canonical … Ubuntu is not a company
Thanks for pointing that out. Fixed it.