“What is unusual about IBM, which celebrates its 100th birthday next week, is that it has been so successful for so long in the fast-moving field of technology. How has it done it? IBM’s secret is that it is built around an idea that transcends any particular product or technology. Its strategy is to package technology for use by businesses,” The Economist writes.
On the basis of this simple formula—that a company should focus on an idea, rather than a technology—which of today’s young tech giants look best placed to live to 100?” The Economist asks. “The most obvious example is Apple (founded in 1976). Like IBM, it had a near-death experience in the 1990s, and it is dangerously dependent on its founder, Steve Jobs. But it has a powerful organising idea: take the latest technology, package it in a simple, elegant form and sell it at a premium price. Apple has done this with personal computers, music players, smartphones and tablet computers, and is now moving into cloud-based services (see article). Each time it has grabbed an existing technology and produced an easier-to-use and prettier version than anyone else. This approach can be applied to whatever technology is flavour of the month: Apple has already shifted from PCs to mobile devices.”
The Economist writes, “The upshot: Apple, Amazon and Facebook look like good long-term bets. Dell, Cisco and Microsoft do not. The jury is out on Oracle and Google. See you in 2111—provided, that is, that The Economist (founded in 1843, with the idea of explaining the world to its readers) is still around too.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dominick P.” for the heads up.]
100 years is a very long time. I’m looking forward to the iTransporter app for my iPhone.
Silvio Berlusconi prime minister of Italy will last 100 years, The Economist may not !!!
signed: an Italian fan of Apple against the communist soviet of The Economist
Are you seriously going to try to make this thread political? Supporting Berlu-phony? Or were you joking?
Berlusconi may be many things but accusing him of being a crook is a bit far fetched. What the man does in his private life is his own affair.
We can’t all be puerile navel gazers like the Brits where the slightest hint of a sex scandal sends everyone scurrying for cover. I think the Brits or more accurately the Economist hasn’t gotten over its Victorian roots when people used to regularly cover the legs of a grand piano as being indecent exposure.
You clearly don’t know what you are talking about, the grand piano legs are a myth and if anyone is puritanical it is the offspring of the Pilgrim fathers who after all left because they couldn’t handle the concept of fun in any form. Equally it wasn’t the Brits who got so hung up over a president and a blow job we just laughed. Berlusconi is accused of far more than letting his pants down and anyone who has studied his history would think very carefully about claiming him NOT to be a crook, as they would be wary of accusing of being one if they want to keep their health.
Left? The Puritans didn’t leave. They were kicked out. No one wanted to put up with their insufferable priggery for any longer. And yes, Berlusconi is as self-serving as they come. He’s turned Italy into his personal oligarchy.
But if he was banging that chick, hats off to him!
“far-fetched”? I know you are a left nut, but are you nuts? Berluphony has been convicted of financial fraud. He is a crook. He’s only gotten off due to technicalities. How many laws has he written to benefit himself? And, to prevent prosecution?
Hi Ballmer, on behalf of the rest of us here in Britain, I’d like to cordially invite you to actually *see* our island. You can come and ride on our state-of-the-art penny farthings, indulge yourself in a spot of croquet, and have a tipple of Earl Grey – followed by a refreshingly warm beer. Once finished, it is tradition to retire to the smoking room (absent womenfolk of course), open a copy of the most recent Oxford English Dictionary (1879 edition), and look up the word: ‘sarcasm’.
Whilst in the vicinity, it would also be prudent to reserach ‘ignorant’, as it appears you may be unable to recognise that too.
Seriously, assuming you’re American (which I have no problem with whatsoever, incidentally, and look forward to visiting this summer), surely you can think back to the furore in your country over Tiger Woods and Eliot Spitzer among others? Remember? Great: now keep your pathetic stereotypes to yourself and get back to discussing Apple.
From the nation that had a collective fit about a “wardrobe malfunction” that’s one bizarre comment to make. Here in the UK everyone seeing that performance would have laughed for a couple of seconds then got on with their day.
Berlusconi is not disliked because of who he sleeps with. He’s disliked because he’s a vile individual who believes himself above the law.
Yu know I don’t think it worth wasting even one brain cell contemplating the answer to that, so banal was his post.
Aw, pliiiiize!
I am Italian, too. And I have *never* voted for Burlesquoni.
The whole world knows that Silvio is only able to save his butt with “ad personam” (i.e.: self-serving) laws.
He’s the emperor of “corruptland” and even his allies are fed up with him, while Italy’s economy is at Greece and Portugal levels.
Silvio is dead, long live The Economist!
While I mostly agree with what the Economist article has to say I find the idea that Facebook will be around in a hundred years’ time laughable at best.
In truth Facebook may not even be around in five years’ time much less a hundred. These Internet fads come and go faster than Steve Ballmer has a brain fart. I predict the demise of Facebook in 2020 following MySpace down the plughole.
I think Facebook, if it were not to adapt and change, over time yes, would wither away. They have a huge platform now with a huge audience to build upon. That alone should give them enough inertia for the next 10-20 years alone
What’s a myspace?
Facebook may not even be around next year if they don’t do something about the spam apps that fill up particularly organizational pages with unwanted postings. I’ve encountered several recently that are totally unusable because they are filled with this spam.
Agree. Facebook will be long gone in 100 years. Amazon will be around (think Sears). Dell will be a memory. Google is too dependent on advertising, while Cisco will likely be supplanted by some Chinese company.
And Apple? It marks its 100th in 2076. I’d have to outlive Moses to make it to that grand day. Speculating on what shares will be worth is pointless since, based on historic trends, dollars won’t be worth much by then.
I think Facebook will be gone in a generation or 2. Think about your children or grandchildren. Do you think they will want to be on the same social network as their parents?
um, where’s the iCal MDN?
And The Economist should update it’s opinion of Apple’s model. Apple does not sell products at a “premium price”:
iPad: No competitor can come close on price and make a profit
iPhone: The same or less than other competitors
OS X: $29.99 for a major operating system upgrade. Find that on Windows.
iWork: $9.99 per app. Office prices, anyone?
Apple makes high-quality, consumer technology solutions that make complicated things easy to do. “Premium pricing” is a myth from the past.
This post should be mandatory reading for all the Winblows numbnuts out there.
Agreed. Apple sells at a most appropriate price given the quality of the hardware. The iPad most certainly sells at a price no reasonable competitor hopes to match much less beat.
It’s an old and hackneyed idea that Apple sells premium products. Yes, the Mac costs more than the average piece of junk from Dell or Acer but given the solidity of its build and the lack of pre-installed junkware that a user would have to remove even before the piece of shit Windows machine becomes operable is indicative of inherent value of an Apple product.
Do you complain and cry that the Four Seasons Hotel charges $5,000 a night for its presidential suite or would you rather pay $50 to spend a night in a flea ridden motel? Well they provide beds don’t they?
Four Seasons Hotel is a bad analogy. There’s no way that what they provide is worth 100 times more than what Fleabag motel provides. It makes much better sense to compare Apple’s prices to Dell’s.
Heh-heh. I’m still chuckling over the phrase “…a myth from the past.” But what about myths from the future? Like Palin is dead, or something like that.
The author discredits himself by adding Facebook to the potential list of legacy companies. I personally think FB will implode, like MySpace. FB will be undone by privacy issues.
100 years? not if the entire apple campus lifts off in the ‘space ship’ following steve Jobs to the next great thing…
LIKE =)
The iRapture!
Now if we can just get “The Scientist” to say ‘Steve Jobs will last 100 years’… then we’ll be sitting pretty!
If you haven’t read the story about Apple university yet, then maybe you should. It appears to be exactly for that purpose: extend the legacy of Jobs.
Perhaps I should have prefaced my comments with the word “Sarcasm”?…
I’m not thinking of an AU for the purpose of extending the legacy of Jobs… I thinking more the lines of a Futurama with the REAL Steve Jobs talking head in a glass jar to continue the legacy of Apple by it’s founder.
with the track record of social networking companies, AOL groups, six degrees, friendster, myspace -> facebook, why in the world would he predict facebook to last?
Facebook has the exact same issue as google, and both will be undone by better search and social networking technologies.
In 2111, Apple will 135 yrs old not 100. It will be 100yrs old (like IBM is today) 2076.
Of course, IBM got through the lean years pre-WWII by providing Nazi Germany with counting machines to keep a census of the country’s Jewish immigrants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
As long as aapl is still around in 15 years time when I would like to retire and 10x the current price I will be happy.
Apple have done well to stay ahead of the competition in the last 10 years.
To predict another 60+ years is a bit ridiculous – tech is changing so fast that the landscape could be completely different.
Google’s original idea, organizing the world’s information, seems to meet the Economist’s criteria for long running business. Of course if they stray from that path too far…
To be fair, Apple only has to be around in 2076 to be 100 years old, not 2111.
Google is kind of hard to figure, really at this point they have become a large research institute, almost like a university but supported by advertising revenue instead of tuition.
I’d say if they never moved beyond just search they are done, but they attract some of the best talent in the world and they are working on some of the biggest problems in Computer Science. They could very well be around for a very long time depending on what they do going forward.
Seriously though 100 years is a long time to make guesses. Any or all of them could be here or gone in that time frame.
I presume this means it will be around until 2076, not that it will be around until 2111? If so, it sounds like it could be plausible. I know quite a few people who don’t really know who Steve Jobs is, as a lot of people who buy Apple products aren’t fanboys, so they will probably last without Steve. They’ll probably need a designer who can think like Jonathan Ive though.
One point missing from Apple’s USP is that Apple-Apple integration is usually a breeze, whereas Apple- is usually very difficult and often impossible. This tends to self-sustain Apple’s bottom line.