“Fred Wilson of New York’s Union Square Ventures, one of the top tech investors around, believes that by 2020, the biggest tech company in the world — Apple — will cease to be the most important, and won’t even be in the top three,” Ingrid Lunden reports for TechCrunch. “Speaking at today’s TC Disrupt conference in NYC, he predicted that the top three tech companies, instead, will be Google, Facebook ‘and one that we’ve never heard of.'”
“Why? Apple, he believes, is ‘too rooted to hardware,’ with not enough tied into the cloud, and that will make it too much of a challenge for it to evolve going forward,” Lunden reports. “‘I think hardware is increasingly becoming a commodity,’ he said. ‘Their stuff in the cloud is largely not good. I don’t think they think about data and the cloud.’ Twitter, meanwhile, he thinks will be ‘four, five, six, seven… but I’m not sure it will be number-two [or three].'”
“It’s surprising to think that the tables could turn so dramatically in, effectively, six years. It wouldn’t be the first tech company to drop out in value even if it holds mindshare,” Lunden reports. “Speaking to Michael Arrington on stage, Wilson said he had no idea what will occupy number-three in Apple’s place, ‘I sure hope that I’m an investor,’ he added.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Siri, remind us to run a top-of-the-site article on January 1, 2020 that very clearly reminds Fred Wilson of his proclamation. Thanks.”
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “boecherer” for the heads up.]
“Opinions are like….”
Everyone has one and most of them stink.
I agree but let’s you are a brilliant analyst. Would you really put your reputation on the line 6 years ahead of time? Especially when Apple is finally broken out of a stock rut and has just been awarded money because somebody stole their patents? I just don’t think this guy is too bright.
iCal it.
His prediction is indeed stinky, but at least he gave some reasoning with some truth in it.
Apple still has not excelled in mobile services like they have with hardware and software. Even Steve Jobs poked fun at some of Apple’s online screw ups. Apple needs to find an exceptional leader for the cloud, like they did for previous Next Big Things.
“Apple needs to find an exceptional leader for the cloud…”
What’s a leader without a team? It takes 80 engineers and scientists to achieve a magnitude in the realm of Next Big Things.
Tech Crunch posed the question and two maroons gave it their best shot. They missed the target by four feet.
Without exceptional hardware to sidestep the morass that is software, we’ll always be confined by code in the interest of business and national security.
Apple is first and foremost, a hardware company. Supreme king of the Vertical Markets. The experience is analogous to buying a good razor and getting free blades for life.
Michael Arrington is saying Code is King and hardware is passé?
GoogleFace have an incestuous relationship with hardware. They serve the internet over sophisticated hardware using highly secret algorithms, but their hardware offerings to consumers is nil.
GoogleFace are codependent on consumer hardware and are looking to take the lead using the Telcos to define the mobile space ahead of the hardware guys.
Bill Gates’s business model; the pace of the hardware innovation is blunted by Microsoft’s schedule.
Steve Jobs believed terrific software for exceptional hardware developed entirely by Apple is the only way to sidestep the storms of madness in the market; to create your own market and invite the world.
The fickle come and go but the Apple faithful are always working.
Fred Wilson, another blowhard VC that likes to hear the sound of his own voice.
Shut the fuck up Fred. Even your name sucks.
Many people like Fred Wilson said the same thing around May 2008.
Obviously people like Fred Wilson must be ignored.
He MAY be right that Apple won’t be a top tech company six years from now. It’s always possible. Who knows what major technological, legal, or financial developments will occur in that timeframe?
That said, to make predictions that Facebook and Google will continue to grow (as Facebook becomes more and more passé and Google’s primary source of income, advertising, comes under attack) is just arrogance.
What Doc said.
What Thelonious and Doc said.
What they all said. I think I’ll flip a coin. More likely to be correct.
Maybe he should change his prediction to, “If Apple continues to do exactly the same things, then….” And that is soooo likely! /s
I believe he is correct to some degree about hardware becoming a commodity. I also agree that Apple just doesn’t do services well. I also believe that Apple is well aware of these issues and hasn’t been sitting on their thumbs. Hopefully Apple will roll with the punches and continue to try to lead the pack. But never say never. Who would’ve ever thought that what once were pillars of industry (US Steel, AT&T and General Motors) would go away? Government Motors? AT&T is actually Bell companies. In particular Southwestern Bell. And US Steel? So never say never. There’s always somebody out there chipping away at the leaders. Things change.
The difference is in the time frame. Those shifts did not occur in the span of 6 years. Facebook has way more lock in than Google which could be replaced in any number of ways from more specific search like Yelp, to innovations in advertising, to changing views on Google itself. Facebook has a huge network of people who are members and that is harder to build than a search engine IMO.
Apple will be a top tech company if it remains a CREATIVE company. Creativity in business these days is ‘as rare as hen’s teeth’. Seriously. I’ll stick MY neck out and say that most of the self-destructive companies that grab the headlines these days will have managed to destroy themselves by 2020, or soon thereafter. The self-destructive imperative in today’s biznizz world is blatant and prolific.
Apple is EXCEPTIONAL right now in time. If they can manage to remain EXCEPTIONAL into the future, that future is secured.
The barren, unimaginative Samsungs of the world? Flushing themselves down into the sewer of history as we speak.
What was that Kodak? I can’t hear what you’re saying while you’re under water. Glub glub glub?
I slightly disagree regarding Samsung. I fully expect them to continue copying whatever everyone else comes up with. They’ve managed to continue doing that so far (not just in mobile phones), so why would they suddenly fail now?
The only thing stopping Samsung from collapsing is the legal systems of the countries in which they operate. So long as we fail to address that, their future is fairly secure. Unfortunately.
Samsung is living on a cloud of HYPE right now. They have made themselves into a marketing company, which spells their doom. I write about this specific subject constantly so I won’t bore the hell out of everyone here.
Samsung’s remaining hope is their manufacturing skill. Obviously they can make decent hardware when their marketing scum aren’t hobbling them. Therefore, there aren’t many complaints about the components they’ve made for Apple. It’s when Samsung start trying to make stuff to fit some marketing vision of ‘the market’ that the company does a scar-inducing face plant.
If Samsung can kill off their dependence on marketing to float their hole infested boat and plug up all the holes that prevent them from being creative, they’d have a future.
But sorry, as they are right now, Samsung is determined to kill itself.
Forces in the market are already planning to fill the void left from lost bids by Samsung.
Asian copycats live on a bubble, because of Little Hitler.
Samsung is just inflating the bubble.
I wonder what will happen to Google when the mass public finally realizes that google spies, tracks and records more of your information than the NSA and then sells that information to the highest bidder in the form of advertising. In the Matrix the machines turned humans into batteries in the real world google has turned them in to ATM’s.
Fred Wilson … no need to read any further
Exactly, this hat-on-an-ass-on-a-hat has riled against Apple since day dot. And there’s a big difference between market prognosticator and a clairvoyant; he’s neither.
What he said.
“I don’t think they think about data and the cloud.”
There is the problem Fred….you’ve been thinking again. Can’t wait for him to re-read his comments in 2020.
Sure, Fred. Apple thinks nothing about the cloud, nothing about huge data centers, about delivering music, movies, TV shows, etc., about syncing devices seamlessly with computers, etc. etc.
In 6 years Apple will be just as much of a cloud company as Google or Facebook, AND Apple will have the hardware which hooks people into its ecosystem. Apple will not only sell hardware, but it will sell apps, media, and other items to its device owners, as well as advertising, just like Google and Facebook.
i think a better prediction would be that in 2020 seven of the top ten tech companies will be new to the top ten, but i have no good idea who will be in or out.
Will Facebook be in business in five years? Anyone remember MySpace? Those social sites seem to come and go as often as women change their hair style.
Facebook or some other form will always exist. The planet is full of self righteous, narcissist who insist we see their DUCKFACES!
Twitter has one product. One that people don’t pay for, and for which advertising is even more of an annoyance than in search results. What signs are there that they can expand beyond what they’re going at the moment. Even google have had to try and do other things other than search. Some of those things have had more success than others, but at least they’re taking those steps.
Thanks to such companies like Apple who create means for Google and Facebook-like companies to exist. So why Google and Facebook should be bigger? … yeah right I forgot about Wall Street-add-reduce-value-mafia
Why bother even publishing this stuff? This person doesn’t know anything more than anyone else does.
spec vs. tech, speculation looses.
actually google and Facebook could easily be replaced.
ever head of lycos, atavista, myspace, Netscape? Google and Facebook are those companies in 10 years.
I agree that Apple’s cloud work leaves something to be desired, but to assume that Apple doesn’t have the capacity to improve in this arena is just stupid.
While I will agree there is still room for improvement, iCloud works the way I think it should and that may be why it is so under rated. iCloud is works seamlessly and is almost invisible to the end user.
Might I remind this idiot, iTunes is one of the biggest cloud services on the net. Where does he think all the movies, books and other digital assets that people access, but don’t store on their iOS devices comes from, their arises? LMAO.
That would be their ARSES! Damn auto-correct…lol
That’s _asses_, you limey inbreed!
😉
I was trying to be respectful and not “cuss” in forum…lol
I predict Apple will have nothing new this year or ever again. MacBook Air update was such a yawn. A watch? Really? Something to tell us when we are gonna die?
TV? Ya, right. Like that industry is gonna let it happen.
Cars? OK, I give up. I just dont see it.
As Jobs said, run with the Mac as long as you can. Apple will run with what it has as long as it can. Maybe by 2020 that will be it for Apple.
You may be run over while crossing the street.
One can only hope.
Fred Wilson… Didn’t he play on “My Three Sons”?
Oh wait, that was Fred MacMurray! THIS Fred can’t be all bad. He’s got Mac in his name!
He is wrong because of this:
Apple has my credit card: Facebook, Google, Twitter or any other advertiser supported company will NEVER get my credit card.
Good luck.
Problem with his logic is that he is using the same misguided argument for Apples demise that has always and endlessly been disproved in the past. That is that the business they are in is becoming a commodity one. I had 10 plus years of that rubbish over the Mac against Windows yet look where we are today the commodity suppliers in decline while Apple counties to take market share while dominating profits. The PC was and remains commodity and the same is happening in the Android platform today but there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that this will nullify Apples place in the business.
..must not be watching enough SouthPark. I can’t remember if Fred is Mr Garrison’s former love interest from the village people or that guy who cooked Eric Roberts when they were all snowed in …idk, it may not matter.
..it matters as much as his drivelling on
hey solomé
Hardware will be a commodity but software (only) won’t?!?!?
The ‘cloud will never be all it can be unless someone comes up with a new technology to break the high speed access stranglehold of the Cable and Phone companies and deliver end users with unlimited, high speed downloads, wherever they happen to be, at a reasonable price.
And if that happens everyone will need the latest hardware to get the necessary technology … At that point, Apple may be the only hardware company with the financial reserves to bring it to market.
Many hardware companies have come and gone in the 29 years since I first sat down at a computer my school rolled into my classroom, but the fact remains that It was an Apple II then and I’m typing this on my Apple iPhone 5. I’ve read a lot of ‘end of Apple’ predictions in that time, but Apple endures to this day. Facebook on the other hand offers a service for posting about what you ‘like’, and unless they diversify soon they will die when people get bored of constantly posting vacuous comments about non-issues.
Apple II & Basic, yay!! Good times.
Don’t let’s get started on GOTO, Derek Currie needs a rest
Always protecting me, dear goddess.
Facebook is already passé – saying it will be bigger than Apple in six years is just silly.
Total DUH Factor. Bad drugs.
as P.E.D points out in Fortune 2.0 about Fred Wilson:
“he sold his entire position in Apple at $91.36 per share.” in 2009.
—
like right at the start of the iPhone, iPad boom.
enough said. lol.
Ok, hardware may be a commodity, but what Apple really markets is operating systems, that has been the difference from day one, and will be so in the future.
Caviat to that: if there is too much convergence between OSX and iOS to the point that OSX users like myself who produce complex content (web, graphics, etc) that are beyond the capabilities of the Apple in house apps like Pages, Numbers etc. , then there will be big issues. This would also include the entertainment apps, like iTunes, iMove etc, which don’t apply to us at all. Content creators use very complex apps, most of which the “typical” entertainment consumer know nothing about because they think their stuff appears on the screen from the sky, over the rainbow, as if by magic.
Content creators know what I am talking about, the rest of you will just have to look it up.
My point is that Apple is making life for the developers and users of those content creation apps more difficult with every new iteration of OSX, so far.
Fred Wilson is mostly wrong, but may have stumbled on an area where he may be accidentally right. Many people can’t differentiate between hardware and software, and more specifically, operating system software. Yes hardware will become a commodity, but when we think content creation can come from the “cloud” using Apple apps, then I see some dark clouds out there, just not for the same reason he does.
Yes, the next iPhone 6,7,8, etc may appear to be magical but if the content creators job conflicts with Apples needs to control the software to Pages-like apps , then there will be a problem. The great content will go away.
What red-eyed Mr. Wilson is missing, as per usual among the analcysts, is that Apple is the master of BOTH hardware AND software. No one else, no one, puts the two together into one beautifully married package. Wilson will end up eating his ‘commodity’ comment and gagging on it.
Now back to his iCloud comments…