Big tech’s new reality looks expensive—and exciting. Our analysis looks at where Silicon Valley’s supersized firms might be headed
Do they protest too much? Throughout that decade some critics held that the technology sector was not delivering as much innovation as it should. When Tim Cook, the boss of Apple, said that 2020 was the firm’s “top year of innovation, ever” thanks to the release of the new iPhone, Mac and other devices and services it was possible to feel he might be going some way towards making the critics’ case for them.
When the twin foundations of the computer age, the transistor and Claude Shannon’s theory of information, came out of Bell Labs in the mid-20th century, it was not because the labs’ owner,, was facing lots of scrappy competitors. It was because it wanted to make and own the future. Rob Atkinson, head of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think-tank, argues something similar is true today: the Big Five are “oligopolists which use their market power to win the next big thing.
But a crucial part of it is that there are specific goals the firms want to achieve that require a lot of. Apple is on the lookout for the piece of hardware that will become the new iPhone, be it a car or virtual-reality headset. Amazon is relentlessly trying to improve the efficiency of its warehouses and delivery system and expand the range of industries making use of Amazon Web Services.
Over the past three years the Big Five have acquired 110-odd companies, according to data from PitchBook, a research outfit . There is a limit to how much these data can reveal. In most cases the deal size was not made public and many smaller acquisitions are treated as recruitment and so not in the data. Believers in “killer acquisitions” may see some of these deals as attempts to hinder innovation rather than accelerate it.
Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités
Similar News:Vous pouvez également lire des articles d'actualité similaires à celui-ci que nous avons collectés auprès d'autres sources d'information.
Radar satellite's stunning map of UK and IrelandFor some technologies there are never any clouds to spoil the view.
Lire la suite »
5G delayed as airlines fear flights severely affected by new technology – follow live- 5G - Rollout delayed as airlines fear flights will be severely affected by new technology LATEST UPDATES
Lire la suite »
Staff at 30 UK firms will work a four-day week for SAME salaryThe trial, led by 4 Day Week Global, will see staff members completing the same amount of work, and up to 35 hours each week, but split over four days rather than five.
Lire la suite »
America must take steps now to avoid a slide into authoritarianism | Thomas ZimmerWithout robust federal legislation, it will soon be impossible to stop America’s degeneration into a diluted pseudo-democracy
Lire la suite »
Former Vogue editor André Leon Talley dies aged 73 in NYC hospitalFormer Vogue editor and America's Next Top Model judge André Leon Talley has passed away at the age of 73 following a battle with an unspecified illness
Lire la suite »
‘Flailing’ Biden has 'humiliated' America as president passes milestone year in officeJOE BIDEN has been accused of 'humiliating' America by ignoring the prolonged fall of the world's super power, a commentator has said in a devastating Op-Ed.
Lire la suite »