Will fast-paced and relatively-efficient companies take over old corporate types?

If your dear readers have not yet read about it, you might want to do it now.

Apple, Google vs. Big Wireless

With Google and Apple both bidding for a wireless spectrum, strategies of those two companies are getting always clearer. One rule to make big bucks strategically: commoditize others in your value chain. This has never changed in the history of business evolution; what's different each time is approach.

Years ago, while Microsoft was climbing toward peak of its power, I thought that perhaps Microsoft had enough power to change the industry. It indeed had all capital and execution power to outplay all major vendor of IT value chain "one by one", but its tremendous success attracted too much fear. Microsoft wisely chose to stand aside and just happily be a very profitable software vendor; I can almost hear a sigh of relief from those worried industry giant. But now we have Google and Apple, companies ready to disrupt the industry again, and this time they won't settle easily.

Usually, by mature market we mean those market that are commoditized by fierce competition. In a sentence, more features are shipped with lowered price. The industry that Google and Apple are attempting to enter is, however, a mature market that doesn't show any of above mentioned signs. If Darwin was right, then what will happen next is pretty obvious. Either old corporate types would evolve to catch up, or face the fate of extinction.

One month ago, someone who worked in one big IB in Wall Street for 7 years told me: Google is just a company that does only web pages, nothing special about that. Hmm. I guess his opinion does not represent Wall Street, for Google stock price is well over 600+ now. And Apple worth more than IBM. Many would call Google and Apple as arrogant companies, but arrogance paired with capability is called pride; true arrogance is accompanied by ignorance. It would seem that ignorance is more a matter of heart instead of level of education.

Then what's next? I think the industry of air conditioner might be next mark. I have a friend who works at a very big Japanese company that produces air conditioner. If you spread their cost structure carefully, you will find out that 20-30% of revenue for each air conditioner sold goes to personal rebates, rebates that would end up in personal coffer of high executives in corruption speaking. Such situation just reflects a lack of fierce competition. We have wait until then for cheap and high quality air conditioners and refrigerators.

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