History Repeats Itself: IBM, Microsoft, Google and …

We will not have history lesson or fact listing of these three big companies, Wikipedia can serve this purpose. However, I’m here to point something out: Microsoft did it to IBM and Google is doing it (or did it) to Microsoft. Therefore somebody will do it to Google, yes it might be hard to imagine, but 10 years we never thought Google will be.. Google.

You see, IBM was the leader in the computer industry for about three decades. Then there was a shift to the personal computer, mainly on the need of having computers in our desktops, helping us with our daily tasks. Microsoft took over the PC business since anybody, with the capacity to manufacture hardware, could “clone” the IBM PC and use the Intel chips. Apple on the other hand targeted designers, therefore leaving Microsoft as defacto OS in desktops computers.

When the Internet came to play and Microsoft “was doing all that talk and no walking”. At that point it didn’t matter, until Google took over search supremacy and search has become the killer Internet App. Fast forward to today and Google is the king of the Internet. Microsoft is now  trying to battle the “monopoly” of Google and being careless of Windows and Office products.

IBM has its place in the IT Industry and Apple has it place in the consumer electronic Industry as well as it “niche” in the Computer Industry. Microsoft has its place in the Software Industry and is a dominant player in the Business sector. However, for some reason they think that the only way to grow is to challenge Google. Will see what happens with Microsoft and if they will ever realize, that they are looking themselves at the mirror, when looking at Google (in a twisted and interesting way).

How does history repeat itself? Well it repeats when a dominant player wants to get into a industry that is not his core competence. This is mainly related to a main trend or a shift in a focus toward other technologies. It also repeats it self because,( well at least I am) getting tired of Google being a bully, having advertising on everything and buying wasting all that money on unproven companies. Remember the days when we started to get tired of Microsoft?

Google is now a bully, trying to be everywhere and strengthening their monopoly. Maybe now Microsoft knows how everybody felt about them. I’m kind off getting tired of Google search, there are too much adds and I don’t feel I’m getting the best results. Now they are becoming a bit “too big” that they are crowdsourcing search.

Who will do to Google, what they did to Microsoft?

Well, not a search engine, or software company, nor Apple. Apple is happy on being seen as a “niche” company, although they are pretty dominant. Also, there are rumors going around Jobs health and it might be end of an Era. The answer to the question is in the BitTorrents. To be more specify I put my money on The Pirate Bay or Mininova. This is mainly based on their increase in popularity (see here and here) and since they are a integral part of satisfy a need hunger for any kind of media (especially The Pirate Bay by being a Index and Tracker).

What makes Mininova and The Pirate Bay interesting is the trend to deliver media over the Internet and in different mediums. They are the dominant players today, even if they don’t make the millions made by iTunes Store. In addition you can see how they are diversifying and growing organically, by creating new “project” or services. Some of them are:

• Vio Mobile Video Convertor
• Baywords (uncensored blogging Plataform)
• Slopsbox (email address for sites that ask registration to deliver content)
• Bayimg (uncensored image hosting)
• Snotr (online video)
• Mininova Content Distribution

Will see what happens, however I’m excited by the possibilities by this companies. They are challenging the status quo, being a reminder that we shouldn’t be taking everything for granted. I guess they haven’t reach their potential thanks to the bad aura surrounding BitTorrent. However there is nothing Google can do right now to counter them, if Google does anything this just signs of trouble for Google?