If I have to predict which company out of Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook would come out on top 5-10 years from now, I believe Amazon and Microsoft have some serious plays that could grow massively. With the proliferation of startups, the need for computing and infrastructure services would continue to rise. Amazon and Microsoft would continue to lead here. It might even be possible for Microsoft to eclipse Amazon in terms of cloud market share, mainly on the back of its crown Jewel, ChatGPT, offering AI services in the cloud. In addition, collaboration and productivity tools are essential to any company getting stuff done. With Microsoft the front-runner with its AI-enabled productivity suite, there is hardly any competition in this space, barring Google. However, when it comes to the quality of offering, Microsoft wins due to how seamlessly data flows between its applications, courtesy Microsoft Graph, a point of differentiation. Another interesting opportunity is the rise of delivery services for online retail, which have gained permanent momentum post Covid-19, thanks to how much consumers have started valuing convenience. Speaking of logistics and delivery services, guess who just ventured into offering logistics services to third-party merchants last year? Amazon! Like Flipkart in India, Amazon now provides fulfillment and warehousing services to third-party merchants who are not even selling through Amazon. And globally, with Amazon’s scale and credibility in shipping and delivery, who wouldn’t want to ship through them? Google, with its moat in consumer data and infrastructure, would continue to double down on its advertising revenue. Other than that, Google could generate more revenues from GCP; however, that would be due to the growth of the cloud market and not because of any competitive advantage when compared with Amazon and Microsoft. Lastly, Apple, with its line of consumer electronics products and a focus on services business, would continue to grow in the next few years steadily. However, with the pending launch of Apple Vision, a VR-based headset, the potential is huge in the consumer and productivity space as the gadget sits between the iPhone (computer for everything) and the Mac (productivity). In the next few years, if the Vision product would be to unlock value for Apple, it would be in the enterprise productivity space. Also published . here
