7 ms·
The article is an interesting history lesson, but that sub-heading at the top sort of threw me for a loop, referring to Microsoft as "the first big tech company
by tech-historian 6y ago
The article is an interesting history lesson, but that sub-heading at the top sort of threw me for a loop, referring to Microsoft as "the first big tech company"
Microsoft was, and still is, a giant tech company starting in the 90's and on. But if one looks at the digital corporate landscape back in the 1980s, IBM was an absolute behemoth. Consider this. In 1985, IBM had a market cap of $95 billion. That was more than the next 13 largest tech companies at the time, combined! This other group includes Apple, HP, Hitachi, Intel, Motorola, Sony, AT&T, Texas Instruments, Verizon, Xerox, National Semiconductor, DEC, and Control Data.
It's hard to overstate how powerful IBM was at its zenith.
I only know this because I was curious and looked up the data the other day, and it blew me away.
- harpratap 6y agoThe word "tech" itself changes every decade or so. Agriculture was considered "tech" at one point of time. The companies you listed are all "electronics tech" while Microsoft is purely "software tech" which is the prevalent definition of tech today.
- the_af 6y agoIBM was also a software giant. People railed against IBM as they later did against Microsoft: the big player in town, which monopolized everything and whose evil hands seemed everywhere. Likewise, managers felt safe with IBM (like they later did with Microsoft): "nobody was ever fired for buying from IBM" was a well known saying. IBM was the omnipresent giant before Microsoft became one. It's really hard to overstate this.
- freeone3000 6y agoExcept for all the hardware they make.
- harpratap 6y agoIt's only been a recent trend, and it's more to experiment with new form factors and nudge the PC ecosystem in right direction more than anything else. And the recent trend is for software companies to start making their own hardware (AWS making Graviton, Echo products,and Google making TPUs, Pixel) while hardware companies move into software (Apple moving into Apple Music, TV, News).
- tech-historian 6y agoClearly Microsoft's focus is on software. But I think you'd be surprised how early they started producing hardware. Back in 1980 they had huge successes in hardware! Starting with the Z80 Softcard and Ramcard. https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-microsoft-hardware https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...
- stinos 6y agoExactly, there's not much recent about them doing hardware, but if you don't know the history and only look at the past 10 (or so) years which is in some ways understandable, then indeed it could look like e.g. the Surface line is 'MS recently doing hardware'
- pantalaimon 6y agoLet’s not forget about the Xbox
- adeelk93 6y agoApple has always been in software, the move you mentioned is more services
- j4yav 6y ago> It's only been a recent trend, and it's more to experiment with new form factors and nudge the PC ecosystem in right direction more than anything else. > And the recent trend is for software companies to start making their own hardware (AWS making Graviton, Echo products,and Google making TPUs, Pixel) while hardware companies move into software (Apple moving into Apple Music, TV, News). Define recent? The Xbox came out in 2001, and they were working on media players before then I believe.
- scarface74 6y agoIf “purely software tech” were the definition of tech today, that would leave out Apple - mostly a hardware company by revenue - and Amazon - half of which is a retail company shipping physical goods.
- mastazi 6y ago> Agriculture was considered "tech" at one point of time. And it still is... agritech is a very interesting field!
- tech-historian 6y agoIt's a good point about the definition of tech. I was trying to refer to digital tech companies. But certainly as you go back in time, tech applies to so many industries before the digital age. Automotive, photography, industrial equipment, aviation, chemical engineering, materials science, etc etc all could be thrown into the technology umbrella, so it's important to make a distinction.
- jbay808 6y agoDo "tech company" and "technology company" have different meanings?
- stronglikedan 6y agoOnly to pedants, but they're wrong.
- j4yav 6y agoMicrosoft is not software only, and tech doesn't only mean software as far as I understand it. Or would you say Tesla isn't a technology company?
- nawgszy 6y agoI'm not sure if this is intentionally obtuse, but yes "tech" as a slang term doesn't mean "technology", it describes a type of company largely known for the prowess and scale of their user-facing software. This includes such entities as Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, and Amazon, but is not inclusive of course. Tesla, on the other hand, clearly produces technological artifacts - quite impressive ones, at that - but they are not a "tech" company within the colloquial context you've stumbled into
- NikolaNovak 6y agoIt must be very context specific; I'm in IT, in an English-speaking country (Toronto,Canada), and don't even remotely think of "Tech" as "front-end user-facing software only". :-/
- nawgszy 6y agoWhat kind of companies do you call "tech" companies then? I can't really understand the objection I'm facing, when people tell you their stock portfolio is heavy in tech do you really think companies other than the one I listed? I live in the Bay Area so maybe things are skewed to "local" companies but I held a similar opinion when I was still in Canada too... EDIT: Just to hammer it home, search "is faang tech" and weep that "corporatefinanceinstitute.com" is on my side
- Shared404 6y agoof course faang is tech. Your assertion was not "faang is tech" it was "faang is all that tech consists of". These are not equivalent, and I recommend you view [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies EDIT: Just to hammer it home, view [2] and weep that money.usnews.com is on everyone else in this discussions side. [2] https://money.usnews.com/investing/stock-market-news/slideshows/best-tech-stocks-to-buy-this-year?slide=3 https://money.usnews.com/investing/stock-market-news/slidesh... To everyone else in this thread, sorry for feeding the trolls.
- coldtea 6y agoWell, Apple is not "purely software tech", they're primarily hardware, and yet they're very much considered a tech company
- scarface74 6y agoAlso, until 1993 if I recall correctly, Apple was more valuable and had a larger profit than MS.
- runjake 6y agoApple was well in trouble by 1993. At that point, Microsoft was really starting to take off with popularity of Windows growing quickly.
- scarface74 6y agoThis really just takes a simple Google search to confirm. https://www.google.com/amp/s/dazeinfo.com/2019/08/01/apple-revenue-by-year-worldwide-graphfarm/%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/dazeinfo.com/2019/08/01/apple-r... In fiscal 1993, the company posted annual revenue of $7,977 million (~ 8 billion), with a year-over-year increase of 12.6%. After two years, in fiscal 1995, the company achieved $10 billion annual revenue milestone for the first time. However, after that, the annual revenue started declining till fiscal 2005 when it again crossed $10 billion mark. Apple generated $13,931 million ($13.9 billion) in fiscal 2005, registering 68% YoY growth.
- cheschire 6y agoIf you want to know what it felt like to be tangentially oppressed by IBM's weight, check out the early chapters in this book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers%3A_Heroes_of_the_Computer_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers%3A_Heroes_of_the_Compu...