5 ms·

The 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" w

The 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 ago
IBM 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 ago
Except for all the hardware they make.
- harpratap 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).
  - tech-historian 6y ago
    Clearly 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 ago
      Exactly, 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 ago
        Let’s not forget about the Xbox
  - adeelk93 6y ago
    Apple 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 ago
If “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 ago
It'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 ago
Do "tech company" and "technology company" have different meanings?
- stronglikedan 6y ago
  Only to pedants, but they're wrong.
j4yav 6y ago
Microsoft 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 ago
  I'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 ago
    It 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 ago
      What 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 ago
        of 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 ago
Well, Apple is not "purely software tech", they're primarily hardware, and yet they're very much considered a tech company

the_af 6y ago

IBM 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 ago

Except for all the hardware they make.

harpratap 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).
- tech-historian 6y ago
  Clearly 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 ago
    Exactly, 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 ago
      Let’s not forget about the Xbox
- adeelk93 6y ago
  Apple 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 ago

If “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 ago

It'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 ago

Do "tech company" and "technology company" have different meanings?

stronglikedan 6y ago
Only to pedants, but they're wrong.

j4yav 6y ago

Microsoft 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 ago
I'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 ago
  It 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 ago
    What 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 ago
      of 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 ago

Well, Apple is not "purely software tech", they're primarily hardware, and yet they're very much considered a tech company