I am going short on Apple, Microsoft and Google

It is interesting to see how things come full circle.

A few years back, an industry defining moment arrived when Microsoft decided to package its browser free along with the OS.  Netscape didn't stand much of a chance - who can beat free?

Microsoft itself, however, failed to subsidize on the value of the browser and missed being the market leader on the internet bandwagon. After all, how valuable can a "free" asset be?  The browser was just an add-on acting as a garnish to its core business of selling the Windows OS.  The issue with this view was that Microsoft completely underestimated the revenue potential of a new world opened up through the browser.

Google was one of the few companies who benefited from this. And apparently is now going about the same route. By providing Chrome OS and its variant - Android - as an open platform, it has thrown the gauntlet to Microsoft where it might hurt the most - the core business of Operating System.  By subsidising the Operating System itself through its core search based revenues, Google is aiming at preventing the competitive thoughts Apple and Microsoft might have towards dominating the "search" business.

It has supplementary impacts too - let me be adventurous and list down potential scenarios.

1. Apple, while being the most valuable technology company today, will find itself losing market share both in mobile space and in the desktop/laptop space due to the popularity of Android and Chome based tablets and mobile phone.  Apple might be forced to open up its stack to retain market share, but might be too late due to the number of players who might have already embraced Chrome/Android.  How many "iPads" can Jobs pull off after all?

2. Microsoft's second biggest revenue generator, its Office suite of products, faces revenue decline from the onslaught of Chrome extensions and applets...this will be exacerbated by the potential price war that could erupt with Apple as the third player. With both its core revenue components under decline, Microsoft might have to aggressively look at a third source of revenue - probably its Azure line - or risk getting split or going under.

3. In its quest for a universal search engine, spanning visual media and internet, Google itself might find its search business reeling under the onslaught of new players who can lease bandwidth and leverage Chrome for far savvier and user friendly applications.  Just like Microsoft failed to let go its inhibitions around Windows OS to embrace internet, Google might find it difficult to let go its core search revenue and latch on to new streams, particularly related to social networking.

The common theme among all these scenarios and examples being the inability of successful companies to let go of their winning themes and jump on to the next ones.  Focusing on core competence no longer wins the game, especially when the game itself changes.

And what does this mean for the customer?
- An integrated information world at last..an Internet 3.0 spanning all media types. I can probably use my TV, mobile device, laptop and tablet as interchangeable and completely linked technology devices that can access my personal and corporate information seamlessly through self-provisioning enabled by cloud service providers and players like dropbox.  From a social perspective, this would also mean the end of private life as we see it today.

We are indeed living in interesting times.  Whether this is a curse or boon, only time can tell.