The Technology Company Cycle

For those of you who are not long-time readers, I absolutely hate Apple and its products. It's not that the products themselves are bad...it's just that both the company and its users put off so much smug self-righteousness because they're Apple-heads, that I simply couldn't stand to live with such people. (I jokingly hold my breath while walking past any Apple store, much to Heidi's chagrin.) I've said before: I prefer tools, not lifestyles. As a security person, I'm a technology agnostic, anyway...all tech is created by humans, and humans are imperfect, therefore their tech will also be.

However, I realized today that I can take comfort that Apple's run is quickly approaching its end. Here's the basic pattern for a technology company:

1. Tech Company A comes up with awesome new product, and the world loves it.
2. For a few years, Tech Company A can do no wrong, and the world and tech press faun over them constantly, gushing about every new release and how great the upcoming product lines are/will be. No one even comes close to its obvious innovations, and "everyone" is using their products.
3. Cracks begin to appear in the dam, as Tech Company A begins to have issues with some of its products and releases. It becomes arrogant and complacent, or it ends up having to focus less on innovation and more on maintaining existing products, or the market catches up with it. Whatever, the shine is off the apple now.
4. People realize how bad it is that "everyone" is using their products, and begin to worry about lack of competition/product costs/loss of privacy/(insert individual concern here).
5. Everyone and the tech press begin to speak cynically and skeptically of everything Tech Company A does. People continue to use Tech Company A's products, but there's no longer the same excitement about new releases, and everyone begins looking for reasons to criticize the company and its products. In other words, fun's over, folks.

This pattern has played itself out with most of the big tech players of the past two decades. Just look at the track record of these other huge players in the tech game...and where their reputations and public standing are today.

Microsoft -- Our friends in Redmond put out Windows 3.1 and 3.11 in the early 90s, and things seemed to be going well for them. People liked them, anyway. THEN they released Windows 95...and THE WORLD LOVED THEM!!! 95 blew everything else away. Windows 98 and 98 SE were even better, and people complained some but Windows was still the best game in town. Then came Windows ME, issues with Windows 2000 service packs, complaints about anti-trust actions with respect to Internet Explorer...and now it's so fashionable to hate Microsoft that everyone does it (even their fans).

AOL -- These folks were at the vanguard of the "Internet for everyone" movement. They had HUGE market share, especially in the days before widespread local DSL and cable broadband connectivity. THE WORLD LOVED THEM!!! Everyone knew exactly what "You've got mail!" came from and what it meant. But they began filtering access, they imposed goofy rules on customers, they started overcharging, their software broke people's computers...and it all went downhill from there.

Cisco -- The ubiquitous networking company (and inventor of the network router, which makes the Internet possible) was the darling of networking companies in the late 90s and early 2000s, as they supported both their own proprietary protocols and products but also pushed and heavily endorsed creation and use of Internet-wide standards for networking. They had incredibly high market share, awesome world-class customer support (of which I myself partook many, many times), and pretty decent products. But they just became too big, took their eye of the networking ball and started branching into anything and everything that could possibly be related to networking: voice-over-IP (VoIP), security, management, storage-area networking (SAN). They bought and absorbed new products and technologies to support these initiatives at an incredible rate. And integrating all those products coherently just got too complex, plus they began scaling back their customer service. Today, people are still OK with them, but no one fauns over them like they used to.

Google -- Made famous by their "do no evil" slogan, everyone LOVED Google in the early days. Their search engine was leaps and bounds better than any of the others (and most others simply died, at least as serious players in the search space, as a result of Google's ability). They began offering cooler and cooler things, starting with Gmail, then moving to Calendar, Maps (with Street View), Apps, and Android. They're still doing cool, innovative things like Voice, Wave, and Buzz, but their issues in China (collusion with China's requirements for search filtering) as well as concerns about the environmental footprint of their datacenters and privacy concerns from Google Maps Street View, has really tarnished their once-sterling reputation. Much as with Cisco, people are still generally OK with Google, but are increasingly turning a wary and discerning eye toward Google's offerings.

There are many other examples of once-well-known names that I didn't mention, like Sun, Oracle, Motorola, Nokia...the list goes on and on.

So hear this, Apple executives, employees, and fanboys...your days are numbered. You are already arrogant, and you will overreach (as you have started to do with the latest imbroglio regarding eBook pricing for the iPad). And then, you might continue to exist but you will no longer be the darlings that you are today. The decline has already begun, and you can't stop it. Enjoy!