科技五霸在股市佔主導地位 尋找下一站

Monday was something of a red-letter day for the tech industry. When the stock market closed, the five most valuable companies on the planet were, for the first time, technology concerns. And they all hailed from the West coast of the US, whether the San Francisco Bay Area (Apple, Alphabet and Facebook) or in and around Seattle (Microsoft and Amazon).

對科技行業來說，上週一（8月1日）是個值得紀念的日子。股市收盤時，全球市值最高的5家企業頭一次全部是科技企業。並且，它們全部來自美國西海岸，包括舊金山灣區的蘋果(Apple)、Alphabet和Facebook，以及西雅圖一帶的微軟(Microsoft)和亞馬遜(Amazon)。

In subsequent days, ExxonMobil — which held the title of world’s most valuable company until it was overhauled by Apple — edged back above Facebook and Amazon. But it may only be a temporary reprieve. A seemingly inexorable shift in business and stock market momentum is under way, as today’s technology leaders assume a more central place in personal and business life.

隨後幾天，埃克森美孚(ExxonMobil)——曾是全球市值最高的企業，後來被蘋果趕超——市值重新超過Facebook和亞馬遜。但是，這可能只是曇花一現。隨着科技領軍企業在個人生活和商業事務中佔據着更加核心的位置，商業和股市中也出現了一種似乎勢不可擋的轉變。

Ten years ago, at the height of the PC era, Microsoft was the only tech company in the top 20. Now, though, the big five control a much wider array of digital platforms around which life and work revolve — from smartphones and cloud computing data centres to mobile messaging apps.

10年前，在個人電腦(PC)時代的巔峯時期，微軟是當時市值最高的20家企業中唯一一家科技公司。然而，如今五巨頭控制着在人們生活和工作中佔據重要位置、更加多種多樣的數字化平臺——從智能手機到雲計算數據中心，再到移動通訊應用(App)。

They are also racing each other to build the next platforms, from virtual reality headsets to driverless cars and digital assistants powered by artificial intelligence.

它們還在競相打造下一個平臺，從虛擬現實頭盔到無人駕駛汽車，再到由人工智能驅動的數字化助理。

Only China, thanks to a domestic market that is hard for outsiders to penetrate, can lay claim to tech companies with the scale and ambition to compete.

只有中國——有賴於外來者難以滲入的國內市場——能夠擁有在規模和野心上可以與之一較高下的科技企業。

That has been underlined by this week’s detente in the ride-hailing wars, which has seen Uber’s global expansion halted and a new Chinese digital champion crowned, in the shape of Didi Chuxing.

上週叫車軟件之戰有所緩和就突顯了這一點：優步(Uber)停住了全球擴張的腳步，而一家新的中國數字化冠軍企業成功加冕，即滴滴出行(Didi Chuxing)。

Today, the key question is: which markets are next in the big five’s sights, as they cast around more widely for growth?

如今，關鍵問題在於：在五巨頭在更大範圍內尋找增長點之際，它們的下一個目標市場在哪？

There is still plenty of room for them to expand in their core markets. Although Google and Facebook are already the world’s biggest advertising-based businesses, only about 30 per cent of global advertising spend is digital. Two percentage points of this spend shifts from analogue to digital every year, leaving room for plenty of expansion.

目前它們的核心市場仍然有足夠空間供它們擴張。儘管谷歌(Google，上圖爲谷歌的總部)和Facebook已是全球最大的以廣告業務爲基礎的企業，但是全球廣告支出僅有30%來自數字化領域。每年有2個百分點的廣告支出從模擬廣告轉向數字化廣告，因此有足夠的擴張空間。

However, in other markets, such as smartphones, growth is harder to come by. For a company as big as Apple, the only hope for material expansion comes from breaking into a huge new business, like automobiles. Giant bets like this, or Google’s “moonshot” projects, are hard to assess. Closer to home, there are two areas that seem more likely to support growth in the short and medium term.

然而，在智能手機等其他市場，要取得增長困難得多。對於像蘋果這麼大的企業，實現大規模擴張的唯一希望是進軍一項市場龐大的新業務，例如汽車領域。諸如此類或者谷歌的Moonshot項目之類的豪賭，很難評估。目前有兩個領域似乎更有可能支撐中短期增長。

One is building and running the infrastructure on which the digital economy runs. Companies that make hardware and software, or sell IT services, are facing disruption as their customers spend more on cloud services rather than extending their own IT systems.

其中一個是爲數字化經濟打造和運行基礎設施。由於用戶選擇增加在雲服務方面的支出更不是升級IT系統，製造硬件和軟件、或者提供IT服務的企業正面臨分崩離析的局面。

Much of Amazon’s recent stock market advance reflects the huge opportunity that its cloud platform business, AWS, now has. Microsoft’s renewed relevance in the tech world, following the sidelining of the PC, reflects a similar shift to the cloud, where it is now Amazon’s closest competitor.

亞馬遜最近的股價升勢在很大程度上反映出其雲平臺業務AWS眼下坐擁的巨大機遇。在PC業務邊緣化後，微軟調整了在科技領域的定位，同樣轉向雲服務。如今微軟是亞馬遜在雲服務領域實力最接近的對手。

And the second promising growth area is in applications for the pervasive new platform emerging from developments in cloud and mobile computing. In the past, Microsoft, with Office, cornered the market for the main applications that ran on its PC operating system. But the next big digital applications will reach into many more corners of life and touch many more businesses.

第二個前景不錯的增長領域是App，也就是爲那些隨着雲服務和移動計算的發展而出現的無處不在的新平臺打造App。過去，憑藉Office軟件，微軟壟斷了在其PC操作系統中運行的主要應用的市場。但是下一個重要的數字化App將更加深入生活的方方面面，觸及更多領域。

Uber’s use of a mobile app to invade the taxi business is the blueprint for this. It is now angling to become a new transport and logistics platform itself. Now, the big five — with their large user bases and control of their own platforms — should have an advantage when it comes to developing new applications like this. But it does not guarantee they will be the ones to grab the opportunities first.

優步利用一款手機App侵入出租車業務，便反映了這一點。如今優步的目標是成爲一個全新的運輸和物流平臺。在研發此類新App方面，五大巨頭——以其巨大的用戶基礎和對各自平臺的控制——應該擁有優勢。但是這並不能保證它們會最先抓住機遇。

Facebook’s unveiling of a virtual clone of the rival Snapchat app is a sign of the justifiable paranoia that even the biggest digital companies can feel. While the social network has shown itself to be an effective fast-follower, it will struggle to outrun all the innovation unleashed by the new open digital platforms.

Facebook發佈了一款實質上覆制競爭對手Snapchat的App，表明了即便是最大的數字化公司也會犯的無可非議的偏執。儘管這家社交網站已證明自己是一個高效的快速模仿者，但是它將難以超越各種開放型的新數字平臺帶來的所有創新。

Indeed, the history of other seemingly unstoppable tech companies, such as IBM and Microsoft, should give others hope. Competition regulations, as well as the increasing difficulty of staying on the cutting edge as they become giant companies, are among the factors that eventually weigh them down.

IBM、微軟等一些曾經看似勢不可擋的科技企業的歷史，應該會給其他企業帶來希望。與競爭相關的法規，以及隨着它們成爲巨頭後要保持在行業最前沿的難度日益加大，這些都是最終壓制它們的因素。

But for the other companies battling against their current stock market dominance, that may be cold comfort.

但是對於其他正與當前在股市佔主導地位的巨頭相抗衡的企業來說，這或許起不到安慰作用。