{"id":2839,"date":"2014-05-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/otava.test\/is-apple-dying-because-it-doesnt-think-about-the-cloud-thats-debatable-but-future-of-cloud-computing-is-not\/"},"modified":"2014-05-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T00:00:00","slug":"is-apple-dying-because-it-doesnt-think-about-the-cloud-thats-debatable-but-future-of-cloud-computing-is-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.otava.com\/blog\/is-apple-dying-because-it-doesnt-think-about-the-cloud-thats-debatable-but-future-of-cloud-computing-is-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Apple dying because it \u2018doesn\u2019t think about the cloud\u2019? That\u2019s debatable, but future of cloud computing is not"},"content":{"rendered":"

Highly successful tech venture capitalist Fred Wilson created some waves last week when he predicted Apple wouldn\u2019t be among the top three most important tech companies in the world by 2020. Speaking at a conference in New York City, he said he envisions Google, Facebook and \u201cone that we\u2019ve never heard of\u201d making up that triumvirate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Why would his dismiss the current largest tech company in the world (Apple\u2019s first quarter revenues of $43.7 billion was more than Google, Facebook and <insert name of any company you\u2019ve never heard of here> combined). According to a TechCrunch article, he said Apple is \u201ctoo rooted in hardware\u201d and not sufficiently tied into the cloud<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think hardware is increasingly becoming a commodity,\u201d he said. \u201cTheir stuff in the cloud is largely not good. I don\u2019t think they think about data and the cloud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Wilson \u2013 who has backed huge success stories like Twitter and Tumblr \u2013 has been wrong about Apple before. As CNN Money points out, he dumped all of his Apple stock at $91.36 per share in January 2009. The day of his comments at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Apple closed at $600.96. (Note: Wilson said he sold his stock because he didn\u2019t feel Apple was being honest about Steve Jobs\u2019 health.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Mark Rogowsky, a contributing technology writer at Forbes, took Wilson\u2019s comments to task in a recent article \u2013 citing \u201c1\/3 of a billion people use iCloud backups regularly\u201d and the success of Apple\u2019s massive iTunes\/App Store. Of iTunes, Rogowsky writes:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cApple\u2019s revenues from all those downloads would total $23.5 billion if it were accounted for as a standalone business, according to Asymco. That small part of Apple\u2019s overall business would be #130 on the Fortune 500 if it were a standalone company. For a sense of just how much that is, Facebook \u2014 the company Wilson says will be the second-most valuable behind Google in 2020 \u2014 took in just under $8 billion last year. For having \u201cnothing,\u201d Apple\u2019s producing a good deal more than nothing in cloud revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, check back in six years and see if Wilson or the plethora of pundits who disagree with him were correct.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s not disputable in this conversation is that hardware, as Wilson points out, is indeed becoming a commodity and cloud computing<\/a> is essential for future innovation and success.<\/p>\n

Online Tech co-CEO Yan Ness discusses that topic in the following video clip, saying \u201c(organizations) don\u2019t want to deal with the hardware anymore \u2026 they just want to pay the price and have somebody else take care of it.\u201d<\/p>\n