I find myself consistently interested by the idea that for all the overt recent progress that we’ve experienced we are in fact in a lull, waiting for the next big thing to emerge. That’s made me think about the way in which the digital computing era has evolved over the last fifty years. This post sets out some thinking about how monopolies have formed and been broken in the Digital Economy to date as a precursor to further posts on future strategies and business models. Four great computing platforms The first Intel Microprocessor – the 4004 – was revealed to the world in November 1971. Although at the time few predicted its impact, the 4004 was the Big Bang event that launched the fifth great techno-economic revolution: the era of digital computing. Before the 4004 and the vast range of other microprocessors that followed it, computing power came at far too great a cost and complexity to be readily useful for the majority of everyday use cases. As we approach the fiftieth annive...
Thoughts on strategy in a Digital Economy