It's easy to tell who's the No. 1 high-tech company at any given time. It's the one everybody seems to fear and hate.
It happened with Xerox, IBM, Microsoft and to some extent Intel. None is as dominant as it once was, in part due to antitrust strictures, but also a changing landscape. Instead, a new bogeyman is spooking the corridors of 2006: Google. With a searingly hot stock and a portfolio bursting with world-changing ideas, Google inspires the awe and dread that inevitably accompany the mantle of No. 1.
The bogeyman feeds some intrinsic need for tech denizens to target an enemy. Call it Borg Love: Resistance is futile, we will be assimilated, but we really need you to motivate us!
|