If there were only 2 tech giants

It’s the year 2036. There are only two big tech companies left. The A company and FOMI inc. Here is the story of how they came into being.

2020: The beginning of the end

The hospitality, entertainment & travel industries are hit hard by Covid-19. Tech giants on the other hand seem unbothered by the pandemic. In fact, while people are turning to internet and other digital means, they flourish.

Facebook and Google for example embrace these new times by not only introducing new products like Rooms and Meet, but also let their working force work from home until at least 2021. And who knows, maybe forever.

Those new products are nothing new. Most tech companies have a cash cow to fund new investments to diversify. With their money, innovation power and diversification strategy they penetrate and disrupt new markets. And along the way they acquire startups and crush competitors by simply replacing them.

The A companies

Here is an overview of the so-called A companies: Alphabet (including Google), Apple, Alibaba Group and Amazon. An overview of their 2020 company data and product portfolio’s:

The FOMI Group

The FOMI group consist of Facebook, Oracle, Microsoft and IBM (including Red Hat). The company data and product portfolio of 2020:

The year 2028

It is without question that the tech giants became very powerful in today's society. When you list it, this becomes much more obvious:

Wealth: Have more revenue than GDP of small countries.
Market dominance: They disrupt and replace markets.
Trade: Act as broker for supply and demand.
Finance: Act like banks, guide money transfer and payments. Analyze our purchasing behavior.
Global: Operate worldwide, across borders.
Dependency: Make us dependent on their products.
Privacy: Store, Collect and Analyze our private data.
Information: Give access to what we seek (search algorithms).
Truth: Decide what is true and what published by their policy.
Justice: Have legal departments to have it their way.
Knowledge: Know our behavior by data analysis and AI techniques, better than we do ourselves.
Politics: Lobby and finance for parties and regulation.
Science & technology: Make or break new fields of research and inventions.

Fanboys turn into soldiers

A company like Apple always had fans that find their products part of their identity (either by status or as a tech enthusiast). This was rather unique, even in the tech world. You didn’t see a lot of Amazon or Facebook fanboys. But even for these companies it sounds not so crazy as it used to be.

Now you are either fan of the A company or of FOMI inc. States have borders and regulations. But these companies have no borders and control the regulations. Slowly those fanboys are turned into soldiers. Is it normal to die for a company?

With law, regulations, institutions and military on their side. Once there were discussions to break up those companies. But now it’s 2034. It’s too late. The companies turned into two giants only fighting each other.

2036: Company portfolios

The A-company (made from Apple, Alphabet, Ali Baba and Amazon) was formed through mergers in 2027 and 2034. FIMO (made from Facebook, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle) merged two years later as a counter reaction to the A-company.

Let’s get an overview of the two companies and their product portfolio. This is not a complete chart, but it gives an idea in which areas the companies are now represented.

The following turns the portfolios of the A companies into A company. The same happens for the FOMI companies. Here is what the company will look like (based on 2020 numbers):

A company has a strong valuation of more than 5 trillion dollar. It’s strong on the internet, the consumer market and in retail. FOMI is a bit smaller with a valuation of 2.5 trillion dollar and its strength lays in the business market, social media and (cloud) platforms.

The additional acquisitions can be done to fill weak gaps and to get into total world competition with their main competitor.

The end

It’s 2036. The world has 8,9 billion people. The two companies together have 2 million employees. 0.02% of the world population.

Almost every citizen in the world will be dependent on them. If both go into war, so do we?