十年前的喬布斯打開了一個怎樣的世界？

Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, was prone to hyperbole but his eulogy for the iPhone as he launched it 10 years ago was accurate: “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.”

蘋果公司(Apple)聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人史蒂夫•喬布斯(Steve Jobs)喜歡使用夸張的修辭手法，但10年前當(dāng)他推出第一代iPhone時，他對它的頌詞是準(zhǔn)確的：“每隔一段時間，就會出現(xiàn)一種革命性的產(chǎn)品，它將改變一切。”

Google was just an internet search engine then, but one of its offspring unveiled plans this week to make an entire platform — software and hardware — for driverless cars. Without the iPhone revolution, it is hard to imagine a technology company entering the transport industry, or designing a device that can steer cars around while receiving and transmitting streams of data.

當(dāng)時的谷歌(Google)還只是一家互聯(lián)網(wǎng)搜索引擎，但從它拆分出的一家公司本周公布了為無人駕駛汽車打造完整平臺——軟件及硬件——的計劃。若沒有iPhone帶來的變革，很難想象一家科技公司可以進(jìn)入運(yùn)輸業(yè)、或設(shè)計出可以駕駛汽車四處行駛同時接發(fā)數(shù)據(jù)流的設(shè)備。

For a long time, Jobs was a lone voice in the wilderness in preaching the power of uniting hardware and software, while Microsoft made a fortune by dominating software alone. Even he did not predict the potential of integrating everything from software and mobile hardware to data storage and artificial intelligence. Yet this is his legacy: the omniscient tech company.

在很長一段時間里，喬布斯都是倡導(dǎo)硬件和軟件結(jié)合的曠野上孤獨(dú)的聲音，而微軟(Microsoft)通過只主導(dǎo)軟件就賺得了巨額財富。就連他當(dāng)時也未預(yù)測到將從軟件和手機(jī)硬件、到數(shù)據(jù)存儲和人工智能的一切事物結(jié)合起來所激發(fā)的潛力。不過，這是他的遺產(chǎn)：全知型科技公司。

It was difficult in 2007 to imagine what such an enterprise could be worth. Only Microsoft was among the world’s 10 most valuable companies, not Amazon, Apple, Facebook or Google. The latter ranked 51st in the FT Global 500 in the first quarter of 2007; Apple was 85th, Amazon did not make the list and Facebook was still five years away from its initial public offering.

在2007年，很難想象這樣一家企業(yè)的價值有多高。當(dāng)時只有微軟在全世界最具價值的10大公司之列，亞馬遜(Amazon)、蘋果、Facebook和谷歌都不在其中。在2007年第一季度英國《金融時報》全球500強(qiáng)排行榜(FT Global 500)中，谷歌位列第51位;蘋果排名第85位，亞馬遜沒進(jìn)入榜單，而那時Facebook距離首次公開發(fā)行(IPO)還有5年之久。

These five companies, with Google renamed Alphabet, are all in the top 10 now. Information technology has become the dominant source of corporate value, displacing finance, telecoms, and energy. “Mastery of data is like the steam engine of our age,” says Annabelle Gawer, professor of digital economy at the University of Surrey.

這5家公司(谷歌已更名為Alphabet)如今都在市值最高的10大公司之列。信息技術(shù)已經(jīng)取代金融、電信和能源，成為了公司價值的主要來源。“掌握信息就像是掌握了我們時代的蒸汽機(jī)，”薩里大學(xué)(University of Surrey)數(shù)字經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)教授安娜貝勒•加韋(Annabelle Gawer)表示。

Its impact on other industries is obvious in transport. Carmaking was once vertically integrated: Henry Ford controlled the raw materials that went into his cars, along with their assembly and distribution. The industry’s scope has since narrowed, and technology is steadily dismantling it.

信息技術(shù)對其他行業(yè)的影響，在運(yùn)輸行業(yè)表現(xiàn)得十分明顯。汽車制造業(yè)曾經(jīng)是縱向一體化的行業(yè)：亨利•福特(Henry Ford)控制著制造汽車的原材料、以及裝配和分銷。自那以來，汽車業(yè)的范圍已經(jīng)收窄，技術(shù)逐漸拆解了這個行業(yè)。

Waymo, Alphabet’s driverless car company, this week displayed its new sensors on Chrysler minivans: Sergio Marchionne, Fiat Chrysler’s chief executive, does not think that carmakers should try to beat technology companies at their own game.

Alphabet旗下的無人駕駛汽車公司W(wǎng)aymo，本周展示了應(yīng)用在克萊斯勒(Chrysler)小型貨車上的新型傳感器：菲亞特-克萊斯勒(Fiat Chrysler)首席執(zhí)行官塞爾吉奧•馬爾基翁內(nèi)(Sergio Marchionne)認(rèn)為，汽車制造商不應(yīng)該試圖在科技公司的地盤打敗它們。

Ford is letting Amazon put Alexa, the artificial intelligence software that powers its Echo home assistant, into Ford cars.

福特(Ford)正準(zhǔn)備讓亞馬遜把Alexa(操控亞馬遜Echo家庭管家的人工智能軟件)應(yīng)用于福特的汽車上。

The impact is also clear in retailing. Amazon’s relentless rise — its market capitalisation has grown from $16bn at the time of the iPhone launch to $380bn — is squeezing bricks-and-mortar retailers.

這種影響在零售業(yè)也很明顯。亞馬遜無情的崛起——其市值從iPhone面市時的160億美元增長到了3800億美元——正不斷擠壓著實(shí)體店零售商的生存空間。

Sears and Macy’s, the US retail chains, unveiled further store closures last week; both have invested in technology to increase online sales but are struggling to beat Amazon.

上周，美國零售連鎖店西爾斯(Sears)和梅西百貨(Macy's)公布了進(jìn)一步關(guān)閉店鋪的計劃;兩家公司均投資技術(shù)以增加網(wǎng)絡(luò)銷售額，但很難打敗亞馬遜。

The new breed of tech company has three competitive advantages (leaving aside tax and regulatory arbitrage). The first is scale: they employ thousands of engineers and operate networks of server farms — and in Amazon’s case retail warehouses — that smaller rivals cannot match. Like other conglomerates, they have deep resources.

新一代的科技公司有3個競爭優(yōu)勢(不考慮稅收優(yōu)惠和監(jiān)管套利)。第一個是規(guī)模：它們聘請了成千上萬個工程師并且運(yùn)營服務(wù)器集群網(wǎng)絡(luò)——亞馬遜則是運(yùn)營零售倉庫網(wǎng)絡(luò)——這是小型競爭對手比不上的。像其他綜合企業(yè)一樣，它們擁有深層資源。

Second, less traditionally, they exploit network effects. No matter how many people buy Fords, its cars work the same. This is not true of Google’s search engine or Facebook’s social network and messaging applications. The more users they amass, the more data they can collect and the better the service becomes. It creates a virtuous circle.

第二個優(yōu)勢是它們利用網(wǎng)絡(luò)效應(yīng)，這是過去沒有的。無論有多少人購買福特，汽車用起來都一樣。而谷歌的搜索引擎或Facebook的社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)或消息應(yīng)用并非如此。它們積累的用戶越多，它們便可以收集越多數(shù)據(jù)，進(jìn)而改進(jìn)服務(wù)。這創(chuàng)造了一個良性循環(huán)。

Last, they are becoming vertically integrated — the strategy that Jobs brought to Apple. They make hardware, from Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Pixel to Amazon’s Echo, and are finding new ways to put sensors in other devices, such as driverless cars. By analysing the data these capture, they can develop products tailored to every user.

最后一點(diǎn)，它們正在進(jìn)行縱向一體化——這是喬布斯給蘋果制定的戰(zhàn)略。它們制造硬件——從蘋果的iPhone、谷歌的Pixel、到亞馬遜的Echo——同時正在尋找把傳感器用于無人駕駛汽車等其他設(shè)備的新方法。通過分析收集來的數(shù)據(jù)，它們可以為每位用戶量身定制產(chǎn)品。

This raises the question of whether such huge power must be curbed. Their handling of data has to be regulated since it is easily abused — safeguards are needed, such as Waymo’s effort to stop vehicles being hacked. Are they already so dominant that antitrust authorities should break them up?

這提出了一個問題——如此強(qiáng)大的能力是否必須受到約束?由于數(shù)據(jù)很容易被濫用，它們對數(shù)據(jù)的處理必須受到監(jiān)管——保障措施是必需的，比如Waymo努力防止汽車被黑客攻擊。它們的主導(dǎo)地位是否已經(jīng)到了反壟斷機(jī)構(gòu)應(yīng)該將其拆分的地步?

Not yet, I think. It is easy to forget how recent — dating back only a decade — their emergence is. Their story is still playing out: Waymo’s technology is still being developed and Amazon’s success with the Echo only partly makes up for its failure with the Fire phone. Silicon Valley is littered with companies that once appeared all powerful but later stumbled, including Yahoo.

我認(rèn)為，還沒有。人們很容易忘記它們是不久前——僅僅10年前——才出現(xiàn)的。它們的故事仍在展開：Waymo的技術(shù)仍然處于研發(fā)中，亞馬遜在Echo上的成功只能部分彌補(bǔ)Fire手機(jī)的失敗。硅谷到處都是一度所向披靡但隨后一敗涂地的公司，其中包括雅虎(Yahoo)。

In another decade, things could be different: they may lose focus in trying to mimic each others’ strengths, as conglomerates often do. Companies tend to be good at some things and bad at others: a corporate software giant does not design the most exciting consumer devices. Microsoft spanned many businesses with patchy results before focusing on cloud computing.

再過十年，情況可能會不同：它們可能會在試圖模仿他人優(yōu)勢的過程中失去重心，正如綜合企業(yè)通常的表現(xiàn)。企業(yè)往往擅長某些事而不擅長其他事：一家企業(yè)軟件巨頭不會設(shè)計出最激動人心的消費(fèi)者設(shè)備。在專注于云計算之前，微軟曾橫跨多個行業(yè)，但結(jié)果參差不齊。

But vigilance is needed. The combination of forces that fuelled the rise of such companies has no exact historical precedent: a technology revolution has created new economies of scale. Apple’s Jobs outflanked Microsoft with the iPhone but his rival remains strong; the power of others could yet grow.

但我們必須提高警覺。推動這類企業(yè)崛起的力量組合，并沒有確切的歷史先例：技術(shù)革命創(chuàng)造了新的規(guī)模經(jīng)濟(jì)。蘋果的喬布斯以iPhone智勝微軟，但他的競爭對手仍然強(qiáng)大;其他人也可能越來越強(qiáng)。