The big advantage to a company in getting its employees to use a single device is that that device won’t get turned off, so out-of-hours work becomes much easier to ask for (on an unofficial and usually uncompensated basis).

Great overview! I already forwarded it to a few colleagues internally.

So it seems a bit easier to identify today’s winners and “not so winners” in the consumer technology than it is in the service provider space. I would like to know how you see the telco role in this battle. Do you think of the ATTs, Verizons and Telefónicas as (at best) mere partners of one or more of the big5 you mention? Or do you see ways in which telcos can compete head to head, or at least, stay up to par with the best technology companies ? Do they stand a chance in the digital civilization era (at least within the converging customer’s home, if nowhere else)?

I hope to read more from you soon!

Best,

However, many people no longer see Microsoft as relevant and don’t discuss it in the same breath as the others. Just look at the subtitle on that Fast Company piece on “The Great Tech War of 2012,” where it says, “Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon battle for the future of the innovation economy.” Note, they don’t include Microsoft in there. The reason I put “maybe Microsoft” in the introduction was to allude to that kind of thinking.

Microsoft does however have some serious challenges. The main one is around ideology. Compared to the others listed here Microsoft has a weak and divided ideology. The cancellation of the Courier project and the decision to use the full version of Windows on tablets shows that the Microsoft folks doing the best innovation are losing out on the political battles in favour of Microsoft’s existing products. I’ve tested the Windows 8 alpha and it has a really really confusing user interface. Windows Phone 7 on the other hand has an outstanding UX: It’s differentiated from other smartphones, it’s fast, and consistent.

Kinnect and Windows Phone are really excellent products but Microsoft risks not maximizing their promise because it’s the Windows PC folks that appear to be driving corporate strategy rather than the Xbox and Windows Phone teams. J Allard’s departure highlights the internal tensions. See this piece: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20128013-75/the-inside-story-of-how-microsoft-killed-its-courier-tablet/

As for the title. Well, of course that title would work with just using the word “PC” rather than “Post PC”. They are two sides of the same coin, so to speak. I disagree “Post PC” is solely an Apple term. Jobs was far from the first to use it and neither will he be the last. I think however that it’s unarguable that the era we are moving into is no longer dominated by the PC. Smartphones are becoming ubiquitous. Tablets are finally taking off. Even interactive TV — now variously called smart TV or connected TV — is showing a few signs of (faltering) traction after numerous false starts… This is a new era and the PC is no longer the sole device. That’s also why these Civilizations are so interesting: They don’t trade one device’s dominance for another new device. Instead they aim to work everywhere on whatever devices and use a strong identity/citizenship system in order to do it.

Can you clarify what any of this has to do with “post-PC”? I regard “post-PC” as an official Apple corporate propaganda term, popularised by Steve Jobs himself, and using it in a headline attracts interest from proponents of this philosophy (e.g. @charlesarthur) but I suspect you had good reasons for using that term and would like to understand your rationale.

“Everyone knows the biggest battles in technology are today being fought by a small number of large organizations. We intuitively know who these great powers are: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and maybe Microsoft.”

Why “maybe” Microsoft?

“Everyone knows the biggest battles in technology are today being fought by a small number of large organizations. We intuitively know who these great powers are: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and maybe Microsoft.”

Why “maybe” Microsoft? From first two sentences, this article is ambiguous. If you make an assertion like this, it warrants an explanation — but there no explanation is available because this classic anti-Microsoft rhetoric has no basis whatsoever in the real world.

“The Rise of Digital Civilizations Will Define Our Post-PC Future”

I understand and like the term “digital civilisations” but the headline makes no sense. I’m trying to resist the temptation to use a word as strong as “nonsense”.

Inserting the official Apple corporate propaganda term “post-PC” in the headline is meaningless. This alternative headline is equally valid:-

“The Rise of Digital Civilizations Will Define Our PC Future”