Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s future has been up for debate for some time, with some investors believing that the company doesn’t have much life left in it. However, Monday’s comments from Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures may be the boldest we have heard yet on this topic.
Apple to be usurped by unknown company
Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York City this week, Wilson said that by 2020, he thinks the world’s top three technology companies will be Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and “one that we’ve never heard of.” He’s a little more unsure about Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), which he suggests might be four, five, six or seven.
TechCrunch reports that he thinks Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s future is too tied in with hardware and not enough with the cloud, which he believes will make it difficult for it moving forward. The venture capitalist sees hardware as becoming a commodity and the cloud as the future of the technology industry. He said Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s “stuff in the cloud is largely not good” and that he doesn’t think the company thinks enough about cloud storage and data.
Apple said to prepare iWatch
Indeed, if hardware isn’t becoming a safe play anymore, he could be right, although it seems like just six years would be a short time frame in which Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) could be completely out. Of course it also didn’t take very long for Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) to fall from grace either, showing that it is possible for this to happen.
The latest rumors about Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) have focused on the supposed iWatch, including the many hires the company has made which seem to be aimed at a smart watch. Apple has been poaching biosensor and health and fitness experts right and left, demonstrating that it continues to rely heavily on hardware. Nonetheless, people continue to get excited about the company’s hardware and look forward to the upcoming iPhone 6.
