People tend to forget the big got big in those days partly because of control over distribution channels. It was incredibly difficult for a small software company to break into large amounts of sales if they didn't have both retail and enterprise reach.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a smaller set of niche hardware companies pop up going against that trend, and I certainly see the state of software at the moment fragmenting further, not consolidating more. While Facebook and Google theoretically are dominating the distribution channels again, in reality those channels can be leveraged by smaller players easily. As if every boxed windows copy in 1995 had an empty slot where you could put your own company at low cost.
Absolutely. The web and now HTML5 completely obliterate the old school mentality that you need to have conventional sales channels, and ancient business models to suceed. Any of these "big wigs" that think Apple and Google will dominate forever will be proven wrong.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a smaller set of niche hardware companies pop up going against that trend, and I certainly see the state of software at the moment fragmenting further, not consolidating more. While Facebook and Google theoretically are dominating the distribution channels again, in reality those channels can be leveraged by smaller players easily. As if every boxed windows copy in 1995 had an empty slot where you could put your own company at low cost.