Aloha Mike,
Regarding future Gorillas in emerging industries. The Satellite industry will never have anything but Princes and Kings. For one, the US Government will not allow it. GE Americom, Loral Space, PanAmSat and Intelsat are the big global service providers, with high hopes also outstanding for the still to be proven business models such as Teledesic. True, these companies have deep pockets funding, but there will be no Gorilla dominating this forest.
The online brokerages are great businesses. And this bull market is making it easy for them to thrive like moss in acidic water. They have a long ways to go to threaten the Goldman Sachs of the World, however. And long before they get to that point, most of them will be bought out. The rumors of Goldman buying out E*Trade this week are just the beginning. Again, there will be Kings and Princes, they just won't be around long enough to become Gorillas.
The portals have a similar destiny in store for them with the only possible exception being YAHOO (I am excluding AOL form this group). But even YAHOO has a likely buyout/merger in their future. It's just a matter of time. Time Warner can be extremely convincing!
I guess my overall point is that the likelyhood of new Gorillas emerging in new and emerging markets is slim. When one thinks about most of the large Fortune 500 companies these days, they have been taught a hard lesson these past two years about "not buying in to this technology stuff"! Its becoming clear that they are becoming, and will continue to become, more and more aggressive on the acquisitions front. They must make up for lost time and their inadequate resources so they can prove to their shareholders how they embrace the internet and technology. That's because they realize it's just flat out easier to buy into the next great technology than to try and start from scratch. It just boils down to what type of credibility vs. valuation balancing act these businesses play in their pursuit of proving to their shareholders that "they understand this technology stuff."
Thanks,
Teflon |
