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Monday was something of a red-letter day for the tech industry. When the stock market closed, the five most valuable companies on the planet were, for the first time, technology concerns. And they all hailed from the West coast of the US, whether the San Francisco Bay Area (Apple, Alphabet and Facebook) or in and around Seattle (Microsoft and Amazon).
对科技行业来说，上周一（8月1日）是个值得纪念的日子。股市收盘时，全球市值最高的5家企业头一次全部是科技企业。并且，它们全部来自美国西海岸，包括旧金山湾区的苹果(Apple)、Alphabet和Facebook，以及西雅图一带的微软(Microsoft)和亚马逊(Amazon)。
In subsequent days, ExxonMobil — which held the title of world’s most valuable company until it was overhauled by Apple — edged back above Facebook and Amazon. But it may only be a temporary reprieve. A seemingly inexorable shift in business and stock market momentum is under way, as today’s technology leaders assume a more central place in personal and business life.
随后几天，埃克森美孚(ExxonMobil)——曾是全球市值最高的企业，后来被苹果赶超——市值重新超过Facebook和亚马逊。但是，这可能只是昙花一现。随着科技领军企业在个人生活和商业事务中占据着更加核心的位置，商业和股市中也出现了一种似乎势不可挡的转变。
Ten years ago, at the height of the PC era, Microsoft was the only tech company in the top 20. Now, though, the big five control a much wider array of digital platforms around which life and work revolve — from smartphones and cloud computing data centres to mobile messaging apps.
10年前，在个人电脑(PC)时代的巅峰时期，微软是当时市值最高的20家企业中唯一一家科技公司。然而，如今五巨头控制着在人们生活和工作中占据重要位置、更加多种多样的数字化平台——从智能手机到云计算数据中心，再到移动通讯应用(App)。
They are also racing each other to build the next platforms, from virtual reality headsets to driverless cars and digital assistants powered by artificial intelligence.
它们还在竞相打造下一个平台，从虚拟现实头盔到无人驾驶汽车，再到由人工智能驱动的数字化助理。
Only China, thanks to a domestic market that is hard for outsiders to penetrate, can lay claim to tech companies with the scale and ambition to compete.
只有中国——有赖于外来者难以渗入的国内市场——能够拥有在规模和野心上可以与之一较高下的科技企业。
That has been underlined by this week’s detente in the ride-hailing wars, which has seen Uber’s global expansion halted and a new Chinese digital champion crowned, in the shape of Didi Chuxing.
上周叫车软件之战有所缓和就突显了这一点：优步(Uber)停住了全球扩张的脚步，而一家新的中国数字化冠军企业成功加冕，即滴滴出行(Didi Chuxing)。
Today, the key question is: which markets are next in the big five’s sights, as they cast around more widely for growth?
如今，关键问题在于：在五巨头在更大范围内寻找增长点之际，它们的下一个目标市场在哪？
There is still plenty of room for them to expand in their core markets. Although Google and Facebook are already the world’s biggest advertising-based businesses, only about 30 per cent of global advertising spend is digital. Two percentage points of this spend shifts from analogue to digital every year, leaving room for plenty of expansion.
目前它们的核心市场仍然有足够空间供它们扩张。尽管谷歌(Google，上图为谷歌的总部)和Facebook已是全球最大的以广告业务为基础的企业，但是全球广告支出仅有30%来自数字化领域。每年有2个百分点的广告支出从模拟广告转向数字化广告，因此有足够的扩张空间。
However, in other markets, such as smartphones, growth is harder to come by. For a company as big as Apple, the only hope for material expansion comes from breaking into a huge new business, like automobiles. Giant bets like this, or Google’s “moonshot” projects, are hard to assess. Closer to home, there are two areas that seem more likely to support growth in the short and medium term.
然而，在智能手机等其他市场，要取得增长困难得多。对于像苹果这么大的企业，实现大规模扩张的唯一希望是进军一项市场庞大的新业务，例如汽车领域。诸如此类或者谷歌的Moonshot项目之类的豪赌，很难评估。目前有两个领域似乎更有可能支撑中短期增长。
One is building and running the infrastructure on which the digital economy runs. Companies that make hardware and software, or sell IT services, are facing disruption as their customers spend more on cloud services rather than extending their own IT systems.
其中一个是为数字化经济打造和运行基础设施。由于用户选择增加在云服务方面的支出更不是升级IT系统，制造硬件和软件、或者提供IT服务的企业正面临分崩离析的局面。
Much of Amazon’s recent stock market advance reflects the huge opportunity that its cloud platform business, AWS, now has. Microsoft’s renewed relevance in the tech world, following the sidelining of the PC, reflects a similar shift to the cloud, where it is now Amazon’s closest competitor.
亚马逊最近的股价升势在很大程度上反映出其云平台业务AWS眼下坐拥的巨大机遇。在PC业务边缘化后，微软调整了在科技领域的定位，同样转向云服务。如今微软是亚马逊在云服务领域实力最接近的对手。
And the second promising growth area is in applications for the pervasive new platform emerging from developments in cloud and mobile computing. In the past, Microsoft, with Office, cornered the market for the main applications that ran on its PC operating system. But the next big digital applications will reach into many more corners of life and touch many more businesses.
第二个前景不错的增长领域是App，也就是为那些随着云服务和移动计算的发展而出现的无处不在的新平台打造App。过去，凭借Office软件，微软垄断了在其PC操作系统中运行的主要应用的市场。但是下一个重要的数字化App将更加深入生活的方方面面，触及更多领域。
Uber’s use of a mobile app to invade the taxi business is the blueprint for this. It is now angling to become a new transport and logistics platform itself. Now, the big five — with their large user bases and control of their own platforms — should have an advantage when it comes to developing new applications like this. But it does not guarantee they will be the ones to grab the opportunities first.
优步利用一款手机App侵入出租车业务，便反映了这一点。如今优步的目标是成为一个全新的运输和物流平台。在研发此类新App方面，五大巨头——以其巨大的用户基础和对各自平台的控制——应该拥有优势。但是这并不能保证它们会最先抓住机遇。
Facebook’s unveiling of a virtual clone of the rival Snapchat app is a sign of the justifiable paranoia that even the biggest digital companies can feel. While the social network has shown itself to be an effective fast-follower, it will struggle to outrun all the innovation unleashed by the new open digital platforms.
Facebook发布了一款实质上复制竞争对手Snapchat的App，表明了即便是最大的数字化公司也会犯的无可非议的偏执。尽管这家社交网站已证明自己是一个高效的快速模仿者，但是它将难以超越各种开放型的新数字平台带来的所有创新。
Indeed, the history of other seemingly unstoppable tech companies, such as IBM and Microsoft, should give others hope. Competition regulations, as well as the increasing difficulty of staying on the cutting edge as they become giant companies, are among the factors that eventually weigh them down.
IBM、微软等一些曾经看似势不可挡的科技企业的历史，应该会给其他企业带来希望。与竞争相关的法规，以及随着它们成为巨头后要保持在行业最前沿的难度日益加大，这些都是最终压制它们的因素。
But for the other companies battling against their current stock market dominance, that may be cold comfort.
但是对于其他正与当前在股市占主导地位的巨头相抗衡的企业来说，这或许起不到安慰作用。
