[2012.12.01]Another game of thrones又一场“权力的游戏”
[color=#444444][font=Tahoma,][url=http://www.ecocn.org/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=174496]http://www.ecocn.org/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=174496[/url][/font][/color][color=#444444][font=Tahoma,]导读：当今科技产业，各公司不断扩大业务范围，导致业务交叉重复，竞争更加激烈
[size=2][color=Red][b]Technology giants at war
科技巨头，硝烟四起[/b][/color][/size]
[size=4][b]Another game of thrones
又一场“权力的游戏”[/b][/size]
[b]Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon are at each other’s throats in all sorts of ways
谷歌，苹果，Facebook和亚马逊已开始全面争斗。[/b]
[i][color=Silver]Dec 1st 2012 | SAN FRANCISCO | from the print edition[/color][/i]
[img=600,396]http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/cf_images/images-magazine/2012/12/01/FB/20121201_FBD000.png[/img]
IT IS an epic story of warring factions in a strange and changing landscape, a tale of incursions and sieges, of plots and betrayals, of battlefield brilliance and of cunning with coin.
这是一部关于在不断变化的未知之地交战各方的史诗，一个充满进攻与围攻，密谋与背叛，战场辉煌与尔虞我诈的传奇故事。
The sequence of doorstop fantasy novels that George R.R. Martin began with “A Game of Thrones”, and which HBO has now turned into a hit television show, provides the sort of immersive experience of an alien world that has always been popular among techies. But these days the escapism they offer may be tinged with an eldritch sense of recognition. Silicon Valley offers few dragons or direwolves, but Mr Martin’s tales of a world that has lost its king echoes the reality of today’s technology industry, where the battle lines between the four large companies seen as dominating the consumer internet—Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon—are in furious flux. The death last year of Steve Jobs, Apple’s monarch, robbed the technology world of the nearest thing that it had to royalty. But even before Jobs’s passing, tension was growing between the great powers of the web generation as the onset of mobile computing upset the previous balance of power.
乔治·R·R·马丁系列奇幻小说的第一部就是《权力的游戏》。该小说已被HBO改编为热门电视剧，给人以[color=Red]浸入式[/color]异域世界体验，使得其在科技人员之间广为流行。不过，[color=Red]如今该剧反映的逃避主义却流露出些许诡异的认可感[/color]。硅谷如今不出产恶龙和惧狼（古代生物，更新世狼的灭绝种--译者注），但马丁的奇幻小说世界失去了王者，正好反映出了如今科技产业的现状：谷歌、苹果，Facebook，亚马逊这四家被认为是主导消费互联网的公司正在不断扩大的战场展开激烈厮杀。苹果教父乔布斯的离去夺走了科技界最能称得上王者的人。但是即使在乔布斯去世前，随着移动信息技术原有力量均衡被打破，互联网公司之间气氛也早已变得紧张起来了。
The tech industry has a history of bitter rivalries: IBM and Apple in the 1980s; Microsoft and Netscape in the 1990s. But the rivalries shaping the market today are even richer and more complicated, not least because they have a personal edge. Three of the big four are still run by men who made their billions as founder, or co-founder, of their empires—Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Larry Page and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. And although Jobs no longer rules Apple, he groomed Tim Cook, his successor as chief executive. “In the modern history of technology we have never seen such a highly engaged group of chief executives and founders,” says Mary Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture-capital company.
纵观科技产业史，竞争颇为激烈：20世纪80年代的IBM和苹果；90年代的微软和网景。然而，如今影响市场的竞争比以往更多样更复杂。这主要是因为这些企业都有着强烈的[color=Red]个人锋芒[/color]。四家大公司中的三家现仍由当年的创始或联合创始人运营，这三位是亚马逊的贝佐斯,谷歌的拉里·佩奇，Facebook的马克·扎克伯格。他们依靠这些商业帝国赚得亿万财富。尽管乔布斯已无法掌管苹果，但他推荐接班人蒂姆·库克（Tim Cook）担任首席执行官。克莱因纳·伯金斯风险投资公司（Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers）的合伙人MaryMeek表示，在现代科技史上，还从未见过如此高的首席执行官和创始人参与度。
Nor has the industry ever seen such young and feisty firms—Apple, the oldest of the quartet, was founded in 1976—with so much financial firepower. Each of the companies has developed a powerful business model. Google has turned search into a huge money-spinner by tying it to advertising. Facebook is in the process of doing something similar with the way people’s interests and relationships are revealed by their social networks. Amazon has made it cheap and easy to order physical goods and digital content online. And Apple has minted money by selling beautiful gadgets at premium prices.
也从未见过这么多朝气蓬勃、活力四射的公司有着如此雄厚的财力。苹果是四家之中最年长的，却也只是创办于1976年。这四家公司都建立了强大的商业模式。谷歌通过搜索与广告相结合，将搜索变成巨大的造钱机器。Facebook通过利用其网站反映用户的兴趣爱好和人际关系等信息，也进行类似的经营。亚马逊目标是使订购实体产品和数字内容变得既便宜又轻松。苹果通过高价销售完美的产品，也在不停地“造钱”。
[img=595,170]http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/print-edition/20121201_FBC551.png[/img]
This has let the companies pile cash into their war chests (see table). They will need them. All four grew up when computing was basically something done at a desk or on a laptop with the programs you had to hand. Now, as in Mr Martin’s realm of Westeros, where the reader is always being apocalyptically assured that “winter is coming”, their world is undergoing great change.
这就使得这些公司可将现金存入战时储备中，公司需要这些钱。计算机日益成为人们身边不可或缺的产品，这四家公司也随此潮流逐渐成长起来。现在就像在马丁书中描述的维斯特洛王国【1】“凛冬将至”【2】的预言终将成真，现在互联网公司世界也在发生巨大变化。
The iron phone
[color=RoyalBlue]铁王座[/color] 【4】
As the web becomes something that lives through and on the phone, and software something handled in a cloud, the clear lines that once defined territories and strategies are blurring. A mixture of threat and opportunity has the big four using their cash and acumen to strike out into other areas—sometimes into uninhabited lands, sometimes into places where some other firm is used to ruling the roost. And they are not the only ones involved in the fray.
随着网络成为手机不可或缺的一部分， 软件也由[color=Red]云处理[/color]，曾经用来确定方位和制定战略规划的明确界线也变得日益模糊。危机与机遇并存促使四大公司利用其手中现金和敏锐的判断力进入其他领域--有时是无人涉足的，有时是其他公司早已主宰的，此外，参与这场混战的并不仅此四家公司。
A host of start-up lordlings—such as Twitter in microblogging, or Square in mobile payments—seeks to carve out fiefs of their own, either with an eye to being bought out by the big four or becoming powers in their own right. And there is an ancient empire to contend with, too: Microsoft, which recently launched its first tablet computer, is trying hard to get back into the game, having been profitably preoccupied with PC software. But it is the battle between the big four that will have the greatest impact in future on the way people find information, consume content and purchase all kinds of stuff, and on who takes their money in return.
许多网络新贵--像微博领域的推特（Twitter）、手机支付领域的Square--也在寻求开拓各自领域，[color=RoyalBlue][color=RoyalBlue]以期[/color][/color][color=RoyalBlue]为四大公司收购，抑或[/color][color=RoyalBlue][color=RoyalBlue]独自做大做强[/color][/color]。此外还有一家老牌企业需要对付--微软。微软最近推出了第一款平板电脑，正努力重返“权力的游戏”，长久以来微软的重心一直放在利润丰厚的电脑软件上。不过四大公司之间的竞争才会对未来人们在搜寻信息、消费内容及购买各种产品等方面[color=RoyalBlue]产生最重要的影响，对谁能获得收益产生最大的影响[/color]。
The battlefields on which the big four are fighting are, like most battlefields, messy and confusing. They are also numerous. Apple and Google are crossing swords in operating systems for smartphones and tablet computers; both firms and Amazon are butting heads in hardware; Google and Facebook have become sworn enemies in social networking; some of the other protagonists even have designs on e-commerce, which has long been Amazon’s stronghold.
四家公司拼杀的战场，如同大部分战场一样：混乱不堪，难以辨别。同时交战战场又相当多相当广泛。苹果和谷歌正在为智能手机和平板电脑的操作系统而短兵相接。两家公司又与亚马逊在硬件上毫不留情。谷歌和Facebook是社交网络上的死敌。另外一些公司甚至在电子商务上也有所行动，而该领域长期以来一直有亚马逊霸占。
They also have territories to defend. Take Google. Its search engine gives it a rich heartland. The company continues to pour money into refining the algorithms that power this engine. It has reinforced its defences by annexing other services that help find things, for instance by buying ITA Software, a firm that provides flight data and other travel information.
当然，四家公司还有自身要防卫的领域。以谷歌为例，搜索引擎是其利润最为丰厚的关键领域。谷歌也在不断投入资金完善计算程序，提高搜索能力。另外它还通过不断兼并其他服务，开拓新业务，以此加强防卫能力，例如收购提供航班数据和旅行信息的ITA 软件公司。
[b]Search engines and siege engines
[color=RoyalBlue]搜索引擎与攻城武器[/color][/b]
It will not be easy to wrest this profitable property from Google. But each of the other web giants would dearly love to carve out a chunk. Arguably the biggest threat comes from Apple. The two firms used to enjoy one of the cosiest relationships in the tech industry—so cosy, in fact, that the search firm’s then chief executive, Eric Schmidt, sat on Apple’s board from 2006 to 2009. Now they are locked in a conflict [color=Red]that is every bit as intense as one of Mr Martin’s, if slightly less well provided with incest, debauchery and parricide.[/color]
抢夺谷歌利润丰厚的业务绝非易事，不过其他网络巨头渴望分得一杯羹。最大的威胁可能来自苹果。曾经这两家公司在科技业也保持过着亲密无间的合作关系--非常亲密的关系，事实上，该公司当时的CEO埃里克·施密特（Eric Schmidt）在2006至2009年曾是苹果董事会成员。[color=RoyalBlue]而如今两家公司却陷入了激烈的冲突之中。此次冲突和马丁的小说及其相像，即使小说里没那么多乱伦、纵情酒色和弑父杀母情节。[/color]
At its heart lies the competition between Apple’s iOS mobile operating system, which powers the iPhone and the iPad tablet computer, and Android, Google’s rival operating system, which is used by a host of manufacturers such as Samsung and HTC. Google snapped up the firm that created Android in 2005 as a strategic hedge; it was worried that its search engine and other services might be excluded from mobile devices owned by potential rivals. It has since turned the system into a formidable competitor to iOS. According to IDC, a market researcher, Android was the system of choice for three-quarters of the 181m smartphones shipped in the third quarter of 2012. Google claims it is activating 1.3m Android devices a day.
苹果ISO移动操作系统与谷歌推出的安卓系统的竞争则是最核心的。IOS用于支持iPhone及iPad平板电脑，而对抗IOS的安卓系统主应用于包括三星，HTC在内的众多制造商。谷歌2005年收购了开发安卓系统的公司，作为其战略防卫。因为谷歌担心潜在的竞争对手可能会利用其自身的移动设备，将谷歌的搜索引擎和其他服务排斥在外。自此，安卓系统就成了IOS的强大竞争对手。根据市场研究机构国际数据公司的资料，2012年第三季度智能手机的出货量达到1.81亿部，而其中的四分之三使用的是安卓系统。谷歌声称每天激活130万部Android设备。
What Google portrayed as a smart way to keep options open looked to Apple like a declaration of war, one in which a furious Jobs said he intended to go “thermonuclear”. Apple’s Siri voice-activated personal assistant is part of the attack—a new sort of search engine that can serve up answers to people on the go. Apple’s controversial decision earlier this year to take Google Maps out of iOS and replace it with the company’s own, flawed mapping product is another attempt to provide ways of finding things that are Google independent.
[color=RoyalBlue]谷歌认为此举是增加额外选项的好办法，而苹果却将此视为宣战，[/color]乔布斯对此大为光火，表示打算发起一场“[color=Red]核战争[/color]”。Siri语音个人助理就是其中的一项反击，它是新型的搜索引擎，可以为繁忙的人士提供答案。今年早些时候，苹果一项举动曾引起巨大争议，它决定将谷歌地图移出iOS,取而代之以其公司自有的地图服务，不过该服务却存在不少缺陷。[color=RoyalBlue]这也是另一个提供不用谷歌找东西的尝试[/color]。
Some experts think Amazon also poses a threat in this battle to find things. “Google used to be the toll-taker, directing people to Amazon,” says John Battelle, a seasoned Valley-watcher and the founder of Federated Media. “Now people are increasingly bypassing it and going straight to Amazon to find and buy stuff.” He has a point: Forrester, a research firm, reckons that 30% of America’s online shoppers begin their search for a product at Amazon. Facebook is also rumoured to be working on a search product with a social spin. Mr Zuckerberg recently said at a conference that, thanks to folk looking for friends and other things, the social network was handling “on the order of a billion queries a day already, and we’re basically not even trying.”
不少专家认为，亚马逊在此战场上也构成了一定的威胁。经验丰富的联邦传媒创始人约翰-巴特勒认为，谷歌过去就像是过桥收费员，引导客户进入亚马逊；而现在，人们变得越来越喜欢绕过谷歌直接进入亚马逊选购商品了。事实的确如此，弗雷斯特研究公司（Forrester）认为30%的美国在线网购者首先从亚马逊挑选商品。传闻Facebook正在利用其[color=Red]社交导向[/color]开发新的搜索业务。扎克伯格最近在会上表示，“多亏大众在Facebook上寻找朋友，搜寻其他信息，facebook每天处理“大约10亿条查询，而我们现在甚至还没有开始尝试。”
While Apple fights Google on one border, it fights Amazon on another, where the battle is to be the best provider of online content. After it launched the iPod, Apple mounted an unexpected raid into the realm of content with its iTunes digital music store. The content sold the hardware, and vice versa—a successful strategy that started a new rivalry with Amazon, which began as a bookstore in the mid-1990s but soon diversified, first into selling compact discs and DVDs, now into clothes, kitchenware and everything else. But last year 37% of Amazon’s $48 billion revenue still came from media, both physical and digital.
苹果与谷歌在战场上激烈拼杀的同时，也与亚马逊在另一战线上争斗不止，而这次争夺的是最佳在线内容提供商。苹果推出iPod之后，随即利用其iTunes数字音乐店出其不意地进入在线内容服务领域。该在线内容销售硬件，反之也一样。这项颇为成功的战略开启了苹果与亚马逊的竞争序幕。亚马逊上世纪90年代中期由一家书店起步，到最近变得经营日趋多样化，从刚开始销售光盘、DVD，到现在销售服装、厨房用具及其他给类产品。亚马逊去年收入达到480亿美元，不过，其中的38%仍然来自实体或数字传媒。
The most hard-fought battle between them so far has been in the e-book market. Amazon accounted for some two-thirds of all digital-book downloads in America last year. Apple accounted for just 5%, but it has been trying to woo publishers away from Amazon with an aggressive strategy that gives them more freedom to determine e-book prices than under Amazon’s terms. In digital music, the tables are reversed, with Amazon’s Cloud Player music service struggling to make a dent in iTunes’ huge market share. In video both firms are trying to make headway against Netflix, which has been turning itself from a DVD renter to a video streamer.
目前双方最激烈的战斗是在电子书市场。 去年亚马逊占美国全部电子书下载量的三分之二。苹果虽然仅占到5%的市场份额，却已开始了咄咄逼人的战略：即相对于在亚马逊旗下，苹果将给予出版商更多定价自由，诱惑出版商放弃亚马逊。而在数字音乐，情况截然不同，在iTunes的巨大市场份额下，亚马逊云播放器试图有所突破。在视频领域，双方都试图在与Netflix的竞争上有所斩获（Netflix正将业务从DVD租赁转变为流媒体播放）。
Content-maesters【3】
内容大师
Facebook and Google have so far committed fewer assets to this campaign, though both are aware of its importance. Facebook’s strategy has been to give other firms’ content a social spin. In some territories it has struck alliances with the likes of Netflix and Spotify, a music streaming company, so its users can share what they are listening to or watching on these services with their friends. Google’s YouTube business dominates the world of user-generated video, but the company has struggled to develop a compelling alternative to both Amazon’s digital fare and iTunes. In March it finally brought together its disparate offerings in music, e-books and other areas as part of a new online store, dubbed Google Play, in an effort to concentrate its forces. But Google’s attempts to move into new territories are not always as successful as Android has been. It has mounted various attacks on Facebook’s social stronghold, without notable success.
尽管Facebook和谷歌意识到了电子书的重要性，不过两家公司目前为止投入的资金依然有限。Facebook的战略是向其他公司提供社交导向内容。在某些领域，facebook 已与像Netfile和Spotify（音乐流媒公司）这样的公司结盟，这样用户就可以利用这些服务与朋友分享他们所听所看的内容。尽管在全球谷歌的Youtube是用户生成视频领域的绝对霸主，却也不得不采取措施应对亚马逊的数字收费和iTunes. 今年三月份，为了进一步集中力量，谷歌终于将其逊色的音乐、电子书及其他业务整合到新建的在线商店--Google Play。但是谷歌进入新领域，不可能总是重现安卓如今的辉煌。谷歌发起了多轮针对Facebook社交阵地的攻势，却鲜有成效。
[img=595,335]http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/print-edition/20121201_FBD002_0.jpg[/img]
Among the things Google added to Play were the mobile apps formerly housed in its Android market. The other titans have been hawking their own app selections, too. This is crucial to the way they see their battles unfolding: as a fight between the various platforms with which they seek to provide the best mobile experience.
谷歌将原先Android市场提供的移动应用增添到Google Play。其他的网络巨头也在竭力兜售自身的应用程序。网络巨头如何看待即将拉开的战事，显得尤为重要：这是一场多种平台之间的战斗，旨在提供最完美的移动体验。
Here there is a three-way fight between Apple, Amazon and Google, which have each developed rival combinations of mobile gadgets, operating systems and app stores. Apple, which first woke up to the power of such platforms when it combined the iPod with iTunes, has the high ground. Its margins on iPhones are so good that Asymco, a market-research firm, reckons the company accounted for 60% of the total profits made by the mobile-phone industry in the third quarter of 2012, even though it accounted for just 16% of phone shipments during that period.
这是一场苹果，亚马逊和谷歌三方之间的战斗，三方拥有移动设备、操作系统及移动应用竞争组合。苹果将iPod与iTunes结合时，率先意识到了这种平台的强大作用，因此优势最为明显。苹果在iPhone上的利润也十分可观。市场研究公司Asymco估计，尽管iPhone在2012年第三季度手机出货量中的比重仅为16%，却占据着整个产业利润的60%。
But Apple now finds itself competing with rivals that have radically different ways of making money. Amazon is flogging its Kindle e-readers and tablet computers, which use a modified version of Android, at pretty much what it costs to produce and sell them. Where Apple used iTunes to sell iPods, Amazon uses its tablets to sell everything else in the world.
不过如今，苹果不得不与那些采用完全不同盈利模式的对手竞争。亚马逊正大力[color=Red]以成本价[/color]销售其Kindle电子书阅读器和平板电脑--搭载改进版的Android系统.苹果利用iTunes来销售iPod，亚马逊则利用平板电脑在全球销售各种产品。
Stark realities
残酷现实
Google’s platform plans are less clearly defined. To begin with it was happy for Android phones and tablets all to be made by others, but in 2011 it decided to splash out $12.5 billion on Motorola Mobility, a handset-maker among other things. Google already markets its Google Nexus tablets, which are made by Asus and Samsung. And it has recently begun selling cheap notebooks using not Android but another of its operating systems, Chrome. Most analysts expect Google to churn out relatively cheap devices in the hope that buyers will use them to access its search and other services, thus seeing the ads on them.
谷歌的平台规划尚不明确。首先，谷歌很高兴看到其他公司生产Android手机和平板电脑，不过，2011年谷歌以125亿美元的巨资收购了生产手机[color=Red]及其他设备的[/color]摩托罗拉。谷歌也开始销售由华硕及三星代工的Google Nexus平板电脑。同时，谷歌近期也开始销售低廉的笔记本，该类型的笔记本并不采用谷歌的Android系统，而是采用了谷歌另一款操作系统--Chrome。一些分析家认为谷歌推出大量相对便宜的移动设备就是为了确保用户在使用它们设备时选择谷歌的搜索引擎及其他服务，同时也就能看到上面的广告了。
And then there is the empire[color=Red] over the water[/color]. Microsoft, which in America is now number two in search after Google, has a willing (and desperate) vassal in Nokia, a phonemaker, and a new mobile operating system. Built into its recently launched Surface tablet, this gives it a shiny new platform of its own. Like the Targaryen family, which used to rule Westeros and now plots in exile to regain the crown, the company is desperate to regain its former glory.
不过还有一位王者不容忽视：微软。作为美国市场是仅次于谷歌的第二大搜索引擎。微软拥有一个乐意跟随（同时极度绝望的）诺基亚，以及一个新的移动操作系统，并将其应用到新发售的Surface 平板电脑中。这也使微软拥有了自己的全新平台。曾经统治维斯特洛的坦格利安家族，虽遭流亡依然密谋重夺王位，此时的微软就像坦格利安家族，渴望重塑辉煌。
Facebook has so far stayed neutral in this. But it is not a bystander in the competition to create the best possible digital shopping experience for consumers—another battle for which those platforms are being built. To win this one means taking turf from Amazon. Facebook Gifts is a new service in America which mines what the company knows about its users, their tastes and their friendships to encourage them to buy and send each other gifts at appropriate times, such as birthdays. To get it off the ground Facebook bought a gift-giving outfit called Karma and forged partnerships with over 100 companies, including Starbucks and Lindt, a chocolatier.
Facebook目前在此役保持中立。不过在为消费者尽可能的创造最佳数字购物体验的争夺战中（此役的平台构建正在进行中），Facebook将有所行动。要想赢得此役就意味着要从亚马逊“虎口拔牙”。Facebook Gifts就是一款在美国新增的服务，通过对所掌握的用户、用户品味及用户朋友关系等信息的搜寻，鼓励他们在恰当的时间（如生日）为朋友购买、赠送礼物。为了取得进展，Facebook收购了一家名为Kamade礼品赠送公司，同时与100多家公司建立了伙伴关系，其中包括星巴克及巧克力制造商Lindt。
Google is experimenting with a service that would let folk find goods online, order them and have them delivered within a day for a modest fee. This seems similar to Amazon’s hugely successful “Prime” service, which costs $79 a year to join in America. Rather than try to replicate the e-commerce giant’s extensive network of warehouses, Google is looking for partnerships with shipping companies and retailers instead. But if it is serious about taking on Amazon, it may ultimately have to buy a logistics firm. At $69 billion UPS has a market value less than a third of Google’s; it is valued at less than twice the search giant’s cash pile.
谷歌正尝试一项新的业务，即允许用户在线寻找订购商品，以适当的费用实现一天内送达。这与亚马逊极成功的金牌服务（“Prime” service）--在美国每年只需79美元即可加入---很相似。谷歌并没有复制这家电子商务巨头的仓储网络，而是选择与物流公司和零售商合作 。不过要想真的抗衡亚马逊，谷歌最终还是得收购物流公司。联合包裹服务公司（UPS）的市值为690亿美元，不到谷歌的三分之一；[color=Red]其现金储备估计也不到谷歌的两倍[/color]。
Platforms are the weapons with which the warring factions seek to rule their own lands and conquer new ones. Patents are the weapons with which they try straightforwardly to hurt their rivals. Although some lawsuits have been launched by “trolls” who accumulate patents without actually making stuff, a number have been launched by one giant, or a company acting as its catspaw, against one of the others. Apple has been lobbing lawsuits around in the smartphone arena as if armed with a trebuchet. Google snapped up Motorola Mobility in large part to get its hands on the firm’s thousands of patents issued and pending, thus bulking up its own defences and accumulating ammunition to fling at the fortresses of the competition.
交战方统治自身领土，征服新领地的武器是平台，而给予敌人以最直接打击的武器就是专利。尽管有些诉讼由某些“[color=Red]诈骗者[/color]”发起，他们积累专利，却不用于生产产品。不过，很多的诉讼案都是由大公司，或大公司的代理机构发起的，专门打击其他竞争对手。苹果好像装备了投石机一样，一直在智能手机领域抛射诉讼石块。谷歌迅速收购摩托罗拉，很大一部分原因就是为了得到其成千上万个已申请和[color=Red]正申请的[/color]专利，在防御战中增强自身防御能力，囤聚武器予以反击。
With the battlefields seeming to multiply every quarter—mobile wallets, cloud computing and who knows what else—picking out the strategic shifts over the tactical setbacks is hard. Today’s apparent failures may contain the seeds of future victories. Google+, Google’s latest attempt to lay siege to Facebook, has its flaws. Apple was woefully under-prepared for its assault on Google Maps. But if Google wants to progress in the social arena, and Apple in location-based services, they have to make bold bets, and in both cases they have at least gained some sort of beachhead. The challenge the firms face is to move beyond the initial disappointment cannily enough to turn the openings into successes.
每个季度，战场似乎在不断扩大，手机钱包、云计算到其他种种业务，因此从战术失败到战略调整变得越来越困难。今天的失败也许就是包含着将来成功与希望。谷歌最近一次围攻Facebook的产品Google+当然有其自身缺点。苹果尚未准备充足便向谷歌地图开战，处境悲惨。不过谷歌要想在社交领域有所进展，苹果想要在地理位置服务上有所突破，就要敢下赌注，双方在这些尝试中也取得了某些成就。现在他们面临的挑战就是尽快明智地忘掉起初的失望，趁此开局时机迈向成功。
No one looks likely to win quickly. “There will be a lot of trench warfare,” predicts Roelof Botha of Sequoia Capital, a venture investor. And that looks likely to be great news for consumers, who will be able to choose from an ever wider range of innovative and cheap (or free) technologies. Of course, as competition increases, firms might be tempted to lock down their heartlands more tightly—or to use foul means to attack those of others. This is bringing regulators out of their lairs. “You’re starting to see an empire-strikes-back moment amongst antitrust authorities,” says Adam Thierer, a researcher at George Mason University.
没有哪家公司能迅速胜出。风险投资机构红杉资本资本的Roelof Botha预计将会出现不少的攻坚战。对消费者来说，这可能是好消息，因为可以在众多充满创新性，价格低廉（或免费）的产品中做出选择。当然，随着竞争的加剧，这些公司也可能会将他们的核心区域紧紧地保护起来，也可能使用不正当手段攻击对手。这就需要监管机构监管了。乔治梅森大学 大学研究员Adam Thierer说，“你们会看到反垄断当局版的《帝国反击战》。”
The Others
其他
Watchdogs in Europe and America have been looking into accusations that Apple has colluded with some publishers to break Amazon’s grip on e-books. And they have been scrutinising Google too. Some companies, including ones with links to Microsoft, have accused the search firm of unfairly promoting its own services, such as Google+, in search results. They also claim that it uses content from competitors without permission, and that it has struck anti-competitive deals in search advertising. The firm is under fire for allegedly using smartphone patents to stifle competition. Google’s legions of lawyers have been battling these charges.
针对苹果与部分出版商合谋以期打破亚马逊掌控电子书市场的指控，欧洲和美国的监管部门已经介入调查。谷歌也遭到它们的调查。一些公司（其中有些与微软有所联系）指控谷歌在其搜索结果中使用不恰当的手段推广自身产品（如Google+）。他们同时宣称谷歌未经允许使用竞争对手的内容，[color=Red]在搜索广告上达成反竞争协议[/color]。谷歌也因其利用智能手机专利阻碍竞争饱受诟病。谷歌律师团队一直在应对这些指控。
Their lordships Page, Cook, Zuckerberg and Bezos thus need to map a course for their respective firms through dangerous legal and regulatory territory. At the same time they have to avoid being distracted from fighting their rivals; the mad emperors of Microsoft lost a lot of ground by taking on the inhuman might of the Department of Justice. And the shareholders, hungry for returns in a moribund global economy, need to be kept happy.
以佩奇、库克、扎克伯格、贝佐斯为代表的领军人物要想各自安然通过危险的法律及监管领域，就得需要指引前行的路线图。与此同时，他们还须避免因与竞争而迷失方向；疯狂的微软就因挑战[color=Red]司法部无上权威[/color]而丢失不少阵地。在全球经济低迷情况下，股东渴求收益，[color=Red]需要得到满足[/color]。
A king who pulled all this off might claim the throne by right; but his chances of being more than first among equals, or of a lengthy reign, would be slim. As in Westeros, these battles and plots promise many more sequels and series.
任何能解决这些问题的人都可以正式获得王位；不过在实力相当的情况下，力压群雄或长期称霸的几率微乎其微。就像在维斯特洛，这些战斗和阴谋又会带来更多的后续。
from the print edition | Briefing
注释：
1. 维斯特洛（Westeros）: 也被称为日落国度（the Sunset Kingdoms），是乔治·R·R·马丁的奇幻系列《冰与火之歌》中三块大陆中的一块，它的设定大致基于中世纪的欧洲。
2. 凛冬将至 (Winter Is Coming) ：史塔克家族（House Stark）家族族语。史塔克家族是小说中虚构的一个家族，北境最重要的家族，被视为北境的领导者，家族成员大部分生活在临冬城。
3. maesters ：The maesters are an order of scholars, healers, postmen, and scientists who are trained at a school called the Citadel. 【参见[url=http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Maesters]http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Maesters[/url] 】
4. 铁王座（Iron Throne），是七大王国国王的王座，也是经常被用作比喻及代替国王权威的词语。[url=http://zh.asoiaf.wikia.com/wiki/%E9%93%81%E7%8E%8B%E5%BA%A7]铁王座[/url][/font][/color] **** 作者被禁止或删除 内容自动屏蔽 **** 没看过，不过打算有空看下这本：
现代竞争分析·第3版 （美）沙伦·奥斯特着.pdf
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