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Imagine it's 1999. Scratch that, it's 2006.
想象現(xiàn)在是1999年。不對(duì)，想象它是2006年。
The computer in your office is made by ... well, it doesn't matter who it's made by. Unless you are in a creative profession, that computer is run on Microsoft Windows. And the phone in your pocket is made by Nokia (NOK), or -- if you're feeling stylish -- Motorola. Apple (AAPL) made your mp3 player (yeah, back when we still called them mp3 players), and Samsung made your display screen, or your TV screen, or both.
你辦公室里電腦的牌子是……好吧，牌子并不重要。除非你從事的是創(chuàng)造性職業(yè)，否則你的電腦上運(yùn)行的肯定是微軟（Microsoft）的Windows操作系統(tǒng)。而你口袋里的手機(jī)是諾基亞（Nokia）的，或者如果你趕時(shí)髦的話，就是摩托羅拉（Motorola）的。你的mp3播放器是蘋果（Apple）造的（是的，在那個(gè)時(shí)候我們還稱呼它們?yōu)閙p3播放器），而顯示器或（和）電視機(jī)屏幕，則是三星（Samsung）造的。
Just close your eyes and go back to that crazy 2006 mindset (here's a link to help, if you need it). Apple was killing it on iPods and iTunes, not in its original mission of personal computers. Google (GOOG) was just a search engine, a filthy rich search engine. Nokia still ruled mobile phones, although Motorola's Razr owned popular culture. And Microsoft (MSFT)? It was still Microsoft, the grating white noise of personal computing that Bill Gates designed the company to be.
閉上眼睛，回到那個(gè)瘋狂的2006年的狀態(tài)（如果需要幫助回憶，請(qǐng)點(diǎn)擊這里）。這一年，蘋果大獲成功，創(chuàng)造奇跡的是iPods和iTunes，而不是個(gè)人電腦這個(gè)最初的使命。谷歌（Google）還只是一個(gè)搜索引擎，一個(gè)超級(jí)有錢的搜索引擎。雖然摩托羅拉的Razr手機(jī)代表了流行文化，但諾基亞仍統(tǒng)治著手機(jī)領(lǐng)域。而微軟？它還是那個(gè)微軟，那個(gè)正如比爾•蓋茨構(gòu)想的，在個(gè)人電腦上發(fā)出刺耳白躁聲的公司。
In the seven years since, so much has changed, which in the tech world isn't notable. What's strange is how it changed. Apple's mp3 player mutated into a mobile phone that changed everything. And it mutated again into the iPad, changing the personal computer. Yet somehow Samsung sold more smartphones using an operating system powered by, of all companies, Google.
此后七年來(lái)，許多事發(fā)生了變化，不過這在科技界算不上大不了的事。讓人覺得奇怪的是，這些變化是怎樣發(fā)生的。蘋果的mp3播放器發(fā)生突變，一下成了手機(jī)，改變了一切；進(jìn)而它又突變成為iPad，顛覆了個(gè)人電腦。而三星的智能手機(jī)卻莫名其妙地賣得更好了，使用的還是谷歌的操作系統(tǒng)。
And Motorola? Its mobile-device business was bought by Google. And Nokia? Its core devices business has been bought by Microsoft. The software companies began to eat the hardware companies because they needed to act like Apple, which married software to hardware ... oh, three decades ago. And search ate Motorola smartphones. And Windows consumed Nokia smartphones. And Samsung, the maker of those excellent TV screens in 2006, sat there sticking its tongue out at everyone else.
至于摩托羅拉？它的移動(dòng)設(shè)備業(yè)務(wù)已經(jīng)被谷歌收購(gòu)了。而諾基亞？微軟買下了它的核心設(shè)備業(yè)務(wù)。軟件公司開始吞并硬件公司，因?yàn)樗鼈円憩F(xiàn)得跟蘋果一樣，成為軟硬件結(jié)合的公司……哦，不過蘋果在三十年前就這么做了。因此，搜索公司收購(gòu)了摩托羅拉的智能手機(jī)，Windows收購(gòu)了諾基亞的智能手機(jī)。至于三星，這家在2006年就以生產(chǎn)優(yōu)質(zhì)屏幕而大獲成功的生產(chǎn)商，坐在那向所有其他公司吐舌頭。
And no one -- no great master of the chess board that is the technology landscape -- saw this coming. Maybe one part of it, yes, but not all of it. Because if you live in the past or the present, none of it could possibly make sense. This is all about a bunch of wild guesses about the future.
不過，沒有人——科技格局棋盤上沒有哪位大師——預(yù)見到了這樣的局面。也許有人看到了其中的一部分，但都不是全貌。因?yàn)槿绻阒皇腔钤谶^去或現(xiàn)在，這樣的發(fā)展對(duì)你而言都說(shuō)不通。這都只是一些關(guān)于未來(lái)的胡亂猜想。
So what are we to make of Microsoft and Nokia? In the past day or so, there has been so much to say. Opinions on the deal run the gamut from approval to scoffing to the purely perplexed. (Mostly scoffing, however.) But how are we really to know? The evolution of the mobile web has surprised longtime web observers the same way the desktop web surprised everyone involved with the tech industry that preceded it. Only, in some ways, the mobile web has offered even more surprises.
那么，我們要怎么理解微軟和諾基亞呢？過去的一天里，到處都在討論他們。對(duì)于這項(xiàng)交易的觀點(diǎn)，從贊成、嘲笑到純粹摸不著頭腦，層出不窮。（不過大多數(shù)持嘲笑態(tài)度。）但是我們真的懂多少呢？正如桌面網(wǎng)站當(dāng)年出乎所有頂尖技術(shù)產(chǎn)業(yè)內(nèi)人士的意料一樣，移動(dòng)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的演進(jìn)也令長(zhǎng)期研究網(wǎng)絡(luò)的人士感到吃驚。只不過移動(dòng)網(wǎng)絡(luò)在一些方面帶來(lái)的驚訝甚至更多。
People who in 2006 couldn't predict what 2013 would bring to tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Samsung, Nokia, and Motorola are now confidently tweeting the future of Microsoft and Nokia. People who could make no good sense of Google-Motorola two years ago (I'd wager Larry Page was among them) have a sure view of where Microsoft-Nokia will go. And good for them.
那些在2006年無(wú)法預(yù)見2013年會(huì)給像微軟、谷歌、蘋果、三星、諾基亞和摩托羅拉這些科技巨頭帶來(lái)什么的人，正在有十足把握地用Twitter評(píng)論著微軟和諾基亞的未來(lái)。兩年前無(wú)法理解谷歌和摩托羅拉的人們（我打賭當(dāng)時(shí)的拉里•佩奇也是其中一位），現(xiàn)在對(duì)微軟和諾基亞將怎樣發(fā)展已經(jīng)有了確定的觀點(diǎn)。這對(duì)他們來(lái)說(shuō)是好事。
Yes, this deal may very well amount to tying two sinking bricks together, etc. And both Microsoft and Nokia face uphill battles. But at the same time, in the early days of September 2013, the only honest analysis you can give is that a mobile web everyone saw coming yielded a competitive landscape few expected. And if we can't foresee which company will be on top in another several years, the best we can do is look at similar deals that have happened in recent years.
是的，這項(xiàng)交易很可能被當(dāng)成是把兩個(gè)下沉的磚塊綁在一起，或者類似的說(shuō)法。而且，微軟和諾基亞都面臨著艱苦的戰(zhàn)斗。但同時(shí)，在2013年9月初，你能給出的唯一誠(chéng)實(shí)的分析是，一個(gè)每個(gè)人都看到即將到來(lái)的移動(dòng)網(wǎng)絡(luò)，引出了一個(gè)很少有人預(yù)見到的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)格局。而且，如果我們無(wú)法預(yù)見在未來(lái)幾年里哪家公司將領(lǐng)先，我們能做的最多是參考近年來(lái)發(fā)生的類似交易。
Which brings us to Google's purchase of Motorola, announced a little more than two years ago. At the time, people struggled to understand the sense of it. People speculated, as they do with Microsoft's Nokia investment, it had to do with patents. That Google would simply spin offMotorola's manufacturing operations. At the time, it seemed like the most likely explanation.
這就使我們?nèi)タ磧赡甓嗲靶嫉?，谷歌?duì)摩托羅拉的收購(gòu)。當(dāng)時(shí)，人們難以理解這么做的原因。人們推測(cè)這可能與專利有關(guān)，微軟對(duì)諾基亞的投資可能也是如此。人們認(rèn)為谷歌可能會(huì)簡(jiǎn)單地對(duì)摩托羅拉的制造業(yè)務(wù)進(jìn)行分拆。當(dāng)時(shí)，這看上去像是最有可能的理由。
But Larry Page, Google's new CEO, took a different direction. He held onto the Motorola devices that had been outmoded by Apple's iPhone. Although Motorola has been a drag on Google's earnings since then, the move seems prescient now. Software hasn't just supplanted hardware in the past decade. It needs hardware as an ancillary business. Microsoft's unexpected introduction of the Surface underscored that idea. And now its Nokia deal makes it seem that much more inevitable.
但谷歌的新CEO拉里•佩奇選擇了不一樣的方向。他保留了摩托羅拉被蘋果的iPhone趕超的產(chǎn)品。雖然摩托羅拉一直在拖累谷歌的收益，但現(xiàn)在來(lái)看他的這一招似乎有先見之明。過去的10年里，軟件還未能完全取代硬件，它仍需要硬件作為一項(xiàng)輔助業(yè)務(wù)。微軟出人意料地推出Surface平板電腦正彰顯了這一概念。而如今，它與諾基亞的交易使這一概念顯得更加確定。
In other words, many companies can produce software on their own, but once you get big enough, you need hardware in the mix to stay on top of the game. The old cliché that the line between hardware and software was blurring has become an industry maxim. Software giants are doubling as hardware companies -- Google 2010 (Motorola), Microsoft 2012 (Surface) and 2013 (Nokia). Others going it alone -- like Amazon (AMZN) and Samsung -- will have to adapt. Still others, like Apple (early 1980s), took this route years ago.
換言之，許多公司都能夠自己生產(chǎn)軟件。不過，一旦你的公司規(guī)模足夠大，你就需要引入硬件，以保持在行業(yè)里的頂尖地位。硬件與軟件之間的界線越來(lái)越模糊，這一陳詞濫調(diào)已經(jīng)成為了一條行業(yè)準(zhǔn)則。軟件巨頭正在兼飾硬件公司的角色：谷歌在2010年收購(gòu)摩托羅拉，微軟在2012年推出Surface平板電腦、在2013年收購(gòu)諾基亞。其他單打獨(dú)斗的公司，如亞馬遜（Amazon）和三星，它們不得不適應(yīng)這一趨勢(shì)。還有另一些公司，如20世紀(jì)80年代初期的蘋果，多年前就走上了這條路。
The mobile revolution at the center of technology innovation today may be protean and hard to predict, but one thing is certain: The old lines -- like what is a PC and what is a portable device, or what is a software company and what is a hardware maker -- are dissolving. Yes, Microsoft and Nokia may be several years late to this game, but at least they're there.
正處在如今技術(shù)創(chuàng)新中心的移動(dòng)革命可能是千變?nèi)f化、難以預(yù)測(cè)。但有一件事是肯定的：以前的界線——如電腦和便攜設(shè)備之間的界線，或是軟件公司和硬件廠商的界線——正在消溶。是的，在這場(chǎng)游戲中，微軟和諾基亞可能已經(jīng)晚了幾年，但至少它們現(xiàn)在加入了游戲。
And this mobile game isn't finished offering up its surprises.
而這場(chǎng)移動(dòng)游戲帶來(lái)的驚喜還遠(yuǎn)未結(jié)束。
