Slashdot has an interesting discussion related to Lester Thurow’s new book “Fortune Favors the Bold: What We Must Do to Build a New and Lasting Global Prosperity”. Writes Slashdot: “There is a chapter which discusses the beginning of new industries. During this time, several business models are introduced and only a few will survive. Looking at the PC industry, Commodore was the industry leader in the 1980’s, but ultimately failed and went bankrupt in 1994. Successful business models such as Dell were not introduced until years after the industry began. I now ask the Slashdot community: which internet business models they believe are going to succeed? Which companies will rise to the top? Will they be infrastructure related companies such as Cisco and even FedEx, or will they be true dot.com’s such as eBay or Amazon?”
At its heart, the Internet (like IT) is about reducing transaction costs. So, those business models which leverage on this will succeed. The question to ask is: how can we do business differently assuming the presence of the Internet?
