Hi-Tech Companies

Microsoft founder Bill Gates became the richest man in the world for decades. His original Quick'n'Dirty Operating System (QDOS) became MS-DOS and was licensed by IBM which eventually outpaced Apple sales to become the leading operating system and making Bill Gates a billionaire. The affectionate "PC" outsold the Apple personal computer. It feels weird to call an Apple a PC, because it has used modern marketing to Think Different, saying that everything else is a PC, versus the Mac (Apple Macintosh) that's completely unique in design and function. The personal computer (PC) market is responsible for putting control of data back into the hands of the people, where as mainframes were central to the business. The Internet is slowly retracting digital freedoms by storing everything in the cloud. Cloud computing is like a public utility such as electricity and power generation, where its the responsibility of the data custodians to keep our privacy and the safety of our personal human rights intact.

We attempt to highlight the most important tech companies from around the world that impact billions of daily users.

• Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet formerly Google (FAANG)
• Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent (BAT) in China
• Microsoft (Windows & enterprise software licensing)
• Adobe (design & marketing)
• Twitter, Snap, Tik Tok (social networking)
• PayPal owns Venmo, Square (money)
• Oracle (databases, ERP software)

Open Source Software

These open source companies support the backbone of the Web:

• Apache Software Foundation is critical for web server hosting (part of the LAMP stack), NGiNX is great too, owned by F5.
• Red Hat powers the vast majority of Linux web servers which is now owned by IBM
• Ubuntu is like the open source version of Microsoft Windows for the retail consumer Internet
• Java was purchased by Sun Microsystems, which is now owned by Oracle

What are market researchers saying in tech?

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