Microsoft confirms: Battle for Metaverse has begun, and the Next Tech Super-Cycle with it

It happened before. In the ’90s, with The Internet. In the beginning of millennia with The Cloud. Metaverse is the next technology super-cycle in a row, and Microsoft knows it!

We have been there before

If you are old enough to remember or you studied the history of The Internet and especially of 90’s phenomena of World-Wide-Web, today’s hardly used term that changed everything. You can recognize similarities.

• When did The Internet Revolution start? Microsoft launched Internet Explorer 3.
• What followed? Dot.com bubble and crash that created the new tech-world order.
• Amazon survived the dot com crash and disrupted the world and even Microsoft.
• Google went public after the dot com bust and created an entirely new industry
• Salesforce economic model was born during dot com and created the Cloud.
• Netflix started in dot com mailing DVDs and later disrupted entertainment.
• Telcos were not destroyed by ISPs; they absorbed them and became stronger than ever.
• Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, owner of Java (the internet language).
• Facebook filled the void of dot com and lack of telco innovation and disrupted both.
• Apple is the most valuable company because Napster failed to evolve as Netflix did.

Super-cycle takes approximately 20 years and starts when the previous peak of the market penetration (The Internet) and subsequent is going via the phase of mass adoption (The Cloud). We are exactly 20 years from the time when after the dot com crash (2002), the technology industry was rebuilt and changed the world and a new super-cycle (The Cloud) emerged.

Why Metaverse is the next Super-Cycle?

The main difference between the technology Super-cycle, which lasts 20 years, and the technology cycle that lasts ten years, is that Super-cycle (e.g. The Internet) runs in parallel with the next while many short cycle technologies became replaced (ICQ, IRC, Flash...etc).

Super cycles we witnessed, ongoing and coming:

• Mainframe
• PC
• The Internet
• The Cloud
• Metaverse

History shows that super-cycles don’t replace each other but can run a long time in parallel as declines are gradual and may take several decades (for example WW2 technology: Mainframes are still around even in the year 2022 despite being considered obsolete). The replacement of the first super-cycle deployments may take up to 60-100 years.

• Mainframe super-cycle, there are still mainframes around and are massively replaced by the fourth wave (The Cloud), which started by the second wave (PC) and continued by the third wave (The Internet).
• PC super-cycle continues but is gradually replaced by the fourth wave (The Cloud) enabled by the third wave (The Internet).
• The Cloud super-cycle is at its peak, and it gradually replaces technologies deployed in previous three waves applications designed for: (Mainframes), (PCs), (The internet).
• Metaverse is the next super-cycle beginning at when The Cloud (fourth wave) is achieving mass adoption, while previous The Internet became a utility. Metaverse is the fifth wave that will be bringing disrupting technologies deployed in previous waves: (PCs) and (The Internet) and in the later stage (The Cloud).

Conclusion

No matter how The Metaverse looks today and how unimportant and small it may seem. Don’t forget history lessons: PCs felt like no threat against magnificent and hyper-expensive Mainframes. When The internet started, it didn’t look like something that would one day replace applications running on both; Mainframes and PC. When the Cloud began, it looked like a joke to many application providers making money on PCs, programming Internet-based applications while those maintaining mainframes were already quite worried. Metaverse emerged from previous small cycles running in parallel of (Blockchain + Machine Learning / Deep Learning + AR / VR + Big Data + IoT + GPUs + Fintech + Self-Driving Vehicles + Smart Buildings...and more). It may all seem too disconnected for those solely focused on those selling cloud licenses or building Internet applications, while sellers of PCs are already on high alert and mainframe people rather retire.

The next super-cycle is here; it’s called Metaverse, same as The Internet was called The Information Highway or World Wide Web, because the name doesn’t matter. The fact the next tech super-cycle begins does.

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Author’s disclosure:?I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions.