Let’s give ourselves five years. Which major players in the market today will not exist? And why?
My first guess is Chrysler, although some folks would say they’ve already ceased to exist after the “merger” with Daimler.
K-Mart has been circling the drain for some time now
Perhaps one or two of the major record labels?
there will only be one corperation by then: Highlander, Ltd.
One or two of the airlines.
Of the major automakers, Ford is teetering on bankruptcy. Their bonds have been downgraded to just barely above “junk.” Once they hit junk, they will go into KMart mode. They will be unable to borrow money, the interest rates on existing loans go up, etc. Analysts gave up on Ford long ago. But strangely enough, it’s stock has been stable lately. Very strange.
The Telecos are in really serious trouble. Their centuries old business model has evaporated. Long distance over the Internet is basically free but they have to raise their “dime a minute” rates to pay for their dark fiber. They have only staved off ruination for the moment by the time-tested trick of getting Congress to allow them to bypass anti-trust laws. FtG’s 43rd law of company health: If you need an act of Congress, you’re dead already. They will last the 5 years though, but not much longer.
As for the airlines: All the big old union heavy airlines are dead meat. United, Delta, etc. They are falling over themselves setting up discount spinoffs (with low/no union wages) which are intended to replace the original company. But union wages aren’t the problem Bad management is. Since they are still run by the same idiots, they will tank even faster than if they didn’t try the spinoff. They would be dead already if Congress hadn’t just given them money after 9/11.
The future of stock brokerages/mutual fund management is also very bleak. Their track record is horrible, they steal from little clients (like us) to draw in “favored” clients, etc. There are going to be huge scandals coming out in the next couple years that will just kill that whole system. So think like “Arthur Andersen” times 20.
SCO.
Haha Tars! Too funny!
I agree, I hope IBM sues SCO into oblivion.
I think Ford will hang on for another 5 years. I don’t know about 10 years, though.
We’ll probably lose another of the big, old-time airliones (American, Delta, United or Northwest) to a merger.
I think one of the big oil companies will be folded into a foreign company, as Amoco has been absorbed by BP.
I also think within five years that AOL Time Warner will be broken up, with at least one or two of the major components either being sold off or spun off.
Confederated Slave Holdings.
SCO: even Boies can’t keep them below water.
AOL: Gone…
I’m tossing a record label down the tubes as well. Mergers and all that. All music 25 years from now will be owned by Music, Inc. But no one will be able to listen to it, because of DCMA III.
Ford will be bought, or bailed out. If bought, I’d say Toyota.
I’m guessing Ford will stick around- they’re not done-for yet.
I’m with ** Kunilou **, and think that we’ll have a few more mergers in the oil and airline businesses.
I also think Kodak will crap the bed in the near future. I just wrote a strategic analysis paper about them in one of my MBA classes, and they’re in sad shape, unless they can gain a commanding market share in digital imaging really quick.
I’m going to guess at one each of the airlines, steel companies, music companies and Wall St. banks.
Not very inventive I know, put you gotta play the odds.
I’ll add in a longshot bet too; Wendy’s. Those burgers are just nasty.
Big call, certainly not in five years, but I don’t think McDonalds is too long for this world. Or maybe it’s just here that they’ve seemed shaky.
My longshot: The New York Attorney General is currently investagating Charles Schwab. If the investagation turns out in a certain way, it could mean the end for Schwab.
(BTW, I also expect Time Warner to sell AOL, but Ford won’t go under. There’s not a politician in Washington who could survive the uproar that would occur if the Japanese bought an American automaker.)
Like the OP said, the Germans have already assimilated Chrysler. It’s a full-on takeover, and no American’s are left on the board.
Wendy’s will be around, though Mikey D’s might be looking fondly at Chapter 11.
Sun will probably bite the dust. With Linux, FreeBSD, and probably a few new open source operating systems, why bother?
I’ll also predict the death of a major consumer computer manufacturer, like Dell, Compaq or Gateway.
I think Ford will pull through.
Say bye-bye to United Airlines.
Kmart will probably be absorbed into Target, or Wal-Mart will snap 'em up and close all their stores. They could also be brought out by a healthy regional discount retailer like Shopko or Fred Meyer.
Some movie theater company will probably bite the dust, too, like AMC, They’re still reeling from overbuilding stadium-seating megaplexes theaters in the early 1990s.
Xeros has an entire history of bad business decisions behind them. Buh bue.
Rochester, New York will be the next Youngstown, Ohio or Flint, Michigan. It’s gonna’ be a hurting place; more depressed than Buffalo and Syracuse.
Oh … Adelphia Cable will brobably be snpped up by one of the larger, more financially solvent cable companies. Let’s say Comcast or Time Warner will absorb Adelphia.
elmwood has good one with Xerox (or Xeros). They have nothing left from the good old days. But there will still be a Xerox in 5 years. It just won’t be of any significance at all. (Which won’t affect a certain Rochester school on “elmwood” since it sold its Xerox donation years ago.)
To fail in 5 years time you really need crushing debt, a bad business model and crooked execs. (The latter are everywhere anyway.) Xerox only has 2 of the 3 as far as I know.
Sun is indeed in really big trouble. They have adapted very poorly to change and been quite indecisive about X86 processors. They botched Java big time. But since they got that big China contract, they might become the official “But we’re not MS!” company of the third world.
I gave up years ago predicting the death of Gateway. How a company making such crappy overpriced products survives defies logic. They open retail stores, but won’t let you actually take one home from the store. Whaaaaaat? This is America, buyers want it now, give it to them now. So the stores turned out to be a waste of capital. Time to close a lot of them. Such business genius!
McDs won’t go away at all. Keep in mind that a lot of stores are not company owned. As long as franchise fees are reasonable, they’ll stick around. There have been a lot of underperforming stores that have had to be closed, but no crushing debt (yet). They will just lag further and further behind. I am amazed at how they haven’t made a successful “Whopper” competitor after all these years. It’s not like the making of a “Whopper” is a high-tech secret.