The Four

Visual Studio are ubiquitous. If it hadn’t so badly failed with its
Windows Phone, Microsoft would most likely already be the Fifth
Horseman and perhaps still the most powerful company on earth. If it
can manage to grow LinkedIn without crushing it in its embrace,
Microsoft may still have a chance.
In addition, it has found elusive growth with its cloud offering,
Azure. This, coupled with a youthful new CEO, has breathed new life
into the Microsoft story. It is no longer the accelerant it used to be, but
its focus on the enterprise (vs. consumer for the Four) gives it a
marketplace that hasn’t seen the same level of innovation or
competition as consumer tech.
And its other (growth) story? LinkedIn.
The professional counterpart to Facebook, LinkedIn has some
important and tangible advantages compared with its big social
counterpart. Facebook gets the bulk of its revenues from one source:
advertising. By comparison, LinkedIn has three distinct sources of
revenues: it sells advertising on its site; charges recruiters for
upgraded access to candidates; and sells users premium subscriptions
with benefits for job hunting and business development. That’s
balance. These subscription revenue sources make LinkedIn unique
not only with respect to Facebook, but every other major social media
player.
LinkedIn also faces an enviable competitive landscape—it has no
true competitor. There are niche sites for specific professions, and
Facebook itself represents potential competition, but nobody is
offering anything like LinkedIn’s broad coverage of employment and
business networking. You may trade off Facebook for Instagram,
Instagram for WeChat, WeChat for Twitter, etc. However, in the B2B
world, you are posting your CV on one platform, and that’s LinkedIn.
You get pissed off at LinkedIn or you decide it’s not cool, where do you
go? Nowhere. LinkedIn stands alone; it’s one of one right now, with no
obvious new competition on the horizon.