????很少有哪句話比“這次不一樣”更讓人緊張。在如今的企業(yè)科技領域，時代的確是不同了，而且這樣一個時代很可能會駐留一陣子。

????不是每天都上演資產超千億美元的大企業(yè)的分拆大戲。但就在上個月，eBay公司決定剝離其快速增長的支付部門PayPal；就在上周，惠普公司（Hewlett-Packard）決定將PC和打印機部門與企業(yè)硬件和服務部門分拆。最新消息是，賽門鐵克（Symantec）很可能會分拆為兩家分別從事安全與數(shù)據存儲業(yè)務的公司。

????另一方面，我們剛剛見證了云計算歷史上最大的一筆收購交易：全球最大的軟件公司之一SAP，正在收購企業(yè)報銷管理服務商，軟件即服務類公司Concur。

????我們暫且不去討論這些公司價值多少錢，目前亟需搞清楚一個問題：究竟發(fā)生了什么？這些新動向只能用云計算的新轉變所引發(fā)的“逆變”來解釋。我之所以用“逆變”這個詞，是因為今天我們所見到的模式，與過去的發(fā)展軌跡幾乎截然相反。

????上一次科技話題主宰媒體圈，還是1999年到2000年的事情。在科技泡沫破裂前的那幾年，我們看到了一些有趣的現(xiàn)象: 科技新貴強勢崛起崛起，但老牌科技公司的表現(xiàn)也相當不錯。當時扎堆上市的新科技公司超過了300家。另一方面，一些市場主宰者，比如阿卡邁（Akamai）、BEA、思科（Cisco）、EMC、Exodus、Level 3、甲骨文（Oracle）和Sun，也能夠把自家的技術架構工具賣給新興和老牌《財富》500強企業(yè)（其中很多公司當年都在忙著應戰(zhàn)被過度炒作的“千年蟲”問題）。

????所謂水漲船高。隨著老牌軟件公司積極向新型科技公司提供基本技術架構，這些企業(yè)也在迅速壯大。比如，思科公司的營收以50%至60%的速度增長，市值一度高達5000億美元。很多人認為它有可能成為史上第一家市值超萬億美元的公司。

????正如你今天所見，這一幕并未發(fā)生。目前思科的市值只有全盛時期的20%。與此同時，其他在1999年到2000年大賺特賺的老牌軟件公司要么退市（如Exodus），要么被收購（如Sun、BEA和Peoplesoft——這三家正好都被甲骨文收購）。如果他們目前還是獨立存在的公司（如阿卡邁、思科、EMC、甲骨文、微軟、IBM和惠普等），其核心計算業(yè)務的內生增長也是非常緩慢的，甚或沒有任何增長。

????Few words raise more consternation than ‘this time is different.’ Yet in the world of enterprise tech today, times are different — and they are likely to stay that way for a while.

????It’s not everyday that $100-plus billion companies split themselves in two. Recall late last month, eBay’s decided to spin off its fast-growing payments division, PayPal; last week, Hewlett-Packard HP -5.89% moved to separate its PC and printer divisions off from its enterprise hardware and service groups. And most recently, Symantec’s potential split into security and data storage.

????On the other end, we just witnessed the largest acquisition in the history of cloud computing — where one of the largest software companies in the world, SAP SAP -0.77% , is buying Concur, a provider of on-demand travel and expense management software-as-a-service, for $8.3 billion.

????Beyond the question of what these tech companies are worth, it’s important to ask what’s going on here? The developments can only be described as an “inversion” caused by a new shift in cloud computing. And I say inversion because the pattern we see today is almost the reverse of developments evident in the past.

????The last time technology dominated the news cycle was in 1999-2000, during which we saw something interesting happen in the years leading up to the collapse of the tech bubble — we witnessed the simultaneous rise of not just new tech companies, but established ones too. While the number of companies going public eclipsed 300, the dominant players, such as Akamai AKAM -1.77% , BEA, Cisco CSCO -1.76% , EMC EMC -1.57% , Exodus, Level 3 LVLT -2.31% , Oracle ORCL 0.34% , Sun, etc. were able to sell both the technology infrastructure picks and shovels to both new and existing companies within the Fortune 500 (many of whom were busy preparing for what turned out to be the over-hyped Y2Kopalypse).

????A rising tide was indeed floating all boats back then: As big established companies provided fundamental technological infrastructure to new tech firms, the businesses of existing firms grew rapidly. Cisco, for example, grew its revenue at rates of 50% to 60%, topping $500 billion in market cap; it was widely expected to become the first $1 trillion market cap company.

????As evident today, that didn’t happen: Cisco’s market cap stands nearly 80% below its peak level. Meanwhile, the other large established companies that benefited greatly in the 1999 to 2000 run-up are either out of business (e.g., Exodus) or have been acquired (e.g., Sun, BEA, and Peoplesoft — all by Oracle). And if they’re still standalone companies (such as Akamai, Cisco, EMC, Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, HP), then they’re showing very slow, if any, organic growth in their core computing businesses.