Failure, as we pointed out last week, is the norm in business. Of the top 100 firms in the United States in 1912, by 1998, 29 had gone bankrupt, 48 had disappeared, and a mere 19 still occupied positions in the top 100. This is not a bad thing, per se – in fact it could be argued we need failure, in just the same way that biological evolution needs failure. Think of it this way, before evolution threw up the cat called the leopard, there was a myriad of different mutations, countless experiments – before natural selection finally came up with Africa’s spotted big cat. Without the failures there couldn’t have been successes. The same idea applies to economics too. If Keynes has a rival to his epitaph of greatest economist of the 20th century – then his rival’s name is Joseph Schumpeter, who, among his many ideas, promoted the concept of creative destruction. In fact, Mr Schumpeter went a little further – he coined the phrase “gales of creative destruction” – we need new ideas, new experiments – most of which will fail; we need new ideas that will lead to the failure of old and established ideas, in order to move forward. But it seems reasonable to assume that the rate at which companies operating in technology, will see a gale of creative destruction blow like no business wind has blown before. It will be even harder, one assumes, for the big technology giants to survive for more than a few decades, than it was for the corporate giants of yesteryear to survive the trials of the 20th century. The most spectacular fall from grace was the East India company – the world’s largest business in the 18th century – yet in 1873, it went out of business. Which mega companies operating today could go the way of the East India company? It seems certain the world of technology will see spectacular failures – the big question then, must be, will Microsoft be such a company? Last week, Microsoft announced