One of the trends we are following is the continued consolidation of most industries. Oracle's recent bid for BEA in enterprise software, and the SABMiller - Coors merger are two recent examples.
We are also seeing a growing number of small businesses in most industries. Seeing both consolidation and decentralization happening at the same time is somewhat counter intutitive. The beer industry is a good example. In 1980 there were only 44 commercial brewers in the US, and the top 5 brewers had about 70% of the market. Today there are roughly 1400 commercial brewers in the US, and the top 2 own roughly 78% of the market. There are also many, many thousands of hobbyist brewers. The industry is both consolidating and decentralizing.
This pattern is playing out in most industries, and we expect this to continue on a global scale.
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