????想象現在是1999年。不對，想象它是2006年。

????你辦公室里電腦的牌子是……好吧，牌子并不重要。除非你從事的是創造性職業，否則你的電腦上運行的肯定是微軟（Microsoft）的Windows操作系統。而你口袋里的手機是諾基亞（Nokia）的，或者如果你趕時髦的話，就是摩托羅拉（Motorola）的。你的mp3播放器是蘋果（Apple）造的（是的，在那個時候我們還稱呼它們為mp3播放器），而顯示器或（和）電視機屏幕，則是三星（Samsung）造的。

????閉上眼睛，回到那個瘋狂的2006年的狀態（如果需要幫助回憶，請點擊這里）。這一年，蘋果大獲成功，創造奇跡的是iPods和iTunes，而不是個人電腦這個最初的使命。谷歌（Google）還只是一個搜索引擎，一個超級有錢的搜索引擎。雖然摩托羅拉的Razr手機代表了流行文化，但諾基亞仍統治著手機領域。而微軟？它還是那個微軟，那個正如比爾?蓋茨構想的，在個人電腦上發出刺耳白躁聲的公司。

????此后七年來，許多事發生了變化，不過這在科技界算不上大不了的事。讓人覺得奇怪的是，這些變化是怎樣發生的。蘋果的mp3播放器發生突變，一下成了手機，改變了一切；進而它又突變成為iPad，顛覆了個人電腦。而三星的智能手機卻莫名其妙地賣得更好了，使用的還是谷歌的操作系統。

????至于摩托羅拉？它的移動設備業務已經被谷歌收購了。而諾基亞？微軟買下了它的核心設備業務。軟件公司開始吞并硬件公司，因為它們要表現得跟蘋果一樣，成為軟硬件結合的公司……哦，不過蘋果在三十年前就這么做了。因此，搜索公司收購了摩托羅拉的智能手機，Windows收購了諾基亞的智能手機。至于三星，這家在2006年就以生產優質屏幕而大獲成功的生產商，坐在那向所有其他公司吐舌頭。

????不過，沒有人——科技格局棋盤上沒有哪位大師——預見到了這樣的局面。也許有人看到了其中的一部分，但都不是全貌。因為如果你只是活在過去或現在，這樣的發展對你而言都說不通。這都只是一些關于未來的胡亂猜想。

????那么，我們要怎么理解微軟和諾基亞呢？過去的一天里，到處都在討論他們。對于這項交易的觀點，從贊成、嘲笑到純粹摸不著頭腦，層出不窮。（不過大多數持嘲笑態度。）但是我們真的懂多少呢？正如桌面網站當年出乎所有頂尖技術產業內人士的意料一樣，移動互聯網的演進也令長期研究網絡的人士感到吃驚。只不過移動網絡在一些方面帶來的驚訝甚至更多。

????那些在2006年無法預見2013年會給像微軟、谷歌、蘋果、三星、諾基亞和摩托羅拉這些科技巨頭帶來什么的人，正在有十足把握地用Twitter評論著微軟和諾基亞的未來。兩年前無法理解谷歌和摩托羅拉的人們（我打賭當時的拉里?佩奇也是其中一位），現在對微軟和諾基亞將怎樣發展已經有了確定的觀點。這對他們來說是好事。

????是的，這項交易很可能被當成是把兩個下沉的磚塊綁在一起，或者類似的說法。而且，微軟和諾基亞都面臨著艱苦的戰斗。但同時，在2013年9月初，你能給出的唯一誠實的分析是，一個每個人都看到即將到來的移動網絡，引出了一個很少有人預見到的競爭格局。而且，如果我們無法預見在未來幾年里哪家公司將領先，我們能做的最多是參考近年來發生的類似交易。

????這就使我們去看兩年多前宣布的，谷歌對摩托羅拉的收購。當時，人們難以理解這么做的原因。人們推測這可能與專利有關，微軟對諾基亞的投資可能也是如此。人們認為谷歌可能會簡單地對摩托羅拉的制造業務進行分拆。當時，這看上去像是最有可能的理由。

????Imagine it's 1999. Scratch that, it's 2006.

????The computer in your office is made by ... well, it doesn't matter who it's made by. Unless you are in a creative profession, that computer is run on Microsoft Windows. And the phone in your pocket is made by Nokia (NOK), or -- if you're feeling stylish -- Motorola. Apple (AAPL) made your mp3 player (yeah, back when we still called them mp3 players), and Samsung made your display screen, or your TV screen, or both.

????Just close your eyes and go back to that crazy 2006 mindset (here's a link to help, if you need it). Apple was killing it on iPods and iTunes, not in its original mission of personal computers. Google (GOOG) was just a search engine, a filthy rich search engine. Nokia still ruled mobile phones, although Motorola's Razr owned popular culture. And Microsoft (MSFT)? It was still Microsoft, the grating white noise of personal computing that Bill Gates designed the company to be.

????In the seven years since, so much has changed, which in the tech world isn't notable. What's strange is how it changed. Apple's mp3 player mutated into a mobile phone that changed everything. And it mutated again into the iPad, changing the personal computer. Yet somehow Samsung sold more smartphones using an operating system powered by, of all companies, Google.

????And Motorola? Its mobile-device business was bought by Google. And Nokia? Its core devices business has been bought by Microsoft. The software companies began to eat the hardware companies because they needed to act like Apple, which married software to hardware ... oh, three decades ago. And search ate Motorola smartphones. And Windows consumed Nokia smartphones. And Samsung, the maker of those excellent TV screens in 2006, sat there sticking its tongue out at everyone else.

????And no one -- no great master of the chess board that is the technology landscape -- saw this coming. Maybe one part of it, yes, but not all of it. Because if you live in the past or the present, none of it could possibly make sense. This is all about a bunch of wild guesses about the future.

????So what are we to make of Microsoft and Nokia? In the past day or so, there has been so much to say. Opinions on the deal run the gamut from approval to scoffing to the purely perplexed. (Mostly scoffing, however.) But how are we really to know? The evolution of the mobile web has surprised longtime web observers the same way the desktop web surprised everyone involved with the tech industry that preceded it. Only, in some ways, the mobile web has offered even more surprises.

????People who in 2006 couldn't predict what 2013 would bring to tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Samsung, Nokia, and Motorola are now confidently tweeting the future of Microsoft and Nokia. People who could make no good sense of Google-Motorola two years ago (I'd wager Larry Page was among them) have a sure view of where Microsoft-Nokia will go. And good for them.

????Yes, this deal may very well amount to tying two sinking bricks together, etc. And both Microsoft and Nokia face uphill battles. But at the same time, in the early days of September 2013, the only honest analysis you can give is that a mobile web everyone saw coming yielded a competitive landscape few expected. And if we can't foresee which company will be on top in another several years, the best we can do is look at similar deals that have happened in recent years.

????Which brings us to Google's purchase of Motorola, announced a little more than two years ago. At the time, people struggled to understand the sense of it. People speculated, as they do with Microsoft's Nokia investment, it had to do with patents. That Google would simply spin offMotorola's manufacturing operations. At the time, it seemed like the most likely explanation.