While Google would be stupid to take its eyes off a deep-pocketed competitor like Microsoft, the real menace to them could come from a different kind of search, one powered by friends on social networks like Facebook or Twitter.
Enter the Justice Department and a judge who agreed in a stunning decision last month that five publishers and Apple, a new entrant in the field of bookselling, conspired to fix prices as they tried to constrain a deep-pocketed competitor, Amazon, from controlling the market with unsustainably low prices.
Suddenly, Facebook would be battling a deep-pocketed competitor to replace SMS as the way the world chats.
Yet with music catalogues and prices mostly similar across the industry, Spotify will have to depend on its personalized recommendations and platform-agnositic strategy to beat its deep pocketed competitors.
Indeed back in December 2015, reports began circulating that Zo Rooms, which had only recently landed a $32 million Series B led by Tiger Global, would be snapped up by OYO after getting into financial difficultly battling its deep-pocketed competitor.
A longtime player in printed educational products, Pearson has had to adapt to the digital era and a range of deep-pocketed competitors like Discovery Communications, the Walt Disney Company and Apple.
And Jaguar Land Rover also is up against deep-pocketed competitors, especially the German carmakers, who have their own S.U.V. entries as well as formidable sedans to challenge Jaguar's.
Some say the same about the city's advertising and financial industries, but others see them as deep-pocketed competitors for staff.As for capital, New York and London have their own crop of venture funds.
Schrager has strategically chosen this moment to unveil such a grandiose project: with the Astor, he is raising the stakes against the deep-pocketed competitors who are now trying to beat him at his own game.
The company faces a lot of deep-pocketed competitors.
