2011年七大商业预测Seven bets for a better year for business in 2011

With a new year – and the third anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis – coming, should business be optimistic about what lies in store? Despite all the uncertainty – the weakness in housing, the unsolved crisis over the euro and rising long-term interest rates – I believe so.

新年将至——这将是2008年金融危机的三周年——企业是否应当对前景感到乐观？尽管存在种种不确定性——楼市疲弱，欧元区危机尚未得到解决，长期利率水平不断上升——但我认为应该乐观。

There are signs of confidence returning among consumers and willingness among businesses to invest. The Standard and Poor’s 500 index is up 13 per cent in 2010. Meanwhile, emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil are taking the lead in global growth.

一些迹象表明，消费者信心正在回暖，企业投资意愿上升。标普500指数在2010年累计上涨13%。与此同时，中国、印度和巴西等新兴经济体正引领全球经济增长。

So Keynes’ animal spirits are returning and, with that in mind, here are seven predictions for the business world in 2011. They are intended to be adventurous enough to be interesting – even if I turn out to be wrong, they should at least be things to watch.

所以说，凯恩斯的“动物精神”正在回归。有鉴于此，在此对2011年商业领域作出七个预测。我想，预测必须足够大胆，才会显得有趣——即使结果证明我错了，它们至少也应该是值得关注的事情。

A big film will win the Oscar for best picture. By that, I mean a big budget film of the sort Hollywood depends on, rather than a low-budget, high-culture piece of “Oscar bait” such as last year’s The Hurt Locker. The last such film to win was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King seven years ago – and that was adapted from a J.R.R. Tolkien book by New Line Cinema, Warner Brothers’ “independent” arm.

一部大片将摘取奥斯卡(Oscar)最佳影片奖。在此我指的是一部好莱坞式的大预算影片，而非迎合奥斯卡口味的低成本、阳春白雪式的片子，比如去年的《拆弹部队》(The Hurt Locker)。上一部获奖的大片是7年前的《王者归来》(The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King)，改编自J·R·R·托尔金(J.R.R. Tolkien)的小说，由华纳兄弟(Warner Brothers)旗下的“独立”公司新线电影公司(New Line Cinema)出品。

The Oscar bait this year is The King’s Voice, stuffed with British character actors and made by The Weinstein Company, old hands at making small films into winners. But “the Academy” will show that its bread-and-butter can be intelligent by rewarding Inception, the science-fiction thriller, or Toy Story 3, a Pixar film with adult appeal.

今年符合奥斯卡口味的影片是《国王的演讲》(The King’s Voice)，由众多英国性格演员出演，温斯坦公司(Weinstein Company)出品——该公司向来善于凭借小影片拿奖。但是，“学院”将把奖项授予科幻片《盗梦空间》(Inception)，或者皮克斯(Pixar)出品、受到成年人喜爱的《玩具总动员3》(Toy Story 3)，以证明其评选工作也是有眼光的。

Private stock exchanges will be hit by a scandal. Investors in US stock exchanges did fine this year but the most exciting run-ups in share prices were on private exchanges such as SecondMarket and SharesPost. They provide a way for investors to buy stakes in non-public companies, including Silicon Valley enterprises such as Facebook and Twitter.

私人证券交易所将受到丑闻的冲击。今年，美国证券交易所的投资者颇有斩获，但涨势最让人兴奋的股票出自SecondMarket和SharesPost等私人交易所。此类交易所为投资者提供了一条购买非上市公司——包括脸谱(Facebook)和推特(Twitter)等硅谷公司——股票的途径。

Daring wealthy investors have been drawn to private exchanges, often through investment funds. But they lack the listing and disclosure requirements of public exchanges, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the phenomenon. Expect a scandal from the bubble in pre-IPO shares.

有钱而大胆的投资者被吸引到私人交易所——通常是通过投资基金。但与公共交易所不同，私人交易所没有上市和披露方面的规定。美国证交会(SEC)正对此展开调查。预计“上市前股票”泡沫将曝出一起丑闻。

A drugs company will drop early-stage research. Big Pharma has struggled for a decade with a dearth of potential blockbusters. Companies such as GlaxoSmithKline have restructured and slimmed down their research arms but the sector remains troubled, as the departure of Jeff Kindler, Pfizer’s former chief executive, on the grounds of “exhaustion” indicates.

一家药品公司将放弃初期研究。大制药公司这十年来处境艰难，缺少潜在的拳头产品。葛兰素史克(GlaxoSmithKline)等公司都对研究部门进行了重组和缩编，但该行业仍问题重重。辉瑞(Pfizer)前首席执行官杰夫•金德勒(Jeff Kindler)以“疲惫”为由离职，就说明了问题。

The obvious course with something that is not working is to drop it. Shire Pharmaceuticals pioneered a strategy of outsourcing early stage research to smaller companies and focusing on developing and trialling promising drugs. This will be the year when a one of the industry’s biggest takes a similar tack.

不能立竿见影的东西，显然就应该放弃。Shire Pharmaceuticals率先采用了一项策略，把初期研究外包给一些规模较小的公司，自己则集中精力开发和试验“有希望”的药品。新的一年里，预计将有一家大型医药公司效仿此举。

Media streaming will come of age. Technology buffs envisage the era of “cloud computing”, with all digital content stored on remote servers instead of hard disks on computers. Google has been trying to implement that vision for applications such as e-mail and word processing.

流媒体将步入成熟。科技达人构想了一个“云计算”时代——一切数字内容都将存储在远程服务器、而不再是电脑硬盘上。谷歌(Google)一直试图在电子邮件和字处理等应用上落实这一构想。

With the likely launch of Spotify in the US, Apple readying to launch a streamed version of iTunes, and Netflix moving rapidly towards streaming rather than DVD rental, this technology is advancing. This will be the year when consumers start to adopt it widely.

Spotify有望在美国推出、苹果(Apple)准备发布流媒体版iTunes，以及Netflix把重点迅速转向流媒体、而非DVD租赁，无不说明此项技术正在发展。新的一年里，消费者将开始广泛使用流媒体。

China will overtake Silicon Valley in green energy. China is known for copying DVDs and software and for producing high-speed trains that are suspiciously similar to those in the west and Japan. But it shows every sign of being determined to forge an original path in energy, spending public money on research to support private investment.

在绿色能源方面，中国将超越硅谷。中国以仿造DVD和软件、以及生产与西方及日本同类产品极其相似的高速列车著称。但在能源方面，中国则表现出了构建一条“原创之路”的莫大决心，在研发上投入公共资金，以襄助私人投资。

As China tries to make itself a hub for environmental innovation, the US is retreating. Silicon Valley venture capital groups that identified green energy as a big opportunity are playing it down and turning to social media. China has the market, the cash and the science to stick with it.

在中国力图把自身打造为环境技术创新中心之时，美国却在后退。当初断定绿色能源代表着重大机遇的硅谷创投机构，如今已激情冷却，把目光转向了社交媒体。中国有市场、资金和科学力量继续坚持下去。

The Guardian will change its mind about charging online. The UK paper has been a leader in digital innovation and created a global brand by staying free online. But it is losing too much to carry on indefinitely, and there is no sign that advertisements alone can support its expensive editorial model.

《卫报》(The Guardian)将转变其对网络收费模式的看法。这家英国报纸一直是数字创新的领军者，凭借网络免费模式打造出了一个全球品牌。然而，由于目前亏损太多，这一模式将难以无限期地推行下去。同时，没有任何迹象表明，仅凭广告就能够支撑其成本高昂的编辑模式。

The New York Times, a bellwether of general newspapers, will try a “metered” approach to charging online in 2011 and the Guardian will signal a change of course late in the year (leaving implementation until 2012). The unpalatable alternative is to follow the Daily Mail by chasing page views and advertising with celebrity and crime stories.

普通报纸中的领头羊《纽约时报》(New York Times)，在2011年将尝试一种“定量的”网络收费模式，而《卫报》则将在年底发出变更策略的信号（落实要到2012年）。《每日邮报》(Daily Mail)拿名人及犯罪报道追逐页面浏览数和作广告的手段，不值得人们效仿。

The US will make a profit from AIG. In the 2008 financial crisis, there was no worse basket case than American International Group, which had insured the risk of collateralised debt obligations from banks and had to be bailed out at a total cost of $182bn. Yet the Treasury’s 92 per cent stake in the insurance group will be sold at a profit.

美国将从美国国际集团(AIG)身上获利。在2008年的金融危机中，“伤势”最重的莫过于AIG，这家公司承保了各银行发行的抵押债务证券(CDO)，为此政府不得不拿出1820亿美元为其纾困。不过，美国财政部出售所持的这家保险集团92%的股权如果出售，就将获得盈利。

In policy terms, the AIG fiasco left the US and other countries with the problem of declaring some financial institutions “too big to fail”. But in terms of equity investment (the government and the Federal Reserve also provided other kinds of financial backstops) saving Wall Street turned out cheap for the US taxpayer.

在政策方面，AIG的惨败让美国及其其它国家面临宣布某些金融机构“大到不能倒”的问题。但从股权投资（美国政府和美联储还提供了其它形式的金融援助）来说，拯救华尔街其实没给美国纳税人带来多大成本。

That is a welcome prediction with which to start 2011, and we shall find out whether it and others come true (the first test is likely to be at the Oscars in February). We must hope that the global economy is in a sound enough shape for businesses to make bets of their own.

我们将带着这个喜人的预测步入2011年，且看它——以及其它预测——能否应验（第一个考验可能出现在明年2月份的奥斯卡颁奖典礼上）。我们肯定希望全球经济状况足够良好，让各企业也能拿出自己的预测。