3 Surprising Companies That May Sneak Up on Apple

Everybody knows that the tech giants are gunning for Apple . Mr. Softy and Big G are spending a lot of money to make sure that they can do anything within their means to keep the class act of Cupertino from dominating the planet.

Apple's biggest rivals now can barely kick high enough to strike Apple's shins, so smaller companies may have to settle for nipping at its ankles. After all, never underestimate the power of a disruptor. As great as Apple is today, its two biggest products -- iPhones and iPads -- weren't even available five years ago. A lot can happen in a short time.

Beast in China

Baidu Apple's been a beast in China. When a new iPhone or iPad comes out, lines form overnight in the United States -- nevertheless we've seen riots break out in China.

You probably know all about Baidu. It's China's undisputed search-engine leader, commanding a thick 78% chunk of the market. Taking a page out of the global search leader's playbook, Baidu realizes that it needs to make sure that it's a force in mobile, such as Google has done with Android.

The Android-based Baidu Yi -- last year

Baidu introduced its own mobile operating system -- the Android-based Baidu Yi -- last year. Later this week, China's dot-com darling will roll out its updated Baidu Cloud platform. A Baidu executive on Friday revealed that several Baidu Cloud partnerships will be announced in the coming days.

It's true that a lot of China is after all poor, nevertheless there are now more Chinese mobile clients -- 356 million as of last year -- than there are people in the United States. Apple will want to keep a close eye on the developments here.

Sprint Nextel There's no fear that Sprint could take on Apple, however the country's third largest wireless carrier is more important to Apple than you may think.

Sprint committed to $15.5 billion in iPhone purchases over four years to nab the ability to offer the iconic smarpthone. It's been magnetic, attracting 3.3 million buyers over the past two quarters. That's less than 5% of Apple's global iPhone shipments, nevertheless bear with me.

Steep iPhone subsidies forced the carrier into reporting its biggest loss in years while the holiday quarter. The margin-gnawing ways of the iPhone had Sprint's CEO forgoing $3.25 million of his salary last week.

Yet Apple after all needs Sprint. As the only major carrier nonetheless offering unlimited data plans to new accounts, Sprint gives iPhone buyers a differentiated choice during keeping its two larger rivals somewhat honest.

What happens if the stiff costs of keeping the iPhone around either forces Sprint to emphasize cheaper Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone handsets or causes the debt-laden, profitless Sprint to go out of business? The country's two largest carriers -- already getting quite vocal in their displeasure with the lousy margins of moving iPhone devices -- will have more control.

Hewlett-Packard The success of Apple's iPod Touch several years ago sparked an interest in Macs, and that as well held true while the initial iPhone and iPad rollouts. The halo effect is running a few cherubs light these days. Mac revenue rose just 2% in Apple's latest quarter, and that includes a troubling 1% decline in MacBook portables.

A lot of this is simply the success that Apple is having with its "good enough" computing devices. If a casual user needs a PC only for surfing the Web, firing off emails, and streaming video, a tablet or even a smartphone may be enough.

However, how can it be that Hewlett-Packard -- the market-share leader here and globally -- as a matter of fact gained more market share than Apple in this country over the past year? This goes beyond the "good enough" computing revolution eating at the industry.

A sensible theory is that as cloud computing grows in popularity -- and everything from spreadsheets to word processing to photo editing can be done and stored online -- it becomes less important to pay a premium for one operating system over another. As great as Macs are, the shift of processing and storage to faraway servers in this cloud computing revolution makes computing as operating system agnostic as ever.

Will Baidu, Sprint, and HP in effect surprise Apple? As an Apple bull, I would argue that the company will find a way to respond to any and all threats as they emerge. But, it's never too early to keep an eye on the companies that may grow problematic henceforth.

Apple jacks The straightway trillion-dollar revolution will be in mobile, however the best investing play isn't necessarily Apple. If you want to cash in on the upcoming trend, a new report will get you up to speed. It's as free as this article, yet it won't last forever, so check it out now.