Tim Bajarin reports for PC Magazine, “I recently spoke with an executive who is a PC vendor, and he asked me a question that also happened to be an important statement on his part: “Apple is really unstoppable, isn’t it?”
“Given Apple’s increased dominance in the smartphone and MP3-player space, as well as the company’s gains in consumer and business mindshare with the Mac platform, Apple is perhaps the most influential company in the personal computer and CE market,” Bajarin writes. “And this is driving its competitors crazy.”
Bajarin writes, “One of the more startling announcements made at Apple’s recent iPod launch event was that Apple has the credit card information on over 100 million users. And the company did not come to own these digital customers by accident. One of the things people don’t realize about Apple is that its roadmap and product planning is done in 10-year increments. In fact, Apple started laying the groundwork for being a digital asset management and distribution company two to three years before the first iPod even hit the market, back in 2001. And from that point on, the company has made this the framework behind everything it has done and created to date, and it will guide Apple’s product designs and strategy for the foreseeable future.”
Bajarin writes, “Apple has another major advantage in that it owns the Mac, iPod, and iPhone OSes; Mac hardware platforms; and iPod and iPhone designs. That makes it easy for the company to create devices that take full advantage of the content it offers and manages. This reinforces Apple’s unique position, and is frustrating its competitors to no end.”
Bajarin explains, “If Apple does bring out a mini-tablet of some sort, it almost assuredly will have another winner, so long as it takes full advantage of its platform ecosystem. In fact, Apple could continue to innovate around all types of new hardware designs while integrating its asset management and distribution system into new devices: next-generation TVs, set-top boxes, and so on. It could easily continue creating products that consumers will snap up—and extend the Apple empire well beyond its current footprint.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]