“Let’s be lazy for a second here, and attribute all of Apple’s success over the past 15 years to two men: Steve Jobs and Tim Cook,” John Gruber writes for Daring Fireball. “Jobs designs them, Cook makes them and sells them.”
“It’s the Jobs side of the equation that Apple’s rivals — phone, tablet, laptop, whatever — are able to copy. Thus the patents and the lawsuits. Design is copyable,” Gruber writes. “But the Cook side of things — Apple’s economy of scale advantage — cannot be copied by any company with a complex product lineup.”
Gruber writes, “I’ve always been interested in Apple’s products because of their superior design; the business side of the company was never of as much interest. But at this point, it seems clear to me that however superior Apple’s design is, it’s their business and operations strength — the Cook side of the equation — that is furthest ahead of their competition, and the more sustainable advantage. It cannot be copied without going through the same sort of decade-long process that Apple went through.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Attribution: iPadCTO.com. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Judge Bork” for the heads up.]