"Apple will become the Apple of the phone market much as it was the Apple of personal computer market." No offense, but this is probably the most banal argumen

"Apple will become the Apple of the phone market much as it was the Apple of personal computer market." No offense, but this is probably the most banal argument imaginable. "There is a myth, more of a meme actually, about the 'inevitability' of commoditization. It is a view of the world that sees things linearly, in terms of singularities, and the so-called "one right path." In this realm, where commoditization is God, horizontal orientation (versus vertical integration) rules the roost. How else to define consumers, not in flesh and blood terms, not as spirits that aspire to specific outcomes, but rather, as a composite set of loosely-coupled attributes. This mindset is compelling because it is simple and familiar, but it also leads to blind obsequiousness. Historical edifices are held as indelible fact. "It's Microsoft v. Apple all over again." "There has to be one absolute, dominant leader." "Open will always prevail -- and should prevail -- over proprietary systems." "Market share matters above all else. Even profits." There is one small fly in the ointment to this ethos, however, and its name is Apple." Later: "The following inconvenient facts must be an affront to the horizontal, commoditized, open, market share zealots. Apple has launched three major new product lines since 2001: the iPod (October, 2001); the iPhone (July, 2007); and the iPad (April, 2010). The company’s stock is up 3,000 percent since the launch of iPod, 125 percent since the launch of iPhone, and 20 percent since the launch of iPad. In that same time period, the major devotees of the loosely coupled model — Microsoft, Google, Intel and Dell — have been, at best, outpaced by Apple 6X (in the case of Google dating back to the launch of iPod) and at worst, either been wiped out (in the case of Dell) or treaded water (in the cases of Microsoft and Intel) in every comparison period." From: http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/09/apple-segmentation-strategy-an.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/09/apple-segmentation-strategy...