261–270 of 354 posts
http://hbr.org/product/what-is-strategy/an/96608-PDF-ENG
HINT: if you google to title you'll find a link to the full PDF, though I am not sure of it's legitimacy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I know everyone likes to think Steve Jobs came up with the idea of focusing on a few very good products, but it's actually an old idea." No one thinks that. I, at least, have never read anyone who has made such claim. Where did you get the impression that that is a widely-held belief?
I got that impression from the article. I also get that impression from all the companies that still do the opposite, today, as is discussed in the article. Perhaps I should have qualified that statement with "in terms of large american companies", which is what Drucker was talking about.... Companies whose product catalog became bloated over the years in an effort to serve every need of every customer and ended up d…
Maybe it's just computer companies? Toyota's website seemed easy enough to use, but then again it was nearly as easy to choose and configure a Ford.
It's hardly the first time logistics has been touted as the key competitive advantage of a company. Take Nokia for example. Massive economies of scale, designs taking maximum advantage of that, and incredible supply chain management[1]. All this kept them going for a while even after the wheels fell off, but by now they pretty much have no logistical advantage left. Apple pundits seem to think that Apple's (undeniabl…
I wouldn't say _permanent_, but there are many companies who could make a transition to the same approach, but haven't yet. Dell, for instance, could scrap 90% of its models, and it's highly unlikely anyone would even _notice_. Presumably, they have some pressing internal reason (not necessarily a sensible one, but something they can't get around) not to do so; it's not like it's any great secret that a simple product line is cheaper to manager.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have evidence that Apple's products appeal to the majority of the human population? And don't do the TC thing and extrapolate from a SV coffee shop/your office. A sentiment poll would do. I'm sure one exists, but I looked around and couldn't find one. It wont help us determine how humans overall perceive Apple products, but it'll at least cover markets where they operate.
Walk in any public place (tube, business lounge, bus, whatever) and look at what people are using... You'll see a lot of macs, iPods, iPhones and iPads. On the laptop side, it's not quite such a clear win, but about 50% of the people in a typical business lounge are using Macs. On the phone side, I'd say it's about the same. On the tablet side, I've yet to see someone actually using something other than an iPad to do…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I know everyone likes to think Steve Jobs came up with the idea of focusing on a few very good products, but it's actually an old idea." No one thinks that. I, at least, have never read anyone who has made such claim. Where did you get the impression that that is a widely-held belief?
I got that impression from the article. I also get that impression from all the companies that still do the opposite, today, as is discussed in the article. Perhaps I should have qualified that statement with "in terms of large american companies", which is what Drucker was talking about.... Companies whose product catalog became bloated over the years in an effort to serve every need of every customer and ended up d…
There's nothing new about this. Apple has been doing vertical integration for decades. When things went badly, pundits criticized it. Now it's the whole new rage. There's nothing particularly enlightening in this article, nothing that would be of any use to anyone hoping to replicate some of Apple's success. Advice to have good design and a low price is just a platitude.
Apple's vertical model didn't work for the PC industry for a variety of reasons. But now in the new mobile industry it is so successful, that literally every big company is trying to go all vertical, all the time. Hardware, software, development tools, operating system, mobile and desktop platforms, app stores, single sign-on, cloud services, music, movies, and tv delivery, voice and video communications... Google, A…
The Apple way is to design amazing product, I do own an iphone and an ipad and I really like them. Apple does an incredible job at designing products. But the Apple way is also to not be at conferences or shows but their own, to forbid developers to talk about the OS and to sue others companies using their patents. I really dislike Apple, if there was some other company that could do as amazing phones and tablets as…
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. I'm sure that if you were in Apple's position you wouldn't take too kindly to everyone imitating your designs and technological innovations. Companies do have to make money. You could argue that Apple is too controlling and sometimes they do go too far but that controlling nature also allows for superior products as well. I don't think the perfect solution exists out there…
It's also pretty much the industry standard. When we hear about Windows 8 from the MSDN blogs, it is not because some developer decided to write it; it's because it has been approved for public dissemination. Apple does much the same thing at its developer conferences. Google, in ways, is even more secretive; by the time we hear about what's in the latest Android, the first devices with said version are often already on the shelves; Apple at least gives developers a couple of months heads up.
What nonsense is this? If a company copied Apple's economy of scale, it would no longer have a complex product lineup.
It's like saying "Design cannot be copied by any company with ugly products".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While Apple probably didn't help Intel design the Core 2 Duo (they only had serious in-house processor design stuff recently, and it's ARM-oriented), it's quite possible they exerted pressure on them to make such a thing. The Core Duo and Core 2 Duo were a _major_ turnaround for Intel; they essentially abandoned the gigahertz at whatever price doctrine they'd been pursuing since the P4. The Core Duo, in particular, w…
Yes. The grandfather's post claimed Apple's CPU engineers were involved, and it is that characterization I object to. Incidentally, as I own a Thinkpad with a Core Duo CPU (July 2004 T60p, SL8VN), I think it might have been more accurate to emphasize "essentially" rather than "only."