Look at any industry — not just computers and MP3 players. [...] During the early stages of an industry, when the functionality and reliability of a product isn’t yet adequate to meet customer’s needs, a proprietary solution is almost always the right solution — because it allows you to knit all the pieces together in an optimized way.

But once the technology matures and becomes good enough, industry standards emerge. That leads to the standardization of interfaces, which lets companies specialize on pieces of the overall system, and the product becomes modular. At that point, the competitive advantage of the early leader dissipates, and the ability to make money migrates to whoever controls the performance-defining subsystem.

Und auch das könnte Apple. Sie hätten sogar einen enormen Startvorteil durch die etablierte iTunes-Software und ihre Design- und Usability-Kompetenz. Wenn sie nicht versuchten, iTunes in alle MP3-Player zu bringen, bliebe Apple nur eines:

[...] they’re going to have to keep coming up with the next cool thing.

Auch nicht schlecht. Aber sicher keine nachhaltige Strategie. (via Fischmarkt)