Apple is running ads on TV that their products are better because the physical product and the software are done by the same Apple designers.
This is supposed to be a selling point. Maybe for the Apple faithful but not for investors.
Apple, via the arrogant self centered Steve Jobs promoted this inclusive idea at a time when they had the best personal computer on the market. The Apple II personal computer. They got 2% of the global market. IBM and Microsoft with software that was public and compatible with everything designed by non-Microsofties got 90%+ of the market. Then open source software came along and got 33% of the global business from Microsoft; Microsoft still had roughly 2/3rds of the global market.
Got the message? A message I first learned from observing RCA records in the 1950’s and Phillips cassette tapes in the 1960s. I have been preaching open systems since 1974, wherever I go. I’ve given speeches on the subject in France, Sweden, Denmark and England. And everywhere in the U.S. I wrote about it in Honest Business published in 1981.
Apple still hasn’t got the lesson.
Apple is today worth more than 2/3rds of a $trillion. Utterly amazing and they don’t understand why.
The Apple Iphone was introduced in 2007 and was popular but had little effect on the value of the company because of a global financial market fall. As the market recovered in 2009 the Iphone became a success. Joined by the Ipad in 2010, together the two Apple products created an increase in Apple stock value of 800%.
Both the Iphone and the Ipad are OPEN SYSTEMS because tens of thousands of contractors design the content of the two products. The hardware and software may be closed proprietary systems but the product benefits from the vast array of non-Apple contributors.
Apple is worth a fortune because it is an open content system. The company still doesn’t seem to understand that.
Might I remind my readers, commerce is the greatest institution in the history of man because it utilizes meritocracy and diversity. Those are the two attributes that Apple and any other business gains by being open.