Comment Re:Apple is a Hardware Company - wrong question! (Score 1) 563
Maybe this hardware/software question is wrong.
I think Apple is a brand company.
After all these years generating sympathy and antipathy, occasionally denting ol' Bill's armor, re-orienting markets with "why didn't I think of that?" design, they no longer are a hardware or a software company. The brand includes hardware for sure, and nicely designed at that (Lexus hardware - one step better - not two - than Dell). But it also includes the slickest mass-OS out there, the iPod, a music store with oh-so-slightly subversive policies, etc.
And it includes all the marketing. I have seen Picasso, Edison, and Einstein "think different" in frames. What other brand has that? Yeah, there are some, but those are all brand-based more than product-based.
So, what's their knitting? What *has* to be protected at all costs? Not the hardware, although that comes close. Not the current hotties, iPod and OS X. But Apple itself. The *combination* of all those things.
I'm not sure where this thought leads, but it certainly undermines many of the assertions being floated around!
So how do those sig's work? [naive sympathy karma ploy - darn - you caught me!]
I think Apple is a brand company.
After all these years generating sympathy and antipathy, occasionally denting ol' Bill's armor, re-orienting markets with "why didn't I think of that?" design, they no longer are a hardware or a software company. The brand includes hardware for sure, and nicely designed at that (Lexus hardware - one step better - not two - than Dell). But it also includes the slickest mass-OS out there, the iPod, a music store with oh-so-slightly subversive policies, etc.
And it includes all the marketing. I have seen Picasso, Edison, and Einstein "think different" in frames. What other brand has that? Yeah, there are some, but those are all brand-based more than product-based.
So, what's their knitting? What *has* to be protected at all costs? Not the hardware, although that comes close. Not the current hotties, iPod and OS X. But Apple itself. The *combination* of all those things.
I'm not sure where this thought leads, but it certainly undermines many of the assertions being floated around!
So how do those sig's work? [naive sympathy karma ploy - darn - you caught me!]
