Apple is no feast!

Apple will be the new generation technology company and will lead the pack. As the new ideas and concepts and technologies take root, devices and enabling hardware and software will go through the transformation. HP, Microsoft, LG, Samsung, Sony and Nokia will relinquish their no 1 positions in many areas to Apple and new players (who are not in horizon today). Companies like Dell, Motorola and some others might just vanish in thin air, without a trace

The basis of argument -

- is not innovation - Apple hardly comes up with a new product or service, it just makes them better and not just better but better beyond imagination - a delta that no other company can leap frog

- it is quality and user experience. It creates an experience that become benchmark of excellence

- it is the culture and core values, that are easy to write on a piece of paper but nearly impossible to cultivate, nurture and soak in every aspect of the organization

Market tsunamis created by alliances, mergers and acquisitions and other Wall Street maneuvers can never destabilize an organization where the culture of creating quality products is so deep rooted. Though it is seen as a one man show now with Steve Jobs but I believe that it will pull along just fine even after him as long as they do not have any wall street type as the CEO and the leadership preserves the "nerdiness".

Technology companies can never be successful by basing their operating models and strategies on what Wall street likes to see as it mostly likes numbers and graphs that look simple to comprehend and make sense of. Dancing to Wall street tunes can bring an end to an otherwise spectacular endeavor - look what happened/happens to Google.

When you have people leading a company who think like investment bankers you will find it hard to sustain in the technology echo system that give two hoots to ROI/ROE/ROA and any other R there might be. Technology companies make hell of a money by making good solid products, which are created as a result of excellent ideas and excellent ideas rarely comes to people who spend their life looking at tickers.

Transformative ideas comes to innovators and nerds, a species that only fellow nerds understand hence it is important to have nerds leading a technology company whose survival depends on innovation. The day men in black take over the dark era dawns.

So coming back to Apple - it will kick butt of established businesses as it continues to blaze on its product/platform leadership trail. As of now no company seem to have the configuration to give it a run for money. All the talk about Android and Google phone is going to be nothing but media frenzy, Google will not come anywhere near. In fact cell phone companies latching on to android are likely to sink with the OS itself

Steve Jobs successor will be a creative genius and not a number cruncher or a sales guy, she/he will be a visionary who can command respect of his team of visionaries

(PS: I did not want to bore you with details of my analysis as I believe it is simple and anyone who has followed technology in last 10-15 yrs will be able to assess, those who have not - this piece will be so out of whack that you may never reach the post script section)