My gut response is to ask, "Why can't it be duplicated?!"
-superboyac
Three reasons.
Apple has enjoyed the benefits of:
- Public tolerance and forbearance for most of its excesses
- Unusual luck
- An easily abused legal system
(1) Steve Jobs (and Apple by extension) is divine.Divinities are usually held to be exempt from the rules that govern the lives of the non-gods. And as a general rule, society only tolerates one divinity at a time.
One of the reasons why Madonna got away with what she did for as long as she did was because she was the designated "bad girl." When Madonna misbehaved, society bent over backwards to justify it in the name of "art" and "creativity." Anybody else who attempted to copy her
shtick too closely, or horn in on her bad girl act, was denounced. Because Madonna was
Madonna. She had
permission to carry on that way. Anybody else who did was considered a common "slut."
Steve Jobs is very much like Madonna in that regard.
Unfortunately, we eventually tire of our gods - and offer them up for sacrifice once we do.
Madonna went from being a 'sensation' to being generally scorned. And it happened virtually overnight.
Steve Jobs is
not like Madonna in that respect.
At least not yet.
2) Being in the right place at a unique time.Apple caught the leading edge of a radical and unpredicted technological change (i.e. the microprocessor) and rode it for all it was worth.
Full props to them for doing so. But that's not the sort of thing you can plan on happening.
And with the maturation of the industry and market, many of the profit niches have now been occupied. And most of the low hanging fruit has also been harvested. Which is not to say there still aren't fortunes to be made. But those newly entering the fray will quickly discover they'll have to climb higher - and shinny out onto much thinner branches - to do so.
3) Barriers to entry.There are many.
But in this context, the single biggest barrier to entry is the advent of litigation as a key element in corporate competitive strategy. Patent and tort law are being widely abused in order to stifle innovation and prevent competition.
Apple may have gotten where it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. But they (like most of the other big players) are hell bent on making sure nobody else can follow their example.
And because it's become a mature industry, size and capital offer major advantages when dealing with the competition. Especially on the legal front.
If you truly do have an innovative technology you've developed, expect to either be bought out by one of the big companies - or sued out of existence.
This issue has been discussed so often that it's not necessary to say much more about it than that.
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And it's for those reasons that I say Apple's game can't be duplicated.
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