the onda

Gruber has a fascinating post about Apple's transition from being a computer company to being a smartphone company where he unpacks the company's earnings call yesterday. What is most remarkable to me about this story is that we are talking about a company that resuscitated itself with the breakthrough hit that was the iPod only to the reinvent itself yet again—while still riding high from the success and profitability of the iPod.

How Apple moved from being just "the mac company," or even "the iPod company" is something that good organizational folks should study for years to come. As someone working at "the printer company" where we seem unable to make a meaningful transition to the next franchise even when the conditions might be perfect for such a transition, I am simply in awe.

No doubt part of it is about the fact that Apple was nearly dead. Jobs clearly has also played a big role with his outstanding stewardship of the Apple magic. But I wonder if the real enabler for these two shifts doesn't stem from Apple's two core strengths: its software DNA and its rabid attention to industrial design.

Both of these seem more transferable to finding the next hit franchise in an increasingly mobile and personal computing landscape. Compare those two core competencies for instance, with ones that Wall Street loves in tech companies like: awesome supply chain management, 20-year long bets on proprietary IP roadmaps, control of the distribution channel, excellence in running large services organizations, and you'll see what I mean.

And of the two I think in that the rabid focus on industrial design seems to me to be related to the first— in that at Apple it's always been about giving the software a physical instantiation in the associated hardware. The iPhone is the best example of this as is their reluctance to dive head first into the exploding "netbook" market. Until they see the opportunity for making the bold move with software (as they did with the iPhone), I suspect they will stay away.