Apple announcement and understanding the next challenge for vendors and service providers being ‘owning the client’

martin237 | August 25, 2011 | 0 Comments

http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2011/08/steve-jobs-resignation-expect-commercial-fireworks-from-apple.html

Now then — that day has arrived. Steve Jobs has resigned from Apple. It is only right to point out that the chap has made a phenomenal difference to the planet. I wish him every success, in particular with his health.

Let’s get the full resignation text documented for posterity:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

My brother did a very good post about the announcement from Steve Jobs and his role within Apple. What does the Apple management team need to remember, ‘emotion and the product’, that Apple have created a very effective marketing platform and framework for customer interactivity around their business and that they need to continue the ongoing differentiation on price, functionality and delivery to maintain their place above the rest of the vendors in the pc and mobile device space.

Why do I buy an Apple product?

It works
The styling is outrageously good
I feel a part of something – the branding, the marketing is all geared around it being made for me, made to work for me, an empowerment device to my life, digital, both on and offline

What differentiates:

Quality – both real and perceived
Design and attention to detail
Niche products with open markets – I am not segmented, my abc rating, my usage patterns do not mean I need product 1789F with the plus pack, it’s one of three carefully defined platforms which fit my lifestyle
Ownership of the retail experience – I want a mac, I want a geek to sell me, it an enthusiast else I would buy and other vendors forgive me a beige box at PC World or Best Buy

What went wrong when Steve Jobs was away

Product segmentation – too many models, to complicated a sales pitch
Lack of defined strategies and businesses – what was Apple as a brand, as a delivery mechanism and an end user experience
Perceived innovation and focus on lawsuits with other companies than investment in their products

The challenge?

How to further integrate the vendor be it Apple, Dell or HP into my digital lifestyle, to change the nature of the game from one of ‘selling computers’ to be a service provider, a lifestyle partner and an innovator, a vendor or service provider that gives me and ONLY me, the right set of products to meet my requirements, a set of tools to make me the consultant, the guy working in Starbucks by day, and developing iPhone apps or doing design at night through services like 99designs or freelancer.co.uk

I want someone to handle everything, the computer, the software, the network (broadband and mobile), the service provider (fix it or replace it when it breaks) and to keep innovating the services and offerings around me? To set up www.luxurymotorcars.co.uk, my new blog I called Ewan, why couldn’t Dell or HP do it for me, host it on their servers with their software, their billing and their branding? Whether they outsourced it to Ewan or a guy working in Starbucks, what mattered was that it was the world I looked to my problem and the person or persons/vendors around me that I looked to first. For all those micro-businesses around us, the 2 man business with a phone, with a fax and an established customer base, where are the vendors? Where are the micro services, here’s a pc for £40 a month with support, with a free web site, using wordpress, with a flickr account paid for the year, with backups, with a guy you can call who’ll sit down and go through it with you. From here you can expand on your offering a free online store, an iPad or iPhone app, a virtual server or email system, again who does it is less significant to me as knowing who I call.

The next generation IT revenue is not in products, it’s not in service. It’s in being the guy that does it. It’s in being the guy that can say you need this, here is a portfolio of services in a bundle, the cost is £40 a month or whatever and it takes 5 minutes, 3 hours or four days to set up, but because the experience is so stunning you’ll never want to leave. It’s both capitalizing on the products and services that you can provide, with the ones that you can’t to be that guy.