iPad: Greater than the sum of its parts?
There are lots of headlines out there proclaiming that, if the Apple’s iPad business and its tens of billions in revenue was reckoned as a separate enterprise, it would be in the top 130 or so of the Fortune 500. Although that makes an eye catching headline, it’s an utterly spurious proposition.
Steve Lohr of the New York Times has set tongues wagging by saying that, with $15 billion to $20 billion in revenue, if Apple’s iPad business were a separate business, it would one of the world’s largest.
Superficially, that’s a beautiful thought which stirs the imagination. However, the iPad is anything but separate.
In fact, the iPad is a cumulative product made possible by the iTunes, iPod, iPhone and app markets created over the course of 10 years and can only exist as part of that ecosystem. Whether you consider the Apple tablet as the pinnacle of the platform or just another stepping stone, it can’t be thought as anything other than as a part.
If you wanna know what a stand alone tablet looks like, consider the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which sold two million units in three months and will soon be an orphaned dead end of the Android tablet operating system development cycle.
Alternately, you might wanna consider Fusion Garage’s JooJoo or the HP Slate, both of which are very much dead ends in their own right.
The iPad is a resounding, world changing success because it’s a part of, a natural extension of an extremely well thought out and developed ecosystem and couldn’t exist otherwise. Stand alone is what everyone else is failing at at…
What’s your take?
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February 1st, 2011
The iPad is beautiful, and it’s brilliant and it’s like bubblegum. It appeals to the masses because it is bright, colorful, tasty, but darned near useless(except for the most trivial of pursuits).
I Bought it. Tried it. Jailbroke it. And pretty much got disgusted with it.
I see people take it out at meetings, open it, show it off and then promptly put it away.
It’s useless — except if you’re a diehard mac-fanatic and want to twist your arm trying to make it work. I tried, and eventually gave up.
I bought an HP Slate a week ago (off Ebay, since HP can’t get their act together and ship them) and in one week, I’ve been enthralled! Sure, It lacks the fun-factor of the iPad. And while its construction is outstanding — it honestly pales beside the (near)perfect craftsmanship of the iPad.
But it offers 2 things that the iPad ultimately lacks: Usefulness & Productivity.
(hey, Angry Birds can only get you so far)