InsightaaS: Horace Dediu’s ASYMCO is a fascinating source of insight into issues pertaining to Apple, and to the smartphone and related markets generally. In this post, ASYMCO challenges the perception that Amazon is an “anti-Apple”.
Building a successful business is hard. Many try, few succeed and those that do tend not to thrive for long. So success in business it should be respected. Especially in highly competitive industries like technology. The fragility of success however should also give one pause to think about how delicate a business model is.
The presumption that companies can shift business models at will is usually false. Businesses are balanced on a knife’s edge of dependency on multiple variables. Almost all resources are expended on preserving this balance.
This being my observation, I take issue with assumptions that large companies can “pivot” on a dime or that they can change their business models “when conditions are right”. Consider Microsoft’s dilemma. They have all the resources in the world and yet they could not pivot to take advantage of a change so mundane as a low power microprocessor (which enabled a mobile computer and hence a new ecosystem and profit model for software.)
Or consider the dilemma of Apple…
Read the entire post: http://www.asymco.com/2013/08/07/the-anti-apple/
