Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal reviewed the new lineup of Apple's iProducts and Services in Wednesday's edition of the paper. He notes that, with the advent of Microsoft's Zune, and RealNetwork's Rhapsody, Apple has completely overhauled it's offerings.
Even if I did not own Apple's stock in my strategy's portfolio, I would appreciate the company's very aggressive product/market management.
Given the quickly-shifting sands of competition in this arena, Joseph Schumpeter would be very proud to see how Apple has rapidly cannibalized its own product line, in order to meet new competitive threats.
For instance, they have redesigned the low-end Shuffle, and pared the number of now mid-range offerings of the original iPod, and eliminated the iPod Mini altogether. Through a combination of pricing and product repositioning, the company has made room for new, higher-functionality entries in its iPod line.
It has also upgraded iTunes, the online entertainment content management system which is the companion to its iPod line, in time for the entry of the two new competitors' products.
The vagaries of consumer tastes may result in the loss of significant market share for Apple's products. Or it may result in the firm's continued dominance of the product/market. Either way, Apple won't lose share and growth because it stood still, became complacent, or milked the business.
It's a pleasure to see a leading company, like Apple, do such an admirable job in a key business, such as digital entertainment content, of moving ahead to change the competitive environment while it still can significantly effect that environment, rather than rest, and let new competitors control the terms on which competition will play out over the next few years.
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