Businessweek Pieces on Apple (iPad) & Amazon (publishing and delivery of writing)

There's been a few pieces that stood out from Businessweek lately on the success of both Apple and Amazon.

The Mar 26 edition had a tremendously interesting "Opening Remarks" essay by Peter Burrows and Jim Aley. Titled "iPad: The PC Killer" it covers Apple's dominance with the iPad and Burrows and Aley offered up some ideas that seem to make a lot of sense... with the first two being around why the iPad has done so well and third around business conditions it created. In terms of product success, the authors note both how Apple able to take a longer view approach to a market given fewer product offerings and that the iPad helped by being a follow-on product to the iPhone (a positive both in terms of consumer familiarity with the concept and Apple utilization of the iOS software and App Store).

Most interesting to me from the piece was the idea put forth by Burrows and Aley that the iPad so dominates the market that competitors can't expect to simply offer up a comparible alternative (like HP did with the TouchPad) and expect it to sell. If a product offering in the same pricing or performance ballpark as the iPad, customers will simply pick what they already know to be good. There is still success that can be had by other companies, but it either through breakthrough competing technology (which nobody has brought yet) or slicing off a piece of the market and going after that. This approach of "competing by not really competing" has been successfully done by Amazon with positioning its Kindle (and now Kindle Fire) at price points where consumers don't need to choose between them or the iPad.

Related to this idea of Amazon doing well, there was an interesting piece by Brad Stone on the Businessweek site. "Why the Amazon Naysayers Should Be Scared" looks at the recent excellent financial results from the retailer, with improving margins while at the same time making large investments in infrastructure (facilities and people). Pretty interesting stuff from Stone that also makes reference to Amazon focusing efforts on publishing and the Kindle with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently saying that "16 of our top 100 bestselling titles are exclusive to our store.”

It's pretty remarkable what Amazon has done in the area of publishing and an additional Businessweek story hammers this home with "Amazon vs. Publishers: The Book Battle Continues." Also by Brad Stone, the piece is primarily about Amazon wanting to move towards print-on-demand publishing (with one usage being their CreateSpace division that I used for my book) and the traditional publishing houses fighting them. I wrote about and linked to another Brad Stone story on Amazon from a few months ago and it really seems as if Amazon has a more profitable path forward than traditional powers in the publishing industry and these existing companies fighting an uphill battle to keep things as they have been.

Fascinating things going on in this industry and it takes me back to a blog post done here three years ago on a Time Magazine feature about the economics of written delivery.

BusinessWeek Pieces - Apple Tablet & Other Tech Products

Very interested in what Apple may (or may not) announce as a new product entry in the computer tablet/reader category. Apparently I'm not the only curious party as the recent BusinessWeek piece "Five Ways Apple's Tablet May Change the World" shows.

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Not to completely shun the PC world... there's also been a good amount of (mostly positive) press around the recent Microsoft launch of the Windows 7 operating system. Two different product review pieces were from the (now departed from BusinessWeek) Tech & You writer Stephen Wildstrom. From the Oct 26 issue was "Win 7: Microsoft Gets It Right (Finally)" and the Nov 9 issue "Multitouch Moves to the Big Screen: PCs"... about how Win 7 enables multi-touch capabilities.

Going back to the "maybe forthcoming" Apple tablet, Wildstrom wrote "The Hypothetical Apple Tablet: User Input Will Be the Key" a few weeks ago on his personal blog.

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Also related to said hypothetical Apple tablet was this BusinessWeek piece on the Nook e-reader from Barnes & Noble. Will be very interesting to see how products such as the Nook, the new e-reader from Plastic Logic or Kindle from Amazon compare and compete with whatever Apple may bring to the show.

Business Topics of Note & Touch-screen Technology

As part of my recent trend of looking back on what I've written, I wanted to specifically look at some of the business topics and companies that I've posted on and linked to.

From a perspective of what companies I've most frequently posted on, the following are those that I've written on the most: Hewlett-Packard, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Cisco & IBM.

More to the point of this post, though, below are some (but, not all) of the business topics I've posted on:

- Touch-screen technology
- Cloud Computing
- Workplace Culture
- Customer Service
- Social Media


Touch-screen Technology

For the purpose of looking at the first topic above, I wanted to expand a bit the field of touch-screen to also encompass handheld e-readers along with the more well known smart phones and personal computers. Touch-screen is a fascinating area of business that really came to the forefront with the iPhone from Apple and has huge potential for growth and ubiquitous adoption through multiple product manifestations.

Touch-screen & Apple

In Dec 2008 I did this post that linked to pieces on one of the pioneers in the field, Jeff Han and I've done multiple posts on Apple, the iPhone and associated App Store. The first was back in Aug 2008 on my new iPhone and then in Jan 2009 I linked to an article about digital books via the iPhone and in Nov 2009 did a post on the BusinessWeek apps cover story... with the whole field brought about due to Apple and the App Store. Even though the Cupertino-based company brought touch as a technology into the popular lexicon, they're certainly not the only player in the market anymore.

eReaders & Amazon

Amazon for several years now has been the dominant player in the online book market (among others) and their more recent foray into e-readers is a fascinating play that may bring huge advances to the book and magazine industry just as the iPhone did for smart phones.

In terms of the general subject area, I did a Feb 2009 post on written content online. Writing this pieced (which linked to a Time cover story on the topic) really showed me how desperately innovation is needed around written content online... and how Amazon could move things forward as a result of their Kindle e-reader. Whether it's via the Kindle or a forthcoming competitor Plastic Logic or any new entry from Apple, the market is ripe for innovation. Following up on this idea where two e-reader content containing blog posts I did in June 2009. The first linked to a Fast Company article and second linked to pieces from both Time and BusinessWeek.

Touch-screen & HP

The last two sections written covered touch as a general technology area and the iPhone and e-readers as a product area within. However, blog posts I've written also cover the good old fashioned (well, not really old fashioned) personal computer as a product area which uses touch.

This Feb 2009 blog post references Hewlett-Packard's recent success in the PC business (and links to other HP blog posts done here). HP has done well with the TouchSmart desktop PC, but what really interests me is the prospect of touch becoming a standard component of notebook computer displays. In a way, this seems to me to be a melding together of attributes from smart phones, e-readers, netbooks and full-size desktop computers. You wouldn't see smart phones go away, but the convergence of the various technologies is an interesting prospect.

It's tough to know exactly where this technology (or any technology, I suppose) will wind up, but there's a lot of good stuff out there and some very big companies committed to innovation around touch. Will be interesting to see where it all goes...