What will Apple look like by 2010?

Well, Apple is 30. Thirty years in the IT industry is 10 or so lifetimes. Who knows where Apple will be in 30 years, but an interesting hypothesis is where it will be in one more lifetime, in three and a bit years, at the end of 2009, the end of the first decade of the 21st century.

For your entertainment, I’m going to propose two scenarios - two extreme scenarios at that. These are fictitious, no crystal balls, no inside goss, just pure slightly educated fiction. Afterwards, you can suggest your own theory on Apple, 2010. It’s a little under four years away. That might not seem long, but consider that the iTunes Music Store is only just on three years old, and so much has changed since it’s introduction.

Apple, 2010: R.I.P.

The ink has barely dried on Sony’s buyout of Apple and already the once mighty iPod has now been made PlaysForSure compatible. It needed it though. Furthermore, Sony has taken the best of the Mac plus the failed OS XI and incorporated it in its own line of media center PCs. A sad end to the once glorious Macintosh personal computer

It’s hard not to wonder where Apple went wrong. Again. This time though it was fatal. Four years ago its shares peaked at $100 (and there was a share split a year earlier, so effectively that $100 was $200), four years before that they were $12 and the iPod was still Mac only. In four years so much can happen. And it did.

The pundits are being glib saying Apple held on to its proprietary technologies for too long, until it was too late. But there were many factors. The loss of the DRM wars when the music industry decided in 2007 that there must be one and only one standard. FairPlay became DRM’s version of BetaMax. As it has done so many times before, Microsoft won again.

The switch to Intel ultimately brought too much competition. Apple could not hold back the tidal wave of hacked versions of its OS X, made to run on generic PCs. Attempting to play catch up, Apple licensed OS X to Dell who didn’t give it the support that Apple wanted. With the failure of that attempted foray into the PC market, Apple began to flounder. 2008 was a bad year for Apple, and 2009 began even worse, with the retirement of Steve Job’s due to ill health. It was unsurprising. The stress of the previous two years would have taken down a man half his age.

Jonathon Ive’s appointment to CEO was seen by many as an excellent decision as he alone could match Steve for vision. Unfortunately the board was impatient and never really giving him a chance. And then began the clandestine negotiations with Sony.

Apple, we’re missing you already.

Or maybe you’re of the positive scenario

Apple, 2010: From Strength to Strength

The news just came through that Apple have usurped the Dell as the #1 personal computer maker, reaching 16%. Of course, its overall marketshare is even greater, considering the big three, Dell, HP and Lenovo all sell Mac boxes. The iPod halo effect continues to sell Macs and the licensing of OS X to those three in 2007 provided a massive windfall for Apple. The timing couldn’t have been better, with the frustrations of Microsoft’s Vista, and Linux’s inability to get any significant support from any of the major commercial application developers. Further, the signing of Lenovo was critical to Apple’s success, leveraging them into the huge Chinese market.

Apple’s FairPlay’s anointment by the music industry as the standard for DRM had a crippling affect on Microsoft’s ambition in the the crucial media market which had by 2009, significantly converged with the personal computer market. This further enhanced the iPod’s halo effect. Although, this decision meant Apple had to licence FairPlay to other vendors, it’s dominance meant Apple could afford to loose some marketshare - especially as it picked up some of the difference in licence fees.

But one event stands head and shoulders above all others as being the reason for Apple’s rise to desktop power, and Microsoft’s plummet - The Black Death plague of 2008. Just as Vista was itself spreading, the Black Death came and wiped out any chance of Vista’s success. It’s estimated 60% of Windows computers were affected, rendering them unusable for days or even weeks as over worked techies worked around the clock to rebuild computers. But it was the final straw. Many users simply cut their losses and bought Macs and Linux machines. Governments wholesale made the switch. Apple, with the major commercial software vendors already onside, benefitted most. The Black Death was so called because it caused the user’s computer to shutdown, leaving them staring at a black screen. It was a dastardly virus that simply latched onto packets of information sailing around the internet, and sought out Windows computers. Because of its speed and the way it transmitted, anti-virus companies were for some time, powerless to stop it. And by the time they had a solution, it was way, way too late. Ironically, older Windows versions were unaffected, only XP and Vista. All computers transmitted the virus - even Macs and Linux - but only those Windows computers were infected. Ironically, Symantec and other anti-virus companies had to distribute updates via Macs, Linux and older Windows PCs. This certainly helped promote the rapid uptake of Macs. And although Apple and the Linux community released patches to block the virus at their computers, the damage was done. Hospitals, defense forces, communications, utilities were all affected. People died. Worldwide, IT managers who committed to a dependence on Windows were terminated, no questions asked.

In 2010 Apple is at it’s most solid in its history. Despite Steve Jobs having to step down in 2009 due to ill health (replaced by Phil Schiller, a man who could match Steve’s passion for the the end user experience), Apple’s own health continues to get more and more robust, with the sickly years of the ‘90s long forgotten.

Despite suggesting in both scenarios that Steve will be forced to retire due to health, it’s not something I’m predicting or expect. In both pieces I wanted to explore what might happen without Steve in control, but I didn’t want to go down the soap opera path, and bump him off. I didn’t want to to put the mozz on him that bad.

Where do you think Apple will be in 2010?
So that’s my two extremes. Where do you think Apple will be at the dawn of the next decade?