I'll let others wax on wax off about Mr Jobs' courage, taste, focus, vision. I'll merely point out that under Steve Jobs, Apple has been a brilliant systems thinker. The story starts with a whooping and winds up with market systems brilliance. Let me explain.
The vendor with the best market system wins. It's why Microsoft whooped Apple in the PC market. While Apple under Steve Jobs focused on its Macintosh closed system of hardware, software, and applications, Microsoft built an open market system on Windows: any hardware, any application, many ways to make money.
Mr. Jobs and Apple mastered the lesson: it's the market system that matters. A successful market system includes all the players, all the pieces, the end-to-end solution, the business model, the flow of money, the attractors, blockers, hardware, software, content, and services all wrapped into what we in 2006 called a single
digital experience(what we now call a "
total product experience").
With the launch of the iPod in 2001, Apple's market systems mastery shone through. Others had built great MP3 players. Only Apple built a great music market system.
In 2001, the music publishing industry was in shambles. Adolescent thieves stole music and the publishers wrung their hands. Then came iPod. Apple delivered a complete market system built on iPod, iTunes, and the Apple Store. Apple's music market system had it all: music player, marketplace, retail store, payment system, rights protection model, and a fully conceived business model . (And of course Apple improved it over time with more content, iTunes on Windows PCs, pictures, video, and a music player at every price point.)
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25th August 2011, 11:56 PM
Steve Jobs Is A Market Systems Master 
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