Writing Seeking Alpha, NYC Trader highlights why Yukari Iwatani Kane’s book – Haunted Empire – Apple After Steve Jobs does not accurately reflects the future of the company.
Yukari Iwatani Kane had this to say in an interview with the New York Times:
…At the end of the day, Apple is just as mortal as everyone else. If Apple stays on the current trajectory, I think the danger is that it could turn into Sony.
According to NYC Trader, this is unlikely to happen given the different business strategies of the two companies:
Apple sells products that encompass a revolutionary and attractively designed ecosystem. By creating the ecosystem as its nucleus, Apple empowers tens of thousands of the world’s most intelligent employees and some of the most talented app developers to expand and improve its ecosystem. Apple’s products are then built around this ecosystem. This nucleus is bigger than anything Jobs would have created and it continues to expand exponentially. I project this “ingenuity” will have a hard time “running dry.”
[…]
…Kane’s prediction that Apple might turn into Sony, if it doesn’t change its course, to me seems shocking. Sony doesn’t have an ecosystem. Sony sold and continues to sell boxes with electric wires inside. With time, competitors caught on and also sold boxes with wires inside. Sony didn’t have millions of developers working around the clock to make it a more powerful network. Sony wasn’t working with cable companies to offer TV services through its boxes. Sony didn’t do many of the things that Apple has done exceptionally well. Sony also didn’t have $160 billion sitting in its treasure chest (much of which was generated by Tim Cook by the way). So a question for Ms. Kane: Why and how would Apple turn into Sony?
It’s hard to disagree with that.
