I will admit that I am part of an ever increasing group of Apple users. I could stretch the truth by pointing out that I wrote my resume for my first job at Intraware on a Mac but the truth is I really switched to Apple around two years ago. The switch was primarily to take advantage of the built in video capabilities.
As a historically enterprise software focused technology company you wouldn’t expect too much that Apple does would impact our world. However, two things recently caught my attention as very pertinent.
The first was - the MacBook “Air” did away with a DVD drive. It’s all about digital downloads now. Ironically, to set up your “Air” you need to install a DVD in your older Mac if you wish to move data over, but we’ll cut them some slack on that.
Secondly, at a recent breakfast in a restaurant the waiter asked me if I liked my iPhone. He proceeded to tell me he had one too. This guy was clearly younger and hipper than me. I’ll always mentally compare my iPhone’s pros and cons against my Blackberry. However, this chap was clearly thinking more in relation to other consumer mobile devices. His comment was “I love my iPhone because they update the OS/features so regularly via iTunes”
I thought to myself that’s really true. I remembered that part of the excitement of getting a new phone every two years (yes and getting locked in) was that the new phone usually was light years ahead of your old one when it came to the UI, web browsing, checking email etc.
What do all these things have in common with Intraware? Well, by successfully integrating a complete digital experience within their products Apple is creating a competitive advantage. The “Air” is partially only viable due to its reliance on data moving digitally and the iPhone is an attractive device because it can be a little different/new/better every month you own one. All technology companies, and hardware companies I know are really interested in creating a much truer end to end offering, can learn from these lessons. Not everyone can be Apple - but perhaps we can help you get closer.
Source: By Justin of Intraware Blog
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