Overwhelm Friends/Dominate Foes

"Inside Apple" - Chapter 7 Overwhelm Friends/Dominate Foes

From the time Apple first lost its momentum, in the early 1990’s until it started to branch out beyond computers in the early 2000’s, the company operated in an odd world of isolation. Its hardware was different its software worked differently.

It Is one thing to maintain an alternative culture within its own walls – An absolute monarch can usually control what happens in his own kingdom, but what happens when that value system, that way of doing business comes into contact with other entities?

Redefining Business Rule
Apple has redefined the rules wherever it pleased. Its iTunes Store told music publishers what they could and couldn't charge for songs. In exchange of two years of exclusivity on the iPhone, Apple told AT&T that Apple, and not the phone carrier, would control the user experience and even the branding on the phone. – A reversal for the cellular business

Dissatisfied with the job Best Buy salespeople were doing selling Apple’s wares, Apple put its own employees into Best Buy stores.

Frenemies
Frenemies is one of the annoying Silicon Valley buzzwords that has the virtue of accurately describing life in the technology industry.

There’s no escaping that Apple violates or chooses to ignore the Golden Rule; Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Is it right for Apple to value its own time more highly than a partner’s company’s?

Apple Suppliers and Partner Relation
Application developers whine about the opaque approval process for getting an app onto Apple’s App Store. But they continue submitting applications -By late 2011 App Store had five hundred applications and Apple had paid its developers $3 billion in sales revenue in three years – despite dictating another rigid set of terms, that Apple would always take a 30 percent cut and maintain total control over what went into store.

Job was furious with Google after it began supplying its Android mobile operating system to cell phone makers. Near the end of his life he praised Microsoft’s latest mobile software offerings for being original.

Adobe a long time partner with Apple was also refused to allow its Flash media player to run on iPads and then saying publicly that Flash was an inferior product. We’ll never know if Apple truly found flash technology lacking or if Jobs considered the move payback for Adobe’s decision a decade earlier not to produce Macintosh versions of its key products.

In 2011 Apple waged a multinational patent battle against Samsung over technology in the Korean company’s mobile devices. Samsung supplies Apple with some of its critical semiconductors for iPhones and iPads seemed to be beside the point.

It’s worth considering whether Apple gets away with its behavior because of the rarefied position it enjoys right now, or if there is some universal lesson for other businesses.