Last week the iPad’s first birthday quietly passed, lost among the hoopla of the release of Apple’s second version. It’s difficult to think of another product that’s changed an industry so radically and so quickly.
All of Apple’s successes in the last decade have been in areas with many already established players; the iMac entered a crowded PC market, the iPod was just another MP3 player and the iPhone plunged into a sector sated with hundreds of mobile devices.
With each product Apple redefined their segment of the market place and established a secure, and profitable, niche.
The iPad was somewhat different to the other products; with it Apple redefined the entire market and now leads the tablet computing sector. Yesterday industry analysts Gartner put out figures claiming Apple has over two-thirds of today’s market and will still hold half in 2015 despite the rise of the cheaper Google Android devices.
Notable in Gartner’s predictions is the absence of Microsoft Windows based systems. And that’s the clue to the iPad’s success as industries like healthcare, retail and logistics had been begging for affordable and usable tablet computers for a decade, which the clunky Windows based systems had consistently failed to deliver.
Another factor in Apple’s favour has been the rise of cloud computing, which has freed devices from relying on heavy and power hungry internal hard drives and made them more flexible. One of the most popular business iPad applications has been Evernote, a note-taking program which has proved indispensable for business executives.
Most of those executives work for corporations where the IT departments had blocked the introduction of cloud services and Apple products on compatibility and security grounds.
Senior management’s adoption of Apple products and cloud services has broken down that enterprise barrier, which is one of the reasons why competing companies that made their fortunes selling desktop and server products are now desperately trying to find other selling points.
In many ways, the adoption of Apple and the cloud is similar to how personal computers entered business. In the 1980’s computing departments resisted the introduction of PCs for almost the same reasons as IT managers today object to social media, cloud computing and Mac desktops in the office.
The difference is the PC revolution was initially driven by the office accountants, sales teams and secretaries who found desktop applications like Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect made their jobs more effective. This time it’s their managers driving the change.
For smaller businesses and entrepreneurs Apple’s successes open a whole range of opportunities in the applications and services markets to support these devices.
Those applications also help upstarts disrupt existing industries; the lower cost of entry is reducing barriers and speeding up lead times making slower incumbents more vulnerable to change.
Disruption is probably the greatest lesson that Apple and Steve Jobs have taught us with the iPad, you can enter an already crowded market with a product different from the existing players and own a substantial part of it.
All businesses, regardless of the sectors we work in, can learn from the iPad, whether it’s how we can use tablets and the cloud in our operations or how we can apply Apple’s disruptive business model to secure a profitable industry niche. It’s a good time to be open to new ideas.
Paul Wallbank is one of Australia’s leading experts on how industries and societies are changing in this connected, globalised era. When he isn’t explaining technology issues, he helps businesses and community organisations find opportunities in the new economy.
Smart Company is the leading online publication in Australia for free news, information and resources catering to Australia’s entrepreneurs, small and medium business owners and business managers.
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