“A producer creates something revolutionary, so he starts out owning all of the market, but as competitors start to catch up, the start owning their share of the market.
Apple will not stay at 80 percent of the tablet market. They obviously won’t disappear, but they will probably eventually settle to whatever level their computers sell in the general computer market.”
Apple has some advantages you’re not considering:
First is its overall software ecosystem, including developer tools. Apple’s software leads the industry and its competitors show no signs of catching up. Apple’s hardware R&D team is just about as good too.
Second is the halo effect, where people purchase other Apple products because they work so well with their existing Apple products (or because they want more Apple products due to their positive experience with their current Apple products).
Third is that having achieved the status of “largest company in history”, Apple now has amazing buying power, meaning that its products can sell at the same price point as competitors, while still enjoying larger margins. It will also continue to attract top talent as employees.
So, personally I’m not worried about Apple’s longer-term prospects. :-)
No company stays on top forever.
Now, Apple makes a nice slick product, but I have never been very fond of them. A blog I go to refers to them as a nice walled in garden, that has very strict rules on what you can do. That is ok for many, but I like a little bit of freedom to tinker. And to be honest most engineering software is geared to the PC.
I considered that. I know personal computing is headed for an ecosystem.
If people consider computer first, Apple may not be the primary choice in that regard and will probably consider Windows as their phone of choice. That isn’t to say that Apple will have a huge fall, but the number of people who buys an Apple phone will fall, because they aren’t choosing Apple computers.
If people are considering their phone as the primary factor, then you could see the number of Apple computers sold increase, because they are tying it to their mobile decisions.