GIGAOM : Their story arcs aren’t exactly the same, but the strategies employed by Apple and Amazon Web Services to reach their respective pinnacles (not that either is there yet) seem very similar, with result being that users are willing to pay a premium and accept a certain degree of lock-in as consequences of choosing either company. But why, when the core technologies in their respective spaces are all but commodities at this point? In both cases, it’s about building products so feature-rich and reliable that once people experience them, it’s difficult to go back. It’s about adding to and packaging those commodities in such a way that they’re greater than the sum of their parts.
On a personal level, for example, I recently replaced my old (and questionably reliable) Dell PC with an iMac, and I couldn’t be happier. Yes, I paid a premium in terms of horsepower — I could have purchased a PC with identical processor and memory specs, and a huge hard drive, for less money — but I learned in a hurry that what I’ve heard so many times about Apple product really is true: it’s all about the experience. My iMac came loaded with helpful tools — not just a lot of bloatware — and the performance is second to no PC I’ve ever used. I’d complain about the lack of an HDMI output, but the 27-inch screen — which I didn’t have to buy separately — does the job of an HDTV just fine if I really can’t make the short walk to my living room to watch a movie. Unlike even the supposedly great Windows 7, which has been an absolute nightmare for me, Mac OS X just works, and is very intuitive even after years of slavish PC patronage on my part. Certainly, the story has been the same for millions of Mac, iPod, iPhone and, now, iPad users around the world. There’s a reason so many people are willing to pay the Apple premium, every new mobile release is greeted with coverage comparable to a presidential election and the growth of Apple’s computer sales significantly outpaced the competition in 2010, and it’s not just to be part of the hip crowd[...] View More...>>
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