It's kind of funny because for the most part I think Gruber proved the point of his article. BUT I think he also proved another point as well, that history is repeating itself and the IPhone might be in trouble. Not in trouble as in people will stop buying it or it will not be a top phone. But in trouble as in it will never dominate the smartphone market again. It may lead at some point but not dominate. This paragraph really pointed it out to me
"The Mac was closed in the ’80s and thrived, much like Apple does today: with a decent but minority market share, and very healthy profit margins. It began to suffer — both in terms of scarily low dwindling market share and unprofitability — only in the mid-’90s. At this point, the Mac had become no more closed, but had become technically and aesthetically stagnant. And then came Windows 95, which altered the closed/open equation not one bit, but which closed the design quality gap with the Mac significantly. Windows thrived, the Mac withered, and it had nothing to do with openness and everything to do with engineering and design quality. Windows had gotten a lot better, and the Mac had not."
There are a couple of more lines in the article that highlight this point as well but this paragraph really brings the point home. It also shows that Wall Street is not completely crazy when it comes to dropping the stock price of Apple. Wall Street cares (short term) more about growth than anything else. And unless Apple opens up and dominates another sector like it did with the IPhone and the IPad we will not see the same rate of growth as we did before.
"The Mac was closed in the ’80s and thrived, much like Apple does today: with a decent but minority market share, and very healthy profit margins. It began to suffer — both in terms of scarily low dwindling market share and unprofitability — only in the mid-’90s. At this point, the Mac had become no more closed, but had become technically and aesthetically stagnant. And then came Windows 95, which altered the closed/open equation not one bit, but which closed the design quality gap with the Mac significantly. Windows thrived, the Mac withered, and it had nothing to do with openness and everything to do with engineering and design quality. Windows had gotten a lot better, and the Mac had not."
There are a couple of more lines in the article that highlight this point as well but this paragraph really brings the point home. It also shows that Wall Street is not completely crazy when it comes to dropping the stock price of Apple. Wall Street cares (short term) more about growth than anything else. And unless Apple opens up and dominates another sector like it did with the IPhone and the IPad we will not see the same rate of growth as we did before.