Agree. In my mind the company is a dead man walking despite its revenue and profits. It's no longer the innovation leader and by 2040 will be viewed as Xerox came to be, barring some very unforeseen development.
Who is and how do you define that? I'd say in some very important spaces they're leaders, such as performance per watt in the mobile CPU space.
> by 2040 will be viewed as Xerox came to be
If you mean PARC's transition from an innovator to the one trick pony Xerox of today I'd say the difference is Apple keeps delivering high quality products and services in an expansive set of markets - some in so much demand you can't even buy today if you have the money.
Those products are rarely if ever the first to market, but always highly competent and aspirational to own. Their consistency in achieving this approximately a decade after Job's death should be a good indicator that they have a robust research, design and marketing process that will keep them moving.
I'm sure detractors would put their money on marketing being the primary driver, while happily ignoring Apple's achievements in engineering market-leading SOC's.
I don't know what's more amazing about this comment, the ignorance from not understanding their core competitiveness or the arrogance to predict something with regard to the tech industry in the year 2040.
Yeah, although that's one hell of a caveat that was laid down, "barring some unseen development". Isn't that exactly what we are talking about in how Apple has been able to keep releasing "unseen developments"?
