Forbes review of Apple--an eco-system company

According to foreign media reports, Apple did not release any hardware products at yesterday's Global developer conference. The move is unsettling for some media and columnists, and this is where the discussion begins. Is Apple a hardware company or a software company? Forbes ' Tuesday commentary notes that Apple is in fact an ecosystem company.

The following is the content of the text of the Forbes Commentary:

The controversy over whether Apple is a hardware company or a software company has existed for quite some time. Apple's critics have always liked to describe it as a hardware-based company, and repeatedly stressed that its competitive edge will become a distant fall as rivals develop and new products continue to roll out.

For many years, however, Apple's competitive edge still exists-but not purely at the hardware or software level. Apple's greatest competitive advantage is in fact from its ecosystem.

As Dan Galagre Dan Gallagher, a Wall Street Journal columnist, wrote yesterday:

“...... Apple's Monday opening keynote will focus entirely on software, which is still a hardware device that uses software and content to drive sales of high-end products and to maintain huge profits. With new products such as the big-screen iphone and potential smart watches coming in the next few months, whether Apple continues to maintain its current profitability will be a problem. ”

Gallagher is a typical Apple critic. The idea is that Apple's 60% revenue and a higher percentage of its profits come from the iphone business – and that's true. Apple's share price will loosen as the iphone sales growth slows, a phenomenon that was confirmed last year. Conversely, Apple's share price is bound to soar when iphone sales unexpectedly grow, such as quarterly results released in April this year.

Critics argue that Apple cannot always maintain a high level of profitability. The reality is that every hardware company that has ever been successful in history will eventually go into recession because of a new, no-nonsense product, until it is completely overtaken by its rivals, thus disappearing into the process of historical progress.

How Apple can avoid such a fate-the biggest worry for critics.

Indeed, Apple needs to constantly come up with exceptional new products. But this pessimistic view ignores the deeper sources of Apple's competitive advantage: its ecosystem.

Apple has maintained a steady and objective profit in recent years in an industry where almost everyone is unprofitable. I think that this is the Apple ecosystem in play an incomparable role.

Over time, Apple has been providing more and more benefits to its customers, with the iphone as its core.

At the Global Developers Conference yesterday, almost all of the new features were built around the topic of adding value to Apple users:

• Home sharing feature, designed to create affiliate accounts for up to 6 family members with a shared credit card, for free sharing of itunes purchased content.

icloud Drive, a service that allows photos stored in the cloud to be shared across all platform devices.

• Edit photos on one Apple device, and all other devices will stay in real-time sync.

• Answer or make an iphone call from your Mac computer.

• You can write mail or text messages on your ipad or iphone, then choose to continue on your Mac. The entire process is synchronized in real time.

The imessage feature is enhanced to keep your friends on the same platform for the best possible use.

Critics may think that all of these new features are a further refinement of the system, but from Apple's point of view, a significant increase in value for users can reduce their rationale for using other products.

So the answer to the Wall Street Journal's question of how Apple maintains its high profitability is not the next big iphone, or smart watch, but how Apple can continue to add value to its ecosystem.

From this perspective, the question of the sustainability of Apple's competitive advantage will be completely revisited.

Apple's keynote speech yesterday added a lot of value to the company. Personally, I don't know how to pair a Acer Android tablet with an HTC Android smartphone to enhance the experience. But the combination of ipad and iphone actually makes me feel different and makes life easier.

Apple's leadership in the post-PC era is actually much stronger than most critics think.