This is quality information and writing….

Thanks and Regards
S.K.Sundar

While it could be that Idelaboratoriet wishes to argue that hard-science-quality innovation is necessary for business success, that is an unsupportable contention. Even luminaries such as Issac Newton have said things like, “(I)f I have seen further than other men it’s because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” Newton’s comment is a refutation of the “invented here” hubris that is mistakenly believed to constitute true “innovation.”

This is not to say that the iPod or iPad is a commercial no-predecessor type of creation. Just as Newton built upon the work of others, so does Apple…and all other companies. Yes, the IBMs of the world have innumerable patents and a stronger claim to “scientific success,” but business isn’t a Nobel Prize competition. Apple is viewed as innovative because it consolidated the preceding Fujitsu tablet, netbook, and its own Newton and iPod concepts into market success as the iPad. It also far surpassed the value of Sony’s Walkman with its iPod, while creating a music purchase platform that had confounded other companies for…a decade?

Nor is it to say that Apple’s use of a closed-source and, in Idelaboratoriet’s view, antiquated proprietary business model is particularly innovative. But the app store qualifies as open source, even though intermediated for quality, privacy, and money making reasons. Here it is important to keep in mind that not only are other open-source systems intermediated in various ways (Wikipedia, Android, Linux), but I am willing to bet that Idelaboratoreiet has a proprietary process for ensuring it gets paid for its consulting services.

Boiling this down, I would argue that if the test of innovation in commerce is units sold, revenues, market share or brand, Apple seems to have done well against the firms mentioned in the blog, most of which few have heard of. But in any event, the point is not to debate the degree of innovativeness that Apple has or does not have, but to encourage firms to pursue innovativeness in producing products and services, identifying and responding to customer needs, managing their costs, and keeping their competitors at bay.

The true win for business is competitive advantage, measured in a superior return to owners. In recent years Apple has qualified. Whether it will continue to do so will be determined in large part by its innovativeness.

Just like Idelaboratoriet.