Apple announced new tools to create and view iBooks on the iPad, and a new distribution channel for digital textbooks. In doing so Apple ignited a firestorm of debate on the subject of digital books, and the future of the publishing industry, book distribution, and likely consumer consumption patterns. More importantly, they set the stage for what we will someday recognize as a new medium, a new form of content in its own right.

And meanwhile Apple is doing so at a time when the publishing industry is at risk, with outmoded business models, under attack on multiple fronts.

More Than Just Textbooks

Apple positioned their January 19 announcement as an education event, with the aim of revolutionizing the textbook publishing industry. According to the Wall Street Journal, only 6% of textbooks are delivered today in digital form, forecasted to reach 50% by 2020. That’s a big target in its own right, but I’d guess Apple’s unspoken aspirations are even broader…

Well beyond what we think of as “books”

Years from now, we’ll look back at this moment and realize that Apple lit a fire, fueling a new medium, one still to be named.

What Apple has in mind is not just a book or a textbook rendered digitally on an iPad. Their vision for this new type of content goes well beyond digital books, enhanced ebooks, or whatever labels we use today.

Their vision mashes up elements of movies, games, animations and dynamic models, interactivity,  hyperlinking and nonlinear navigation — key enhancements to the core elements of storytelling, narrative flow, design, layout, etc. Here are some of the core elements that will drive our understanding of this new medium, as I see it.

— Source, Christine Thompson, Informing Arts ©2012

Textbooks First, But Not Last

I suspect Apple chose the textbook as the initial target for reinvention because the limitations of a print-based medium for multi-dimensional, complex or time-sensitive subjects are so well understood. Apple’s long experience at selling to and supporting educational institutions affords the company unique insights into what works, and what’s broken, when it comes to 21st century education.

The textbook publishing industry is huge, and can help finance the trials that will eventually shape the winning characteristics of this new emerging medium. In North America alone the traditional textbook publishing industry generates $12–14 billion annually, according to one expert (for a more conservative assumption: > $4 billion in 2011 textbook sales, according to the WSJ today; $8 billion in 2010 according to Forrester. Clearly no one agrees on the definition of the industry, but it’s huge.)

From Apple’s perspective (as a master of disruptive innovations), the educational publishing industry must be a sitting duck, ripe for transformation.

““We are educating people today in the same way as we did when there was 1% as much knowledge.”

– Danny Hillis, The Economist, March 22, 2001

That said Apple is willing to be a partner, not just a disrupter. Apple announced that it plans to partner with educators and publishers (reported by the Wall Street Journal today). When this partnership is productive, those who embrace change and can envision a new medium should profit enormously.

This New Medium Requires New Talents & Specialties

What will emerge is a new form of multi-faceted content. This new medium will require contributions from many specialties, such as:

• Photographers, videographers, musicians, producers
• Designers, illustrators, animators
• Art/creative directors for the ensemble as a whole
• Game developers — people who know how to incorporate game mechanics (“gamification”) within designed experiences
• User experience and interaction designers
• Usability testers
• Web developers and producers (HTML5 and CSS3 experts), scripters and coders
• Information architects, taxonomy and tagging specialists

And of course, the usual:

• Writers and copywriters (as well as translators for books with global appeal)
• Editors
• Fact checkers
• Talent spotters (acquisition experts)

On the strategic level this new medium will require visionaries, risk taking pioneers, game changers and others whose personalities are probably abhorrent to the traditional publishing world.

Not to mention new models for brand building, social media interactions with consumers, and new forms of marketing. But that’s a whole different subject in its own right.

[Disclosure: I played a key role in Apple’s early days of digital publishing, but have had no involvement in their current activities. The opinions described here are my own, based on interpretations of what I’ve read and heard over the Web.]

Holiday shoppers who buy Apple products can give them with confidence, knowing that their gifts will be desirable and well appreciated. In 2011 these gifts will reflect Steve Jobs’ special touch, his passion for excellence, his vision.

They’ll embody Steve’s Zen-inspired values and design principles, everything he has taught his staff about how to design products that consumers will treasure.

This year’s gifts may even take on an emotional halo, a reflected glow from all the media attention showered on Apple and Steve Jobs since Steve’s passing in October.

But What About 2012?

Will Apple products still be as desirable next year as they are now? Will consumers continue to beg Santa for Apple phones, tablets, laptops and other gadgets?

It’s safe to assume that Apple has major products in the pipeline for 2012, such as the widely rumored iPad 3 and much anticipated iPhone 5.

Apple watchers are also speculating about key updates to the MacBook Air line, featuring more power, improved graphics — and a brand new 15-inch model. If their predictions are accurate, we could see these products in the first few months of 2012.

And what about a reimagined TV, a digital connected hub for intelligent couch potatoes?

Steve’s Lasting Gift

Will Steve Jobs’ true legacy prove to be the enduring culture that he fostered at Apple, the values learned and embraced by the people lucky enough to work with him at Apple or Pixar?

Will this culture be capable of identifying significant latent opportunities, things consumers don’t know that they need or want until they’ve experienced them? Will their contributions continue to delight and inspire us for years to come?

But Apple is a public company, and Wall Street expectations can have a polluting impact… How long will Apple’s product execs have the courage to reject design-by-committee decisions? To refuse the many tiny compromises (in the quest for better margins) that inevitably result in the boring mediocrity that plagues so many product companies?

I find myself somewhat reassured on this point, having read Walter Isaacson’s masterful biography, Steve Jobs. I was moved by Steve’s reflections on where he invested his energy, once he learned his cancer would be a death sentence.

I can’t wait to see what happens over the long term to the company on which Steve lavished so many time and attention. Time will tell.

Like other former Apple employees, I hope that Steve’s legacy will have a lasting impact on the people who now must translate Apple’s brand into future generations of inspiring products and services. As Steve noted to his biographer:

“ My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. Everything else was secondary….

Some people say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do…. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.

— Steve Jobs, reflections cited by Walter Isaacson in the Steve Jobs biography

If his legacy proves to have lasting impacts, our holiday gifts from Apple will be eagerly anticipated for years to come.

Importantly, what will today’s entrepreneurs learn from Steve’s legacy?

Preorders for Apple’s new iPhone 4S surpassed a million units in the first 24 hours, more than 40% higher than Apple’s previous single-day record. This early buying frenzy stands in stark contrast to analysts’ lukewarm response to the introduction of Apple’s latest iPhone model.

Meanwhile online Apple fan clubs and LinkedIn networks of former Apple employees exhort people to “do it for Steve” — go out and order an iPhone 4S if you’re eligible for a device upgrade. (I’ve already gotten a few of those calls to action.)

What’s driving these early sales — a tribute to Steve Jobs, or are people genuinely more interested in voice control via Siri than analysts had anticipated?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out…

Logic Not Emotion?

For people who prefer logic to emotion, here’s an interesting take on Apple’s business logic: the rationale behind their product release cycle.

There’s a compelling reason why they have deliberately planned to defer release of the iPhone 5 until next year — that’s when the current 2-year contracts will expire for tens of millions of iPhone 4 owners …

When you look at how Apple’s subscriber base is segmented across different models of iPhone, a delayed product release makes huge business sense.

Perhaps by then the industry will also have resolved the battery consumption and network flakiness issues that plague current 4G phone subscribers, leading to a better experience for future iPhone 5 owners.

Like most former Apple employees I’ve been mourning the passing of Steve Jobs, and reflecting on his lasting impact. The many and profound ways in which he shaped employees’ values, behaviors, critical thinking skills, and approach to innovation. His impact on the world, inspiring products and services that would be embraced (and widely imitated) for decades to come.

I joined Apple back in the early days, before the Macintosh had an internal hard drive; the logo sported rainbow colors. It was a hopeful time, an innocent time — shaped by Steve’s mantra, “The journey is the reward.”

Steve had been fired just a few months before I was hired, but his culture and values endured. When we faced difficult decisions and saw no clear answer, someone would tell a story about Steve — and that insight would guide us to the solution that was most true to everything Apple stood for, the one most likely to lead to customer delight.

Leaving Apple 5 years later was the most painful career decision I ever made.  Steve’s impact had become diluted, and the Board was too focused on pleasing Wall Street at the expense of customers and partners. Executive leadership was in disarray, too willing to accept mediocrity even if it meant abandoning core values. Apple was at risk of becoming yet another me-too computer vendor. It was time to move on.

I mourned Apple — the loss of the dream — for months and years afterwards. It felt like a love affair that had ended too soon…

I was comforted when Steve returned to Apple in the mid-1990s, and restored the company to its founding mission: changing the way people work, learn, live and play. Here is Steve talking about those core values when explaining why he launched the “Think Different” brand campaign upon rejoining Apple:

Under Steve’s leadership and this galvanizing vision, Apple became a role model and a source of inspiration for people, businesses and schools everywhere. A source of endless delight to consumers, touching hundreds of millions, if not billions of people around the world.

Once Steve moved beyond the domain of personal computers to reinvent media, music, publishing, movies and animation — both creation and consumption — his vision for unifying art and technology would ignite new forms of expression and interaction. Not to mention where and how we engage with media (and each other) via iPhones, iPads and Apple laptop computers.

I profoundly hope that the people of Apple remain inspired by and shaped by Steve’s values and passionate commitment to excellence. If so, we can look forward to Apple innovations that spark our imagination (and unlock our wallets) for years to come.

Image via Wikipedia

 

Apple is the master at crafting the buyer experience: whipping consumers into a frenzy of anticipation and then, delighting the new owner with all that happens starting with the out-of-box experience.

The recent iPad 2 launch appears to be following the usual Apple playbook:  months of product speculation in the techno-geek blogosphere, breathless blog posts from die-hard enthusiasts, saturation press coverage, brand fans waiting in long lines for hours, hoping to get their hands on one of those scarce devices. The same phenomenon is happening now in Apple’s overseas markets.

Like other loyal but not crazy brand fans, I ordered an iPad 2 on the first day of US availability — only to get a promised ship date one month later. (And that delay was before the impact of the Japanese quake and tsunami!)

I can’t help but wonder if the lengthy delay to fulfill orders was planned as a means of stimulating even more frenzied consumer demand? Or does it reflect a more cautious inventory management approach on Apple’s part? If so, they really blew the product forecast… A month of high demand with limited ability to ship means no revenues for that product line during that period.

Drip Delivery: Is This the Best Strategy?

Adding insult to injury, the accessories I ordered, a video adapter and an orange Smart Cover, have arrived this week in 2 separate shipments. Two weeks before the iPad itself will arrive (assuming no disruption from Apple’s Japanese supply chain).

From the standpoint of buyer experience, is this “drip delivery” approach the best way of managing the customer relationship? Normally, I’d say yes. But in the case of a highly desired but unavailable product, each partial delivery is an irritating reminder of how long the wait will be. As it stands, the Smart Cover and video adapter are useless to me at this moment, which compounds my feeling of aggravation.

As for me, I’d prefer to wait for a complete shipment, getting all 3 items on the day the iPad itself arrives. (I’d have a different opinion if the accessories served a larger purpose, or could function with something other than my iPad 2.)

Putting myself in Apple’s shoes, I can understand why they want to ship those items in advance of the iPad — it means they can bill now for the shipped goods, rather than wait another 2 weeks or more.

But from a marketer’s POV, I see this experience as a misstep on Apple’s part. A sign that the king of buyer experience doesn’t always get things right.

I love brands that place an enduring value on customer delight, especially when they aim to do so across all touch points, and invest accordingly. The contrast between brands that aim for customer delight versus those that are, at best, transactional can be really stark. Two contrasting customer care experiences illustrate my point (B2C examples).

My stellar customer care experience was with Apple, obtaining support for an App Store purchase under $15. And then there’s KitchenAid. My not-yet-completed KitchenAid purchase involves a $50 item, to complement a $300–400 appliance. My story involves the systems these 2 companies have developed (or not) to deliver the kind of customer experiences that reflect their brand values.

If you’ve had a multi-year experience with the Apple brand, as I have, you’ve probably encountered multiple examples of the systems they put in place to serve customers. Apple’s customer-centered investments are probably driven by a deep understanding of customer life time value, and business KPIs to maximize LTV across years’ worth of brand purchases, both large and small.

In stark contrast, KitchenAid’s siloed systems reveal a manufacturing driven, channel-centered value system, with little investment in a workable infrastructure for customer care. I’d be surprised if there’s any strategic connection between customer LTV and their customer-facing infrastructure. (KitchenAid has never been a client, so I’m inferring this from my experience as a consumer.)

By way of example, here’s how 2 brands approach customer care.

Apple Sets the Gold Standard for Customer Care

Apple has designed a comprehensive set of services to support customers, ranging from an in-store consultation with a specialist at the Apple Genius bar, to a variety of online options, such as the Apple Support Express Lane. I had a very positive experience with the Express Lane this weekend, for help with an App Store transaction that cost $14.99.  (I’ve had similarly productive experiences with their scheduled callback support option.)

In this case I described my problem via the handy online form. Soon afterwards, a support specialist who works for the iTunes Store sent an email with links to articles that explained how to resolve my problem. I didn’t have time to deal with it at that moment; it was a Friday night.

On Saturday the support specialist sent another email, asking me whether I’d resolved the situation yet, and if not, how might she help. She also explained that she’d be off for a few days, and that someone else would help me if I couldn’t resolve my problem right away. At that point I read the suggested knowledgebase articles, followed the instructions, and the problem was resolved to my satisfaction.

So I sent the support person a thank-you email, and got this in response:

“You’re more than welcome – my pleasure! Nothing makes us happier than to hear that we have helped our customers. I wish you the best and hope that you will continue to enjoy shopping the iTunes Store in the future. Have a great day, Christine!

What I liked about this experience is that it was very efficient, took little time and energy on my part, resolved my problem quickly, and featured an authentic human touch at several points. I never felt as if I were dealing with a robo-CSR. The personality of the rep came through in her emails (even if they’d been pre-scripted).

KitchenAid Needs a Major Customer-facing Overhaul

A recent experience with KitchenAid shows what happens when you deal with a consumer products company that optimizes its system for selling via retailers, and has not yet mastered the direct-to-consumer relationship, or the implications of a multi-year relationship between the consumer and the brand.

Here’s the scenario. I’ve been trying to buy a second mixing bowl for my 5-quart stand mixer. If you’re a serious baker, having a second bowl is a huge timesaver.

My mixer was purchased several years ago from Costco. Unfortunately, this model is a slight variation from KitchenAid’s standard 5-quart models, which I discovered while shopping for a new bowl. If you dig deeply into Amazon’s customer reviews, as I eventually had to do while shopping for my bowl, you discover this issue from other disgruntled customers.

Apparently, KitchenAid has had a practice of making retailer-specific models of its appliances, but not backing them up adequately with post-sale accessory or support infrastructures. There’s no information on KitchenAid’s website to help you match your model numbers with the corresponding part numbers of compatible accessories. If you’ve purchased your KitchenAid appliance from any of a number of large chains, you could encounter issues similar to mine.

My Multi-week Saga

My attempts to buy this $50 accessory involved the following steps, over the course of several weeks, and it’s not done yet:

• digging through old files to find the purchase records and accessory options booklet, looking for a part number for the bowl (info was generic and incorrect)
• turning the heavy mixer upside down to find its model number (why isn’t it displayed in a more convenient location?)
• shopping for a 5-quart mixing bowl at Amazon, but not finding an exact match for the model number of my particular mixer
• buying the most likely candidate from Amazon, receiving it 2 days later, only to discover it doesn’t fit my appliance
• going online to Amazon to request a refund or exchange
• packing up the bowl and shipping it back to Amazon for a refund
• going online to KitchenAid’s sites
• failing to find resources to help me identify the correct part number of compatible accessories
• shopping for a bowl using the specific model number at 2 company-sponsored KitchenAid websites — and finding no match on this model
• clicking KitchenAid’s online Support button, and finding a dead link
• switching computers and browsers, in case that dead link was due to some browser plugin compatibility issue (it wasn’t)
• selecting the Live Chat option at the KitchenAid shopping site
• spending about 15 minutes in the LiveChat queue, despite a promised average hold time (when I started) of about 2.5 minutes
• watching my place in the queue move up and down (for quite a while I bounded around between first and second positions in the queue)
• eventually chatting with a rep who gave me a specific model number for a bowl that should be compatible with my mixer
• asking to place an order online, right then and there (no dice)
• the rep explained that I could not order that bowl online from KitchenAid, and would have to call their 800 number instead
• going back to Amazon, entering that part number, and ordering the bowl from one of Amazon’s affiliated merchants
• now awaiting delivery…

Dealing with Trusted Brands

I chose to order the bowl from Amazon because I trust Amazon to take the bowl back for a refund if I discover it doesn’t fit my mixer. Even though my order will be fulfilled by a third-party merchant, not Amazon, I still trust that Amazon will ensure I get a refund, if that becomes necessary.

KitchenAid may have a similar RMA policy, but my experience to date doesn’t inspire me with confidence about their policies. And they’ve certainly taught me that I could waste a great deal of time trying to resolve the situation.

As of this moment, I’m still waiting for the new bowl to arrive, and don’t yet know if this saga is complete.

Take-aways

There’s a reason why I’ve shared the gory details of the KitchenAid saga. Taken as a whole, they reveal system-wide issues with customer care policies, and an under-investment in the product strategies or customer-facing IT infrastructure that can lead to customer delight. They reveal outmoded, industrial age thinking and business practices.

Where Apple aims to “engineer out” hassles or other things that would inconvenience the customer, companies like KitchenAid appear to focus on the needs of their resellers, with too little attention paid to the needs of the ultimate customer (the consumer).

As a case in point, KitchenAid develops and manufactures retailer-specific models. This meets large warehouse chains’ needs to differentiate their offerings from competing retailers’ on-shelf inventory. This wouldn’t be a problem for the consumer, as long as KitchenAid designed in the necessary post-sale inventory systems and informational resources to support the ultimate customer. But that’s not what the consumer sees… KitchenAid does not appear to think through the implications of the consumer’s multi-year relationship with KitchenAid’s branded appliances.

And that’s not a good long-term strategy for companies like KitchenAid, because it’s the ultimate customer who provides the money that fuels their business model, regardless of their distribution strategy.

Despite Apple’s reputation for product innovation, Apple’s behavior also  reflects a deep investment in customer-centered service innovation, to ensure customer delight. (I know this from my experience as a consumer, former employee, and from the stories I hear via industry sources.)

Sadly, KitchenAid, in contrast, comes across as mired in old line industrial age thinking; focused on optimizing its systems for their resellers’ needs… With no appreciation for what it takes to drive customer delight over the long haul.

What Could KitchenAid Do Differently?

Here are some of the things KitchenAid could do to preserve their retailer-differentiation model while improving customer satisfaction:

• Develop model-specific user guides and accessory catalogs, and include them in the box (with Adobe products, this would not be difficult)
• Include a coupon in the box to promote purchase (with appropriate channel support) of accessories that are guaranteed to be compatible with that particular appliance model
• Work with their retailers so it’s easy for consumers to buy compatible accessories from their original retailer (or get post-sale service)
• Work with Amazon (or comparable online mega-retailers) to provide appropriate information to help consumers navigate the model-matching maze when they’re shopping for accessories or consumables
• Provide model-matching information on the brand’s own websites, even if KitchenAid does not maintain an inventory of those items at that moment (the consumer may be able to find them via the after-market or other resellers)
• Make it easy to find the model numbers on the appliance, without having to turn heavy items upside down
• Make sure that any model number manufactured for the ultimate consumer will serve up some search results when a consumer searches for it on KitchenAid’s website (e.g., user’s guide, model-specific accessory catalog in PDF form, where to purchase supplies and accessories, etc.)
• Adapt the behavior of successful tech companies, and develop use cases and personas for representative customer segments; and then apply those insights to product and service development across the customer life cycle for that persona
• Refrain from designing retailer-specific features that cause incompatibility with consumer appliance accessories or consumables
• Maintain an inventory of compatible accessories and repair service items for the expected lifetime of the appliance model

These are tactics that might help the situation. Then, of course, there’s the larger challenge of retooling their customer-facing IT and support infrastructure to emulate the best practices of respected brands like Amazon or Apple.

When you’re competing for attention, production quality matters; it can help your content stand out in an over-crowded media environment. Of course, you can’t forget the basics: your story must be interesting and well crafted; your message should have intrinsic appeal for its intended audience. Without that, why “put lipstick on a pig?”

Although the notion of “high production value” comes from the film industry, the benefits of production quality apply to all media. All else being equal, content with higher production values is more memorable and therefore more likely to garner attention. The best will get forwarded or be shared by its viewers, and may even “go viral.”

Content creators who will benefit most from a higher quality standard are:

• Those who serve unknown or lesser known brands.
• Bloggers and small businesses who want to look bigger than they are.
• People struggling to get the conversation started with prospective customers, influencers or partners.
• Businesses launching new products when the corporate brand has low awareness or visibility.

A New (Beta) Offering from Apple

So when Apple improved its online document sharing and presentation capabilities yesterday, I took notice, always being on the look-out for things that might benefit my emerging and mid-market clients. Apple’s way of re-imagining existing applications or methods is always worth consideration.

Knowing Apple’s commitment to design, I was intrigued, so I decided to test their beta service by adapting an existing Keynote presentation for online viewing and sharing. Here’s what I’ve learned so far about Apple’s platform, called iWork.com, now in public beta.

I’ve made my test presentation public, so you can draw your own conclusions about the quality and usability of Apple’s current offering. You can see it via this link or play the embedded presentation here. It is beta, so you may experience some UI glitches. Needless to say, the full-size version of the presentation displays more detail and visual definition than the smaller embedded version that follows here.

Supported Browsers and Platforms

People can see your content from a Mac, PC, iPad or iPhone as long as they have broadband access, and you provide an easy way for them to link to the document’s URL within iWork.com.

iWork provides optimal viewing via the Apple Safari browser on Macs, iPads and iPhones, as well as the latest version of Safari on Windows. But it’s not limited to Safari.

Based on my quick-and-dirty tests, it also works fine with Firefox 3.x and Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7. (I did not test on a PC with an older version of Windows.)

The principal trade-offs that I noticed between Safari and Firefox or IE8 are:

• Transition effects work only with Safari. In my test case, for example, all the sweet little dissolves from one screen to the next are disabled with Firefox and IE8.
• The cursor control keys, Home, End, Page Up and Page Down have more functionality in Safari, but are also supported to some extent with IE and Firefox.

Quality Impressions

I was pleasantly surprised at how well iWork.com renders presentations online — stunning in fact, if you’re viewing content from a Mac or even an iPhone. (I haven’t yet tried an iPad, but expect Apple has sweated the details to make online presentations really sing in that environment.) Compared to most online presentations, typography is gorgeous when slides are displayed via iWork.com.

My test presentation features a subtle graduated background and several nonstandard fonts, including the custom font formerly used by Apple for its corporate communications. In my tests this presentation looks really good on Windows and the iPhone, as well as on the Mac.

No surprise, it looks best of all on a Mac: the online colors are quite true to the original and the font rendering is a bit more crisp.

As you can see in this screenshot from Windows Firefox, the font rendering is very pleasing on a PC as well. To dramatize this effect, I’ve used Apple’s former corporate typeface, a customized version of Garamond, which you see here with “Apple Style.”

Graphics display beautifully on all the devices I tested, from the iPhone 4 to the Windows 7 PC.

For my Windows tests, I was surprised to see that the color fidelity was better with Firefox or IE8 than with Safari on Windows. Windows Safari introduced a sepia or taupe tint to the overall palette that wasn’t present in the original presentation.

Who Can Create Content for Sharing via iWork

So here’s the big caveat for content mavens: you must use Apple’s application suite, iWork ‘09 (or later), to create content for viewing online via iWork.com. That means you either need a Mac or an iPad as your content creation platform, plus a license to the iWork suite or iWork app. Relative to Microsoft Office, iWork is not expensive — about $10 for the iPad app version, and under $70 for the Mac OS X version.

My sample presentation was created using Keynote ‘09 (a member of the iWork suite) on a 3-year-old Mac Pro. Keynote supports some simplistic voice-over narration, which I did not test.

Note that you can create 3 kinds of visually rich content using iWork ‘09:

• presentations with embedded movies and multimedia, including transitions and other special effects (browser dependent)
• documents (brochures, proposals, marketing collateral, etc.)
• spreadsheets, charts and financial models

To host a presentation or other document in iWork.com, you need an Apple online identity and no doubt, a subscription to MobileMe. For about $99 per year, you’ll have 1 gigabyte of online storage for document hosting purposes.

Not Designed to Replace Webinar Platforms

As a point of clarification, Apple’s iWork is intended for private or public document sharing, but not as a vehicle for webinars per se.

Having said that, people on a low budget who have access to audio conferencing facilities could cobble together a visually rich webinar using iWork and meet the needs of a smallish audience or group meeting.

If you take this approach, you will miss out on the meeting management facilities of the leading webinar platforms. Even so, your presentation will look dramatically better than it does on most of today’s leading platforms. IMHO presentations via iWork.com are visually superior to what you see with Adobe Connect; Connect (and the other contenders) have the edge when it comes to managing audience interactions, Q&A, etc.

In a later post I’ll share my impressions of the user interface, both for online interaction as well as the content sharing features that iWork affords.

Like other Mac users eagerly awaiting 4G LTE service in the US, I was angry to learn that Verizon’s initial 4G modems will support Windows only. There’s no official word when the service will be extended to Mac and iPad users…

Initial Reactions from a Long-time Mac User

How could that be possible, I fumed: Mac and iPad users tend to be enthusiastic early adopters, especially for services that help us express ourselves, communicate, or help our companies stand out from the rest.

Surely, I thought, we must fit Verizon’s ideal customer profile for their new 4G LTE data service. If we can afford the Apple brand premium, we must be attractive prospects for Verizon’s top-of-the-line wireless service.

And we’re increasing in number, too. Professionals who work out of the office, travel often for biz dev reasons, sell or consult — and importantly, those in roles with direct purchasing authority — are increasingly likely to use Mac laptops and/or iPads when our device choices are not dictated by IT or purchasing policies. Although fewer in number than the Windows community, we traditionally drive spikes in demand for groundbreaking services that suit our multi-faceted modes of work and play.

Surely we’d be very attractive customers for Verizon. Why would Verizon take the risk of alienating us by denying us a service that we want?

Over dinner I talked about this with my husband who, though not a Verizon employee, has a well-informed view of wireless industry behavior. His POV made sense, although it didn’t resolve my disappointment. Here’s how the thinking unfolded as we tried to imagine what drove Verizon’s decision to support PCs only, at least at first…

A Plausible Business Scenario?

Let’s start by assuming that Verizon expects Mac, next-gen iPad and future iPhone users to become significant 4G customers over time. They most likely represent Verizon’s most strategic customer acquisition opportunity over the next few years. Not to mention ARPU boosters (margin improvements). So this is a high-stakes play for Verizon and its shareholders…

Here’s why the delay probably makes sense from Verizon’s POV.

Technical/Business Factors

• Verizon’s LTE network is bleeding-edge technology, especially at the scale needed for the whole US market
• The shift to an LTE nationwide network is capital intensive and fraught with risk
• Verizon must resolve many technical and infrastructure issues before the service is reliable, their LTE footprint covers all of the major markets, and actual bandwidth delivery meets people’s inflated expectations
• Service will be rocky for early customers
• Verizon faces unknown scaling issues for network provisioning, customer on-boarding, etc.
• Unlike AT&T, Verizon lacks real-world experience scaling up to respond when actual bandwidth demands exceed forecast by orders of magnitude
• Verizon has watched AT&T scramble to add bandwidth capacity after dramatically under-estimating what iPhone users would consume — with brand tarnishing consequences for AT&T when iPhone users screamed loudly in San Francisco, New York and elsewhere, not to mention billions in unforeseen capital investments
• The USB LTE dongles are first-generation technology comprising 4 radios, each with its own chipset, so they’re large and clunky
• Qualcomm, Verizon and their technology ecosystem must move up the learning curve before they can afford to miniaturize and deliver the LTE-enabling technology in smaller and more elegant form factors, with improved reliability

Brand/Reputation Factors

• Apple has trained its customers to have little patience for unreliable services or devices
• Apple customers expect superior user experiences (that’s why they pay extra for the Apple brand)
• Apple has taught its customers to expect elegance of form and function — in Apple devices, and the peripherals and accessories that are designed to work with those devices
• Apple/iPhone customers expect the same caliber of user experience from their wireless carriers that they expect of Apple
• The Mac and extended Apple brand fan community have proven to be highly vocal when angry, frustrated or disappointed
• Macs are widely used by media businesses to produce magazines, newsletters and other mass media, online or offline, so the brand fans’ voices will be amplified by the media
• Verizon doesn’t want the brand risk of large numbers of disappointed Mac and iPad users blogging and tweeting about how awful the LTE service is
• Verizon wants to deal with a manageable set of users during what is essentially an in-market pilot phase for the early LTE service

My Conclusion

Verizon plans to extend LTE service to Mac and iOS devices once Verizon is assured that the service experience and overall quality will meet what Mac and iPad owners have come to expect of their technology providers.

So, disappointed as I am, this scenario seems plausible to me from a strategic perspective, given the stakes for Verizon.

Having said that, I won’t be surprised if there’s an announcement by Apple and/or Verizon in January (at CES?) with service availability announced for H1 2011. Perhaps in Q1 we’ll see some off-brand drivers hacked together by eager techno geeks serving bleeding-edge users who can’t wait for the Verizon-branded modems for Mac users.

Oh yes, and there may be a wee bit of revenge operating here as well, payback for the long wait before the Apple-AT&T exclusivity terms expired so Apple could bring the iPhone to Verizon customers.

So, happy holidays, Mac and iPad owners. There won’t be a Verizon LTE gift card in your Christmas stocking this year…

Update: If you’re willing to use Bootcamp and Windows on your Mac (and probably jump through some other hoops), you can use Verizon 4G LTE on Macs with Intel processors, someone has tweeted to me. At least in Houston, that is.

Update #2: Here is some discussion about the Verizon iPhone offer (3G at first, not 4G) and reasons why. Source: ZDnet. My guess? A 4G Verizon model will be announced in June, for late summer availability. Based on Apple’s past patterns…

As a girl, I shivered one night in the basement where our TV had been banished, and thrilled to the Beatles’ American debut. Not all my shivers were from the cold of that unheated room… I’d fallen in love.

A landmark event in 20th century music, the 1964 Ed Sullivan Show ignited the outbreak of Beatlemania in America. Like every other girl in America, I fell in love that night. With rock ‘n’ roll, and the Beatles.

Photos © Apple & the Beatles

Today marks another landmark: the Beatles have finally agreed to distribute their music via Apple iTunes (to their relief and Apple’s). This agreement has been more than 20 years in the making (and has probably enriched multiple lawyers on 2 continents in the process).

Apple’s web site offers a loving tribute to the Beatles via streaming videos of landmark performances, gorgeous photo albums, and more. All presented with the design flair you expect of Apple.

A Long Journey to Resolution…

Anyone who has been following the Apple vs. Beatles saga knows that the two have been at loggerheads for more than 2 decades over trademark disputes to the name “Apple.” Here are logos from the 1980’s for the two marks.

If you’ve owned a vinyl Beatles album (pre-CD days), you may recall the Granny Smith apple symbol, a reference to the Beatles’ corporate entity, Apple Corps Ltd, a multi-media publishing empire. One of their main divisions was “Apple Records.”

As long as Apple Computer competed only in the computer and IT technology realm, the two giants maintained an uneasy détente. But once Apple started to market enabling technologies for music, such as the early MIDI board that connected synthesizers and musical instruments to their computers, the battle began in earnest. Since then Apple’s amazingly successful ventures into consumer electronics and music distribution — their achievements of the past decade — have dramatically upped the stakes to this conflict.

The Labors of Many…

As a former Apple employee, I had some insights into this dispute… For some of the time I worked in Apple’s marketing organization, the music marketing team reported to me.

Charged with market development, those marketers were passionate evangelists: driven to educate musicians and composers that music could be created, performed, or enjoyed with the help of Apple Macintoshes. (This was 10 years before Apple introduced the iPod.) Those were early days; so few musicians recorded or performed with Macs on stage that my team knew everyone who was doing anything.

Even so, that 2-person music marketing team spent an inordinate amount of time briefing Apple’s lawyers. (Inordinate relative to the revenues being generated.)

The legal team was locked in a seemingly endless dispute with the Beatles’ business managers over rights to the “apple” trademark. My team was frustrated by the fact that the Beatles themselves couldn’t be bothered to venture an opinion on the subject (most likely because Apple’s impact on the music business 20 years ago was so small). Year after year, Apple’s lawyers engaged with their lawyers — and the army of “suits” who sheltered the Beatles from nasty real-world issues like copyright disputes and competitive realms.

Fast-forward 20 years, iTunes has become the most dominant force in music distribution, Apple’s brand the world’s most respected (or one of the most respected), and the Beatles have finally reached agreement with Apple… Everyone wins, especially music lovers.

It’s a bittersweet moment for people who know how long this dispute has raged. But it helps me understand why Apple has devoted so much time, energy and money to the Beatles tribute that appears on their website today.

It’s been a long journey. Finally, music to our ears: the Beatles’ music can now play on our iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Clients often ask me, as a former Apple employee, for insights into Apple’s amazing success. I’ve provided some answers in prior blog posts — but Apple’s strategies are hard to emulate, because the secret sauce is in the combination of ingredients. Having said that, there’s a lot businesses can learn from their approach.

So here’s a presentation I developed for a client recently (minus the voice-over, which was confidential to the client) — some personal perspectives on key aspects of Apple’s enduring strategies.

My insights are based on almost 5 years as an Apple employee in their Silicon Valley headquarters, during a turbulent period of astounding growth — from 1 to 5 billion in annual revenues in 5 years’ time. Since then my POV has been shaped by experiences in senior roles for companies that partner with Apple. (Disclosure: 10 years ago I also consulted to Apple, but am long past the NDA period.) As friends and colleagues will tell you, I’m also a long-term brand fan.