It's nice to be right

Back in February this year, and earlier in September 2011, I wrote a couple of blog articles titled "Are you selling technology or services?" These posts put forward my opinion that Apple's strategy of tightly integrating its hardware and software had a vital third component; namely the services that people used on their iDevices. I wrote that Amazon seemed to be adopting this approach with the launch of its Kindle Fire. The Software Engineering Services Blog posted last week a piece called "Suddenly everyone wants to follow Apple's integrated hardware-software model," which describes how Google,  Samsung and Microsoft are now also trying to follow Apple's lead  by offering a complete ecosystem of hardware, software and services. The blog post concludes by saying "Steve Jobs may be long gone, but his vision lives on and everyone suddenly wants a piece of it, but just because they each recognize the magic behind Apple's strategy doesn't mean each can successfully copy it or that the market will follow. And that is the real challenge these companies face." It's nice to make a prediction that comes true.