I think Ed’s point is quite right – if you look at Apple’s approach to the iPhone it has been so totally customer centric in its design (though appalling in the contract customers sign up to – a very big customer negative). By the way anyone remember 2007 when it looked like the iPhone might tank? The iPhone was in crisis in those early days. What really worked for the iPhone initially was the endorsement of key Valley figures (Arrington and Om Malik in particular). When Arrington and Malik started to declare for Android, Android’s ecosystem began perking up!

Let’s not rule out then that there are swarm factors at work here. Apple had some powerful messengers onside.

We should be aware that the web is liable to create swarms in unpredictable ways – what Apple has done is give this kind of randomness a great chance of happening but nonetheless chance played a large role as it does in all ecosystems (I am sure people will begin analyzing the complexity theory aspect of this again soon

Apple has also done a great job of positioning itself as the change agent – and that is part of its lifestyle appeal (which I think Naumi has got right with this proviso – it is not just a cool product, it is a lifestyle statement). Apple v IBM, Apple v Microsoft, Apple v Nokia. We are all rebels, just like Mick Jagger.

Finally I don’t believe all of Nokia’s strategy is related to the iPhone (it has been very slow into tablets for example). Nokia set its strategy in the context of a global industry with unprecedented economies sf scale (there are soon to be 1.1 billion mobile subscribers in India alone – which means a lot of handsets). In this context Apple is a sideshow – though one that takes some of the gloss of Nokia.

I raise this question – is Nokia in self-destruct mode with its platform strategy? By driving device prices down to cost and relying on service revenues via plays like Ovi doesn’t it open itself up to competition from Apple when it really doesn’t have to, and potentially open itself up to competition from many other sources. In the European economy Nokia retains goodwill for now but do we want to be dependent on it for our mobile content and apps? I can’t see that Nokia has that kind of prestige.

I think you forget one major item for the 21st Century business model. They way to the company is through the consumer, not through IT. I know that this will scare many CIO’s, but the real truth here is that Apple does an extremely poor job selling to IT organizations, but a fantastic job selling to the Consumer. The demand of these “business” platforms is pushed into IT and not pushed from IT.

Many companies are slow to adopt technologies that enable the right collaboration because the baby boomer generation did not like failure of technologies at any point. The next work generation is much more fluid, if it does not work, they change the tool. IT organizatoins need to get used to that aspect.