Phil Leigh of “Inside Digital Media” (http://www.insidedigitalmedia.com), a market research firm specializing in the future of media, says Apple will introduce as-yet-unannounced products to address huge latent market opportunities in the digital living room and media and transactional online services.
“Since the turn of the century Apple evolved from a secondary computer company into the most potent force transforming media,” Leigh says.” It is the premier digital media innovator as evidenced by the iPod, iPhone and most recently the iPad. Basically each introduction defined a new product category or enabled an incipient one to ‘cross the chasm’ into mass market acceptance. More of the same is expected in the future, not only from products but also from transactional services.”
Most any business affected by the future of media will be directly impacted by Apple’s future innovations, he adds. Moreover, its existing product lines alone will carry the company past the $100 billion revenue threshold in less than five years, Leigh predicts. Among his predictions:
° The company’s ecosystem strategy will bifurcate, but management will not license operating system software.
° Android will not marginalize Apple like Microsoft did in the last century. The rise of digital media is rotating the industry’s successful business model back to the vertical from the horizontal.
° Apple is far more profitable than implied by conventional metrics. Moreover, it is likely to remain so.
° Content providers should cooperate with Apple because (a) the company’s innovations will transform media and (b) CATV operators will eventually abandon video producers in favor of the more profitable ISP and telephony services.