Apple

Apple’s Strategy is to Partner with Leaders (2007):

People seem to think Apple is a big, risk-taking company. That is true, but the risks they take are calculated ones. The switch from IBM PowerPC to Intel x86 chips was a big risk at the time — given the possibility of alienating Apple’s customer base. The risks to branch out their product line from the Macintosh to the iPod, iPhone, and AppleTV were big changes. But even though these were game-changers, they still fit within Apple’s core competencies. So, while Apple takes some big risks in some areas it is also conservative in others.

Apple has been fairly conservative in their partnership strategies:

* Apple teamed up with Microsoft the leader in office applications.

* Apple teamed up with Google the leader in search, maps, and video.

* Apple teamed up with Intel the biggest chip maker.

* Apple teamed up with Samsung the biggest Flash RAM manufacturer.

* Apple teamed up with AT&T the largest carrier in the U.S.

* Apple teamed up with Yahoo Mail the most popular email web application.

Is there a strategy in this? Aversion to risk. Microsoft, Google, Intel, Samsung, AT&T, and Yahoo Mail are leaders in their respective fields.

Microsoft is the big, sleeping giant. They have been leaders in office applications for several decades. Apple’s partnership with them guarantees higher adoption with the business and educational world.

Google is years ahead of Yahoo in terms of market capitalization, technology, and execution. Google is far away the leader in search, online advertising (their trading floor), maps, and video (YouTube). Their biggest innovation, however, is an amazing infrastructure that provides a barrier to entry for competitors that is almost impossible to overcome. Google’s market capitalization is $210b to Yahoo’s $31b. Google is almost 7x larger! Google is the largest online presence. In fact, Google is bigger than the rest of the Big Web combined!

Intel...