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The Guardian ran a provocative article on Wednesday, from an ex-Apple employee, stating that it's all down hill for Apple from now on. Here on Forbes, I highlighted a number of reader comments that suggested something similar. What to make of it?
Dan Crow in The Guardian nails Apple's executives for too much hype and a closed ecosystem, a feature that readers here agree is a potential liability. But Apple has also pioneered new enterprises structures, and it is this feature that I think we should focus on.
In The Elastic Enterprise, Nick Vitalari and I use Apple as one example of an enterprise structure that permits growth at low relative cost. We suggested that Apple had found a new way to scale its business, free of the old constraints of scale that have built up from the days of Adam Smith.
With our exploration of the elastic enterprise we also suggested that these companies could circumvent the sclerosis that normally affects large enterprises. That makes it a vitally important innovation in enterprise structure, because sclerosis is what saps the might of former greats like GM.
With this new wealth-creation model in mind, peak Apple suggests also a natural peak in how companies can scale. Is it true? Its relevance is not whether you are an Apple fan or not but whether we see in Apple a different and durable way to scale an enterprise.
Go back six months and many commentators were convinced Apple had a lot of upside left and indeed would prove the value of this new model.
The model that Nick and I sketched out said that service platforms (often allied to physical product) and external ecosystems, were vastly different from enterprises that tried to collate all their resources internally.
This structural change is what makes the difference in the type of growth that becomes possible. Couple it to universal connectors (an ability to connect other enterprises to the core company electronically and without the need for individually negotiated contracts) and you have new conditions for scaling wealth creation.
What we also said though was that these new enterprises needed to be managed differently.
The internal management of an elastic enterprise might resemble old enterprise practices but its management of its external environment had to change dramatically.
Once a company begins to rely on external resources, like developer communities, content providers, creatives, then senior management needs to behave in a more peer-like fashion, and needs to demonstrate wisdom that can stand the test of peer critique.
In Steve Jobs Apple had a manager who could do this across his creative communities - razor sharp developers and inventive content people, alike. My feeling is Tim Cook cannot do either well. Reader Dan Pallotta suggests that Phil Schiller is filling this role, but if that is the case I don't see Phil's profile outside of the developer world.
Cook has now elevated Jony Ive as the creative face of Apple. Is this enough to rebuild a bridge to the content ecosystem? Ive is not a communicator. He has appeal but needs quickly to build his identity and peer relationships with the creators of all types of content, not just designers.
Set against these moves, Steve Jobs' unique position was he that lived the liberal arts-technology convergence point and was a respected peer for people on both pathways. Cook's delegation of this peer-relationship building would have us worried. This new type of leadership is critical to success and, essentially, at Apple the new leader can't hack it and has delegated to people who do not have the public profile. That's a bad recipe for relationship building. It seems to ignore the basic principle of what we called sapient leadership - that the top guy is a peer who commands the respect and attention of all the independent business people who depend on the core.
Unlike The Guardian I don't believe that Apple lacks upside but that its management, post-Jobs, is less well equipped for the era of elastic enterprises. I don't think that means we are have reached peak Apple. More that Apple needs to go back to the drawing board and learn the lessons of the elastic enterprise. Perhaps even Apple does not realize what the enterprise of the 21st century is capable of.
Follow me on Twitter @haydn1701
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