Vertical integration is how you win the upper edges of the market, Apple’s goal was never to have 90% market share, it was simply to make the best product and have (affluent) customers buy it. They know that the bottom 50% of the market is low-profit and low-CSAT products so they don’t touch it. To go a step further, Microsoft only really found any success in Windows Phone when they vertically integrated their involvement with WP. I agree that if you are chasing market share you should be licensing software, but if you want profits you should be chasing product. When compared, the Microsoft Model ends up being exemplified by the underperforming licensees. It makes holes for companies like Apple or Palm to make their own product that owns the story of the market. We are in a little different of a world than the 90s now. Android’s on most phones out there...but those manufacturers are looking at everything Apple does and following suit.
True, but as a vertically integrated company you only need to slip once badly and the piranhas eat you up. Everyone else, collectively, can make way more mistakes and still come out on top, long term. Apple has learned from past mistakes, though.
