Let’s deal with the underlying issue here:  The ESF article is talking about the other 99% of EMC that bought Documentum to sell disk.  EMC friends, I’m just kidding!  I can joke, right?  Since storage is not my expertise beyond some hacking around with Centera as primary content stores, I suppose EMC might really knock their customers’ socks off in the storage arena, but I doubt it.

Network disk isn’t something you see until it isn’t there, just like any good support technology.  It’s not sexy.  Apple’s products are shameless show-boaters meant to hog the spotlight.  They are meant to be seen, to be touched, and–dare I admit–even licked. Maybe that’s not a recommended way to unlock an iPhone, but what else can you do about winter, thick gloves, and a touch screen?

Would the average EMC storage user know the EMC logo on sight?  Would the average Apple user?

OK, so the EMC logo actually says “EMC” in it.  You get the point though, right?

Enderle’s article talks about quality, metrics, and customer loyalty.  All those things are important to Apple, although the often-excellent quality of Apple products is marred on a regular basis with things like incendiary power supplies and the worst product launch ever: iPhone 3G + MobileMe.  WORST!  LAUNCH!  EVER!

Only Starbucks matches Apple’s skill at selling Lifestyle. The synergy of Apple’s well-designed, well-integrated components had this caged bird singing gaily a few posts ago despite a healthy fear of monoculture coming from a science background.  That all misses the point, the one reason the whole discussion is apples and oranges:  Innovation.

Apple sets the bar for technology after technology:  operating systems, mp3 players, online music retailing, and of course smart phones.  The integration, the cool, the marketing are all icing on the cake because Apple does something better than anybody else:  They innovate, and they do it where they can define the market rather than chase it.

I don’t think Big Disk lives or dies on such radical innovation. In fact, their customers probably fear change more than most.  Change is not good for 24/7 availability.  I can hear the compliance officers, archivists, and system admins shrieking in terror at the thought of something that might as likely store their entire repositories on a postage stamp or burst into flames if looked at the wrong way.

There is a relentless integrity of concept, simplicity, and message spanning all Apple products that likely has a single source, Steve Jobs.  Such single-mindedness is what makes big, ambitious, risky, not-for-the-faint-of-heart products succeed or fail spectacularly.  Apple’s done both regularly.  It allows org-wide turn-on-a-dime changes, something that another industry titan *cough*Bill Gates*cough* executed brilliantly after completely missing the Internet as the Next Big Thing.

That conceptual integrity, that vision from the top is also why Apple clung to its single-button mouse a decade too long and why the iPod Touch and iThingThatWillNotBeNamed are missing the aesthetically unpleasing extra two or three buttons needed for touch-without-sight operation.  Because that’s how Steve Jobs sees it, end of story.

I’m sure Joe could give Steve a few helpful hints on running disk farms for MobileMe or handling eDiscovery for the next options scandal, but that’s not the point.  It’s what Jobs teaches his successor and if that successor has the Right Stuff to wield Apple as a single instrument of innovation, lest Apple repeat the recent catastrophes of their rivals to the North.

Why THIS Caged Bird Sings

I’ve upgraded Macs a few times now, and the process can’t be simpler.  The migration app may take some time to copy everything over, but the result is a one-step process where my new machine’s environment is exactly the same as my old one.  Having done more than my share of Windows migrations, there is simply no comparison.  The only pain in moving to my oh-so-beautiful unibody MacBook Pro was buying another cable (Firewire 800 to Firewire 400) because of the chronic port changes from model to model.

I also finally upgraded my Airport Extreme to a 1 terabyte Time Capsule earlier this week and had the same experience.  My dread of resetting network passwords on all my devices never materialized.  When I started the installation wizard, it asked me if I was adding the Time Capsule to my network or replacing my Airport Extreme.  After configuring some of the special features of the Time Capsule, it seemlessly replaced my Airport Extreme.  Everything network-aware continued to function without a hiccup.  It felt magical.

Of course Apple can only provide experience like this when you buy into their monoculture.  That’s generally a bad thing in my book, but it’s hard to resist a new Apple device when I know that migration/incorporation into my existing technocology will be so seamless.  For now, I’m ready for another helping of the Kool Aid. Mmm.