John Dvorak raised the question today on MarketWatch, and his point is well taken: If you apply the old adage of selling on the good news and buying on the bad, is there a company with more good news, at the moment, than Apple (DMW100)?  Probably not.  “I'm sticking with my scenario where the phone is hugely successful for a couple of quarters until the fashion goes stale,” he wrote.  “By then, the functionality will be duplicated by others and Apple will be treading water.”

But Dvorak's thinking might be flawed, giving far too little credit to Apple’s proven knack for innovation.  The iPod is, for all intents and purposes, a “simple” device.  So simple that no one seems capable of designing a worthy competitor.

Dvorak asserts, however, that “I remain skeptical that Apple (or anyone else for that matter) can jump into the deep end of the mobile-phone swimming pool without knowing how to swim.”  He’s certainly not the first to raise the issue that Apple is joining a field for which it is not an expert.  Some would counter by saying the company wasn't an expert in the MP3 hardware market either.  To counter that point: no one was.  Such is not the case for the mobile industry.

Scott Goldberg

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