So, will Apple survive?

Those who know me know that Apple is one of my favorite companies to talk about because it has such a fascinating story, dotted with major coups and enormous downfalls. Since school started up again, there are plenty of reasons to talk about the company and its future. On the one hand, one popular professor whose media management class I'm taking now maintains that Apple does not have a major, sustainable competitive advantage to survive long-term, that once Asian countries copy the iTunes and iPod model and improve upon it, consumers will junp ship. On the other hand, Apple is still the media's darling and made yet another splash on Tuesday, what with headlines reading "Apple will take over your living room."

In "Good to Great", Jim Collins argues that leaders of companies that were mediocre and are now great were not superstars, because they made it about the company, not themselves. This way, they ensured that the companies they ran survived even in their absence. In contrast, corporate history is littered with companies that crumbled after their larger-than-life leaders stepped aside. Case in point, Lee Iacocca and Chrysler, which has been near death every few years since Iacocca departed.

In my humble opinion, Apple does have a competitive advantage, and that's Steve Jobs. Apple is not doing anything that others haven't thought about. Creative made the first MP3 player, yet the iPod rules. Jobs is a master salesman who used design and pop-culture to revive the brand and create a sensation with the iPod, and now, he's cashing in on the perceived (or some may argue, deserved) image that Apple gets digital entertainment better than anyone. The new iTV, which will be launched early next year, is nothing revolutionary, but Apple will milk its image to convince people that it is.

So, the question of how sustainable Apple's market position is long-term, one needs to look at how sustainable Steve Jobs is. Exactly.