Apple Hits the Services Stage of Tech Life
Scott Moritz
Scott Moritz
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Apple's (AAPL) dive into the cloud may help obscure its eventual slowdown in gadget breakthroughs.
Last week's iCloud event helped usher in what may be a fantastic new era for Apple. Picture a future where Apple is raking in money from selling services like streaming media, storing data and connecting users via a messaging system.
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It's a good future to point to when your main business -- innovating category-killing devices -- might be losing momentum and your chief product visionary is on limited duty with no firm plans for return.
That's not to say Apple doesn't have big products coming like the iPhone 5 or the iPad 3, but with or without Steve Jobs, there could be less in the pipeline in terms of major new innovations. The iTV and the Apple nanophone may one day materialize, but repeating the iPhone's success will be a challenge.
That's why Apple's expansion into service revenue and subscription fees could be a well-timed strategy -- a move that has helped other tech shops transition from hardware to services.